Adil Najam
I, too, am a Mumbaikar today.
I wish I could reach out and for just one moment hold the hands of the woman in this AP photograph. Maybe shed some tears on her shoulder. But I do not know what I would say to her. I do not think she would want me to say much. The expression on her face matches the feeling I have at the pit of my stomach and in the depth of my heart. I think – I hope – that she would understand how I feel. I can only imagine what she is going through.
And so, in prayer and in solidarity, I stand today with Mumbaikars everywhere. In shock at what has happened. In fear of what might happen yet. In anger at those who would be so calculated in their inhuman massacre. In sympathy with those whose pain so hurts my own heart but whose tears I cannot touch, whose wounds I cannot heal, and whose grief I cannot relieve.
The solidarity I feel with Mumbaikars is deep and personal.
The first time I ever visited the Taj Mahal Hotel was with my wife. We had been married just weeks and were not staying at the Taj but went to the historic “Sea Lounge” at the hotel for tea and snacks during a short visit to Mumbai. We went to the Oberoi Hotel the same visit in the naive and mistaken belief that we would find Bollywood bigwigs hanging out there. In later years I would come back and stay at the old wing of the Taj – down the corridor from where Ruttie Bai Jinnah and stayed – I would even present in the grand ballroom whose pillars, supposedly, had been brought from her father’s estate. Each time I passed through Victoria Terminus I stood in awe of the pace as well as its presence. In awe of the architectural structure, but also of the sea of humanity around me. I cannot hear of terrorists attacking these places without my own muscles twitching in anger.
But my feeling of solidarity with Mumbaikars is much much more personal than these few fleeting visits over many years. Deeply etched into me are the horrific echoes of 9/11 in New York and the string of terrorist attacks on Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar and all over Pakistan whose reports have become all too familiar – but never bearable – on this blog. I know what living with terror feels like. I have thought too much and too deeply about what it feels like to be the target of violence propelled by hatred. I know the pain of helplessness one feels as one stands stunned in grief, wanting so desperately to do something – anything – but not knowing what to do. This is why I identify with the expression on the face of the woman in this picture. This is why, like so many others in the world, today I too am a Mumbaikar.
This is why I stand with Mumbaikars everywhere, in prayer and in solidarity. At a loss for words but with an urge to speak out. My words of condemnation will not change the actions of those who have committed such heinous murder and mayhem. Nor will my words of sympathy diminish the agony of the victims. But speak out I must. In condemnation as well as in sympathy. To speak against the inhumanity of hatred and violence. To speak for the humanity in all of us that we all must hold on to; especially in the testing moments of grave stress.
But, today, I have no words of analysis. What words can make sense of the patently senseless? I do not know who did this. Nor can I imagine any cause that would justify this. But this I know: No matter who did this, no matter why, the terror that has been wrought in Mumbai is vile and inhuman and unjustifiable. And, for the sake of our own humanness, we must speak out against it.
And, so, to any Mumbaikar who might be listening, I say: “I stand with you today. In prayer and in solidarity.”
Adil,
I share your grief.
I have done some analysis of the situation while the focal point remains the blame game started in the aftermath of this unfortunate incident.
Please allow me to share my thoughts with you and your readers. Here is the URL to my commentary of this incident:
http://bkhan.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/mumbai-terro r-shining-india-vs-rogue-pakistan/
While I appreciate the sincere tone in Adil’s article, I don’t really know if his thoughts are representative of Pakistani opinion. Here is a really provocative set of folks on mainstream television in Pakistan.
http://www.hotklix.com/?ref=content/152704
There are the typical proforma statements of sympathy with the victims, but simultaneously there is tacit support for terrorism amongst the Pakistani news media and Government officials. There is no acknowledgement of the well-known fact that these terrorist tanzeems were created, funded and supported by the Pakistani Government.
The current Govt. of Pakistan may not have ordered these attacks, but it continues to tolerate the presence of anti-India terrorists and their organizations. To paraphrase a panelist on an NPR radio show I heard today, if you breed a pitbull with the intention of hurting others, train it to attack people, even create a breach in your fence to allow it to get out and then when it does attack your neighbor, your defence that you did not order the pit bull to attack the neighbor will not be accepted by any court.
Any taxi-driver in Karachi will lead you to the house that Dawood Ibrahim built there. Pakistani magazines themselves have written about his presence in the city. Any Lahori knows where Muridke is and where terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba are trained even today. Nobody is unaware of the fact that Maulana Masood Azhar operates with impunity in Pakistan – this was a person who was released from prison in exchange for hostages of the Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar. He openly held rallies in Karachi where his supporters help up Kalashnikovs and promised to rain terror on India and Indians. These organizations have an avowed aim of planting the Pakistani flag on the Red Fort in Delhi and converting India into an Islamic caliphate. They did not even shy away from claiming credit for terrorist attacks until 2002, when it became inconvenient for the Pakistani Govt.
I don’t believe that Pakistanis are unaware that these terrorists are nurtured and continue to be nurtured by the Government of Pakistan. Yet, it gets to me that people here continue to lie and deny these well-known facts. It bothers me that people continue to see benefits in a “run with the hare and hunt with the hounds” approach perfected by the Pakistani army. They are blind to the fact that such an approach has brought Pakistan to the edge of the precipice and poses an existential threat to their own country.
We in India have several of our own issues to fix. While this is not the place or time to discuss it, these issues are acknowledged both officially and by civil society and there are enough people talking about it and forcing the authorities to take action, howsoever belated and inadequate it might be. We have our extremist fringe, but it is a fringe nevertheless. It appears to me that the center of Pakistan’s civil society is at about the same level as our extremist fringe. Correct me if I am wrong.
Adil: I was very sad at this immense loss of life in Mumbai but I am totally heartbroken by this politics of hate and blame. When will this end? You seem to be the sole voice of reason in world around me today ( can’t speak for others). I am proud to be associated with Pakistaniat. You made me proud!
Regards
I condemn this attack in Mumbai.
However when Indian govt claims that they found ID cards, letters to Pakistan or “playbooks” on dead terrorist bodies, that is called manufactured evidence.
We are with Mumbai..