Bombs over Bombay

(Note this was written some time ago, during the terrorist attacks... excuse the nonexistant backdate)

I woke up this morning to hear (only after being called from the US) that a spate of bombings and hostage situations have descended on Mumbai, that a Mujahedeen group has decided to pull a series of attacks more alike to the recent bombings in Islamabad - bombing popular western/tourist/expensive institutions with precise large blasts - rather than the less targeted sprinkling of attacks which have occurred in other cities, taking place in crowded markets and main roads but disseminated throughout the area with a just as violent but definitely less focused targets. There are a number of strange aspects of the story so far, particularly in the reactions from the Amerikan media, the Indian media, Kolkata itself as one of the four metros, and... myself. Firstly, while this entire year has seen a tremendous and concerning up tick in the rate of bombings, this is the first story to make the top of the New York Times website, to ascend beyond style columns about dog sweaters and bok choy. Thusly, everyone in the Amerika is reading this event as a single catastrophe that signals a great terrorist takeover of India. This is simply not true. The Indian media has had a much more accurate reading, in my opinion. This event was frightening and meaningful in its degree and exact nature, targets, etc, but more concerning is how it exemplified the lack of training of the police force and the complete failure of their response. While events have been taking place continuously this year, and the lack of proper police action was slowly revealed, it took a drawn out hostage situation to reveal how misguided their efforts and strategy really were.

However, sitting on the opposite end of the country in a state with such an amazingly different socio-political situation, I feel bizarrely unaffected by these events. While everyone reads up on the news in the paper, and 'chi chi's in disgust over both the actions of the terrorists and the poor reactions of the police, people here seem fairly confident Kolkata won't be hit by an attack anytime soon. Yes, the bombs have been going off seemingly everywhere, and Kolkata as one of the metros is a perfect target, but for a variety of reasons and theories Kolkata is not seen as a target by the general public and (they hope) the terrorists themselves. Firstly, Kolkata is just so far east it feels rather aloof and separated from the more entwined Bombay/Delhi Metropolitan swath, and thusly farther away from their politics and issues, and those affixed to them as urban symbols of the larger India. Secondly, a theory held by one of my teachers is that too many Muslim militant groups and jihadists have large Indian centers and communities living in Kolkata, relatively unbothered by the police. If they were to attack so close to their own soil, a police raid is much more likely to occur and also to be be successful. It pays to keep your own lawn rather well-kept and unpocked by bombs I suppose. My most favored theory is that the political scene here is simply too distracted by its own super-local concerns that the greater national dynamic of Hindu/Muslim relations is drowned out to the point of being mute. While much of the rest of the country is being spurred on by the Hindu fundamentalism of the BJP political party as a rising alternative to the secularism of the Congress party, the BJP/Congress presence in West Bengal is almost insignificant. Rather, an intense competition between the 30 years incumbent CPI(M) Communist party and the (literally) grass-roots Trinimul party over highly local and almost entirely areligious issues primarily dealing with the increase of local industry, the decrease of farmland, and (occasionally) scheduled tribe status, dominates the political scene. Safety through a particular kind of chaos and destabilization. Neat!