Last Year's Truths: What We Got Wrong in the Aftermath of the Mumbai Attacks

One thing I heard frequently from my American friends in San Francisco as the attacks on Mumbai unfolded was the hope that India would not react to them the way the U.S. did to 9/11. I understood the decency of that sentiment, and agreed with it. Over the next few weeks, that sentiment also seemed to echo in some of the commentary on the attacks. As I mentioned in my earlier post, much of the South Asian opinion in the American media forcefully lined up against what sounded like drum-beating to war in India. We heard numerous commentators in the United States and in South Asia expressing their concern about the possible backlash in India now against Muslims, the possible exploitation of the anger by the Hindutva Right, the calls for India's own "war on terror" and for strengthening Indian versions of the Patriot Act, and the ubiquitous nationalistic melodrama in the Indian media.

We are now in a new year and since the worst has not happened, I wonder whether it means our commentators were immensely persuasive, or simply that they were somewhat mistaken in their estimate of how India would react. I would hope it's the former, but I think we ought to still examine the possibility of the latter. I believe that there was one flawed assumption in how some of us who share certain liberal sensibilities reacted to the Mumbai attacks: we were quick to spot the similarities between some Indian and American reactions to 26/11 and 9/11 respectively, especially from the Right, but we failed to see the differences. Our reaction, in other words, seemed to reproduce, in a South Asian veneer, pretty much what our concerns were in and about the United States after 9/11 without regard to context and to reality. But India is not America. I agree with that much. Beyond that, we have to recognize the differences, and the need for something better than a one-size-fits-all liberal critique. After all, Manmohan Singh is not George Bush. Chidambaram shares little more than an alliteration with Cheney. Star News is not Fox News (it tries though, sometimes). But most importantly, unlike the WMDs in Iraq, the sources of terrorism against India are quite real.

Yet our focus remained steadfastly on how India might react, even at the expense of a more truthful understanding of the situation at hand. As we have seen, one month later, India has done little to resemble what the United States did in those fearful days after 9/11. This is not entirely out of nobility, as I am sure there are many people in India who wish India would do something by way of punishment, if not outright large-scale retribution. The reality though was that India was either "seeth(ing) with impotent rage" as Shashi Tharoor wrote, or perhaps just choosing to act with considered restraint. In any case, the consensus at the time seemed to be that we blame India for what it had done in the past (to some of its own citizens and not those of another nation, if we may add, by way of context and not excuse) to somehow make it possibly deserve this tragedy, and on top of it, to blame it for what it might do now.

I have heard the saying that truth is the first casualty during a war, but in this case, it went down before one even started. What is even more tragic is that it went down even in the words of some who have stood up for truth steadfastly in our times.

In his astute study, The Mahabharatha: An Inquiry in the Human Condition, Chaturvedi Badrinath writes:

"What is truth only formally in speech is not necessarily truth; one should discriminate between truth and untruth with regard to their effect."

On that note, I wonder which way Arundhati Roy's essay would go if we considered it more carefully. She starts by criticizing those in India who were calling the attacks "India's 9/11" and tells us we should be thinking for ourselves. Then, she launches into an eloquent condemnation of those who have committed violence in the name of religion and nation, Hindu and Muslim, Indian and Pakistani, and of course, goes on to the hand of the American empire beyond them all. All of these are true. One hopes that some of those people in India who were calling it India's 9/11 and demanding their own war on terror were deterred, or at least realized that there is "terror" on their own hands too. Presumably they were among the thousands of people who read her words around the world. But there are more implications here than the mere truth of the facts mentioned. There is also an effect to the fact that she devotes a little over one hundred words to a description of the LeT and nearly four times as many to a description of the RSS; this, after a horrendous attack linked not to the RSS, but to the LeT. There is also an effect when she mentions that Hindus and Muslims, Indians all, were arrested in the wake of the recent lethal bombings in numerous Indian cities, and does not mention in exactly how many of these numerous cases Hindu militants were arrested. I do not say this because I consider the crimes of militant Hindus any less reprehensible than those of militant Muslims, but because in our enthusiasm for equitable condemnation we ought not to lean too far away into the realm of another sort of propaganda either. That sort of propaganda does exist, and those of us who believe in social justice, peace, or non-violence should be careful not to be co-opted by it.

