The recent siege brought terrorism to the doorstep of India's affluent and struck at the symbols of their prosperity. India's expanding elite, which has felt somewhat insulated from the heat, traffic, sporadic electricity outages and overall commotion in this fast-paced city, suddenly felt vulnerable. Full Story »
Posted by Kaizar Campwala
Clear and articulate look at the very different responses to terrorist acts based on the status of the targets and the victims. An excellent frame of reference for the broader socio-economic issues that may well contribute to the motivation for terrorists in the first place. Must-read for anyone unfamiliar with the history of India, Kashmir, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Mumbai, with more than 14 million people, is India’s most populous city and has often suffered tragedy. In 2005, monsoon flooding killed more than 400 people in the city in one day, and the main victims were the poor. One Indian media study found that a fashion event got more local coverage than the flooding, which affected many slum dwellers. Mumbai is home to Asia’s largest slums.
What are the root causes of terrorism? Each act may depend on the mind set of the individual terrorist, but here are a few factors: crushing poverty; unemployment; hopelessness; ideology opposite to the prevailing norm; and a sense that a quick-but-glorious death is better than the life you see in your future.
Although India’s economy is booming, poverty runs deep. Nearly half of all Indian children are clinically malnourished or underweight, on par with the rate in Bangladesh and worse than in Ethiopia, according to UNICEF. Even as the economy has grown by up to 8 percent, child malnutrition has declined only one percentage point, to 46 percent, in seven years, according to a 2007 National Family Health Survey, part of a government report.
Mumbai—a city of 14 million people—is a financial and style center, and home to Bollywood. Mumbai also has the largest slums in Asia, where approximately 60%—that’s 8.4 million—people live without money, food, clean water , sanitation, electricity or privacy.
India’s rigid caste system, a centuries-old social order under which status is inherited at birth, has long affected societal attitudes, Agarwal said. Lower castes, along with Muslims and other tribal groups, make up nearly 70 percent of India’s 1.1 billion people.
To poverty and overcrowding, add half a century of political struggle, economic exploitation, religious discrimination, human trafficking, environmental degradation, and foreign profiteering, and you have the makings of a very large market for potential terrorists
The recent siege brought terrorism to the doorstep of India’s affluent and struck at the symbols of their prosperity. India’s expanding elite, which has felt somewhat insulated from the heat, traffic, sporadic electricity outages and overall commotion in this fast-paced city, suddenly felt vulnerable. After the recent attacks, the elite feel “there is no safe haven. There is no place to run and hide,” said Uday Shankar, chief executive of Star India, which runs a string of entertainment and news television channels. “They cannot go behind the Taj hotel’s double doors and feel shielded from the chaos and insecurity outside. That shield has been shattered. The terrorists struck South Mumbai, the most desirable address in India.”
Perhaps outrage is greater when the perceived threat is closer—or hits a richer target. India deserves no exclusive rebuke for reacting more strongly to terrorist acts affecting the wealthy. It is fitting to compare US reactions after 9/11 with our response to the Oklahoma City bombing. The scale was different, and both received substantial media attention, but there was no national move to compensate the families of victims in Oklahoma at the same level as those of the 9/11 attacks.
“There was no such protest or activities for us. Now everyone is feeling vulnerable, not just us, the common people,” said Madhuri Jayprakash Sawant, 49, whose 29-year-old son is in a coma from brain damage suffered in the 2006 train attacks. “The first-class people are the ones now running the national outrage. But the common man is usually the one who suffers, alone.”
While dozens of TV cameras were focused on the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and the Oberoi Trident hotels, some of the victims elsewhere in the city said few media outlets came to see them. “They only care about Taj,” said Irshad Khan, 26, one of the managers at the bullet-marked Re-Fresh restaurant inside Mumbai’s main railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, where gunmen mowed down as many as 48 people during the siege. “We are just common people, not worth their mind.”
This moving story gives a glimpse at the economic dichotomy between rich and poor in India. As the gap widens, the poor and middle classes become even more expendable. Kill off 200 -- 300 poor folk at an overcrowded train station, and who cares? Knock off a couple hundred guests at the priciest hotels in town and the whole developed world is outraged. Perhaps this attitude is somewhat understandable--if not acceptable--in a nation approximately 1/3 the size of the USA, with a population of 1,147,995,904 souls (more or less, as of July 2008, according to the CIA World Factbook). But that would be a superficial interpretation of the bigger issues behind this story.