One Year After the Mumbai Attacks, How is India Dealing with this New Type of Threat?
December 6th, 2009
As we recently passed the one year anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, it is interesting to look at how things have evolved both on the international scene and on the ground locally.
On November 26, 2008, 15-20 individuals, carrying automatic machine guns and arriving by boat killed 173 people and injured over 300 as they attacked two hotels, a restaurant, a train station, a Jewish cultural center and a hospital.
Early investigation has shown that the attack was planned and executed out of Pakistan, complicating an already tense relationship between the two neighboring countries. Since then, Islamabad has pledged to hold their own investigation and help catch anyone who had their hand in the attack. However, on November 23rd, during a visit in Washington, Indian Prime minister Manmohan Singh accused Pakistan of dragging its feet regarding the investigation. Meanwhile, Italy recently arrested two suspects and the United States arrested David Headley, an American of Pakistani decent who is also suspected to have been involved in the attacks.
Locally, the Indian police have also been revamping their operations to better address terrorist threats. The Quick Response Team (QRT), a unit that was created to deal with such situations, proved completely ineffective during the attacks. They were ill-equipped, out-gunned, and had poor leadership. A more complex issue for the Indian police to resolve is its internal divisions. These were once religion based but recently there has been rivalry between different ethnic groups. This has significantly hampered the progress of the investigation as competition has replaced cooperation between the different factions that make up the Indian police.
On the bright side, there have been some concrete steps in the right direction. The Indian police have been modernizing and reorganizing themselves to better address these threats. Teams of six very well trained and equipped men are now posted in every other police station in Mumbai, on call, 24 hours a day. An order of nineteen amphibian vehicles was also placed with Canada. In August 2009, new weapons arrived including Smith and Wesson handguns, Heckler & Koch machine guns, and Colt grenade launchers.
India is yet another country that, faced with this new kind of threat, has had to adapt the way it looks at, and deals with internal security. Welcome to the 21st century!
-Michael Harroch
Entry Filed under: 2010 Student Blogs, India, Mumbai
6 Comments Add your own
1. Erika Bylund | December 7th, 2009 at 1:15 am
A few days ago I watched a special on TV hosted by Fareed Zakaria (author of The Post American World) about this very occurrence. One of the remarks he made went beyond the logistics of dealing with terrorism. He stated that as long as people continue to live out their daily lives and activities as though the terrorism never occurred, we are effectively thwarting terrorist efforts. Zakaria’s observation strikes to the heart of the matter- the motives of terrorists. The primary objective of terrorists is not to inflict death, but rather to cause mayhem and incite fear with the objective to control their victims. Zakaria is not promoting that we turn our backs to terrorism and pretend that it doesn’t happen. He is proposing that we continue with the course of our lives despite terrorism, without acknowledging fear, thereby effectively negating it. How simple and encouraging.
The TV special also highlighted the fact that terrorism simply appears to be more rampant in current times than in the past due to the speed at which events can be communicated and broadcast nowadays. A general statistic I remember from the show indicated that acts of terrorism have actually subsided since the mid-20th century. This is an interesting fact to consider in a time when media is prone to over-sensationalizing the latest news.
2. Ash | December 8th, 2009 at 2:07 am
I don’t know if you follow the blog 2point6billion but they carried a lot of stuff on it at the time and run a lot of India issues along with their India Briefing site. They also hosted a documentary on the attacks here: http://www.2point6billion.com/news/2009/07/30/disturbing-documentary-tells-story-of-mumbai-attacks-1642.html
3. Jay Ponto | December 10th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
That is excellent that India is taking additional steps to fix their handling of terrorism after the Mumbai attacks, but do you think their current six-man teams in Mumbai alone will be enough? Is the government taking similar measures in other parts of the country?
I googled this subject and (via Wikipedia) found a lot of terrorist attacks have occurred in India in the recent passed; far more than I was aware of. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terrorism) Unfortunately, with many terrorists being Muslim, these attacks don’t help Pakistan’s relationship with India if Pakistan is even remotely involved. Indian support for the the War on Terrorism has been relatively stable. For a country having so much tension with its Islamic neighbor, Pakistan, it is easy to see why India should have very serious measures for handling any potential terrorist threats.
4. Chris Phippen | December 11th, 2009 at 9:50 am
First, I’d like to echo Erika’s connection between the Mumbai attacks and Fareed Zakaria’s statements about fear in his book. He basically asks, ‘What is the goal of a terrorist?’ The obvious answer is terror. But to be terrorized, we as humans must allow ourselves to be. If we do not allow it then the terrorists have failed.
In Mumbai, it seems as though they are dealing with the attacks appropriately, obviously they mourn, but they are not terrorized or dismantled. Further, they are taking appropiate steps by improving their Quick Response Team and outfitting them appropriately.
5. Michael Harroch | December 11th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Jay,
It is true that given its position, India needs to be on its guards both in regards to Pakistan and Islamic terrorists. The Pakistan-Indian relationship has always been extremely tense. However, what is interesting is how the situation is evolving from a twentieth-century conflict to a twenty-first century one. Namely, for the past thirty years the focus has been on how many nuclear war-heads each country possesses and how to avoid a nuclear war. The Mumbai attacks had a similar effect on India that 9/11 had on the US; as the prospects of nuclear war are declining, it shifted the country’s attention to a new form of threat. Even if terrorism was present prior the Mumbai attacks, they have caught India’s attention and thus made terrorism a much more effective weapon.
6. Frederick Peemoeller | March 11th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Just days after the attacks in Mumbai, Mumbai was seen returning back to its normal way of life. The attack was brutal and it shocked the country, but the people’s resilience showed that terror will not run their lives. I think it is only a matter of time before successful QRT’s are formed and adequate. The country is emerging as a world power, and it is starting to develop the infrastructure to fund such groups to minimize terrorism and it just needs the time to see results. With the help of its western allies, I think their ability to suppress any terrorist threats in the near future will increase dramatically.
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