In the age of global media, responses to terror staged as global spectacles ought to be considered carefully. I fully support the discussion of history, grievances, and the recognition of poverty and marginalization as important social causes for militancy. I would have even supported some poetic liberties in turning to such admonitions to some extent if this were a debate taking place within India. But when this debate is taking place in a global context, a context in which the facts about India and Pakistan have already been convoluted by decades of colonial and then cold-war misperceptions, especially in the United States (I highly recommend Andrew Rotter's Comrades at Odds on this subject), one cannot assume that the effect of words are the same everywhere. We have to consider whether our rush to criticize domestic issues in India in the wake of its worst ever terrorist attack by a foreign force is really helping the cause of fighting these domestic concerns or merely contributing to global misinformation about the realities.

Whether those of us who live in terror-hit countries like it or not, global opinion, and American opinion in particular, matters. It may not be our only hope, but it is an important hope that decent and intelligent people here can have some bearing on their omnipresent (if not omnipotent) government's actions. Since Obama was voted in with a mandate to fix not just America but also America's image abroad, it may be useful for his government to reflect on some of the opinion emerging from America's "natural ally." K. Subrahmanyam, the eminent Indian strategic expert and by no means a foe of US-India ties, recently commented that the American establishment does not have the "mental equipment" to help India. I suppose that is the sort of bluntness that comes out when one is faced with the sort of brutality that took place in Mumbai, and the sort of prevarication that followed. (Also read his more recent article in the Times of India entitled "Wake up Washington").

One need not be a supporter of war on Pakistan, or the Clash of Civilizations thesis, to understand that assuring India's security against international terrorism is not just an elite concern manipulated by the Hindu Right as some commentary has implied. I think that we could have done a lot better than equate India with its lunatic militant fringe in our rush to replicate our post 9/11 American resistance in South Asia. The people of India did not rise in irrational retribution after Mumbai, just as they didn't after each of the terrible bombings of the past few years. Its institutions have behaved responsibly. I only wish those of us who are committed to ensuring such good thinking in angry times could do a little more thinking ourselves on the realities of our situation. I am all for advocating understanding and restraint. But from whatever I have read and understood of Mahatma Gandhi, non-violence is not merely about turning the proverbial other cheek. The first thing non-violence takes is Truth. I hope we will see more of it in 2009.

Comments

[mrct]

Fascinating post. If one can get by the frequent and gratuitous America bashing (the price of admission or presentation of credentials apparently) and the "I'm getting paid by the word" writing, what's left is both hilarious and moving. Hilarious in the exquisitely tortured way he gets to his point (about the perversity of the Hard Left in the face of Islamic terror) and moving in that here is a man clearly struggling with his core beliefs as he sees them "mugged by reality". I have made the same transition myself - it's an interesting, challenging and rewarding path. Mumbai, Gaza, Durban, forced Sharia in Pakistan,etc., etc. - daily we are called to either declare jihad the enemy of civilization OR be its apologist. We welcome one more on the "dark side".
KS

[chivasman]

Arundhati Roy and others who site and compare widespread Jihadi terrorism with rare Hindu reaction, and global Islamic movements with Hidutva supporters, are being intentionaly dishonest. They are smart enough to tell half the truth, distort, and deceive through their clever writings.

Ms Roy should move to Pakistan, or any Muslim country, as a Hindu and experience life as a minority. Discrimination, and lack of economic progress, even if it is true and widespread, are no excuses for killing innocent people. So any terrorism by Indian Muslims should not be justified.