Me Mumbaikar’s Blog

The aftermath of Mumbai 26/11 makes me beleive that a handful of terrorists can havoc in the peaceful country, and we as ordinary citizens and media people put together makes it sucessful. This makes the “Saint out of a sinner”, for fundamendalists, these terrorists becomes God.

Lets review the post Mumbai 26/11 impact on our political front, we have our Home Minister steps down, our finance minister moves to Home Ministry and our Prime Minister will handle his normal job as well as the finance minstry. At this stage of global recession where we need finace minster in full swing, we have a part time finance minister, and Home Minister who has little expertise in handling Home Land Security portfolio before…this is at the national level. At state level we have our Deputy CM stepping down, our CM has put the papers, and waiting for the feedback from the high command.

Every body is waitng to captilze on the aftermath, this gives them a better platform to start a blame game. This is not limited to our politicans, even companies like LIC, on 30th of Nov LIC has circulated a sms message saying that they have cleared the LIC claim of Hemant Karkare with in 24 hours of the event, what are they trying to do? Hard-Sell that , they are prompt in processing the claim?

The business for tour operators were slow due to the global meltdown and added that the attack will impact tourist inflows to the city, both from within and outside the country. The tourism trade would take a huge hit as the season had just begun, this will also directly impact the currency liquidity in the market as well as the small time traders in mumbai who’s main business are with the tourist.

Wall Street Journal Quotes ….”The deadly attacks in Mumbai, in addition to the human toll, have damaged the city’s ambitions of becoming an international finance capital. The Taj Mahal hotel and the Oberoi Trident Hotel, luxury hotels that were both targeted, are among the most coveted retail address for luxury-goods firms that are tapping into India’s growing number of wealthy individuals.”

I am having a fear of going out to dine with my family or friends , I am having the fear that some one will barge in and start firing, haven’t the terrorists being successful in impacting my thought process about security at my town.  During the initial phase of the attacks the number of terrorists were more than 20, now they are accounting only for 10, so whats the truth, do we still have some terrorists roaming in our neighborhood? Am I panicked? or Am I panicked by the media by providing me with the unwarranted news?

Our Insane Media adds fuel…

If these are not enough, our media is making statements like “We should rage war on the neighbors” , these kind of statements make our investors / foreign investors to think twice before they invest in the business process. And our media is keep on forgetting that there are lot of people in Fortune 1000 companies who are watching India closely, as some of their business process are outsourced here either as BPO / ITES or in terms of Software development / support. These kind of statements can have a big impact to these industries.

If I am a Fortune 1000 Company outsourcing my work to India here is my first thought…What would happen to my operations if a full-scale war broke out between Pakistan and India ? The answer is , I will suffer a catastrophic loss of their operations. These kind of events can bring down the day to day oursourcing operations to stand-still and who will be responsible for this? We dont have a definite answer for this and we will never have it…since for us these kind of teror operations become a day to day event, Oh there was a blast in Kurla last week, but everything is normal today…and the media will what ever possible to blame the politicians and the authorities , not because they are concerned about the people, but, they will get more TRPs ….before the analysis and the report come in we will start the blame game, and the funny thing is they wont even apologize the people whom they have defamed out of mistake…what we are forgetting in the middle of this is, these statements and blame games has direct impact on our small time business man, export business etc., as everybody is watching us through the media….if you give out the wrong information without being official, the people are going to get scared.

At no point any of the Indian officals has said, they are going to attack Pakistan, but the media has started their own view point by saying that we will attack Pakistan, this has created so much panic that Rice has to fly down to India immediately so that the tensions between India and Pakistan has reduced and no war will started…

Can some one leash the media whos unleased and spreading rumors?

When ever a big attack like this is about to happen, the IB (Intelligence Bureau) will have some information about the attack, which is shared with the local authorities, so that they can improve the security measures. Even in this case Mumbai 26/11 Attacks, IB has passed some information to the authorities, here is the jist.

Mar 18 2007 : IB Conveys warning to the state indicating that the monument and its surroundings were considered as high-value target by the jehandis. New security measures were jolted by IB and forwarded to the concern departments.

Sep 18 2008 : Satellite phone conversation incercepted by IB reveals Lashkar is planning to attack a 5-star hotel in Mumbai from sea, this time the warnings were not specific to a particular site.

Sep 20 2008 : Marriot hotel in Pakistan is attacked by suicide bomber, during this time IB alerted the local department on similar kind of attack or attack specific to 5-Star hotels can happen in Metro cities, where by Mumbai will be their prime target.

Sep 24 2008 : IB intercepted another call, where the Laskher is going to attack Taj at Gateway or Marriot in Juhu or Taj’s Lands End at Bandra, as all these hotels are near the sea. This message is specifically passed to the Mumbai Commissioner, he adviced these hotels to step up the security.

12 Oct 08 : India receives warnings from US , the details of the warnings revealed a potential attack from the sea againsts hotels and business centers in Mumbai.

19 Nov 08 : This time around the warning comes more specific information and it also suggests a ship controlled by Lashkar had set to sail from Karachi with dangerous cargo destined for Indian shores (specifically Mumbai)

I hope our security agencies wont ignore these kind of warnings from intelligence department.

Have you ever been on Mumbai Darshan? It has 23 Points of famous spots in Mumbai like Gateway of India, Sachin Tendulkar’s residence, Amitabh Bachans residence etc., now Mumbai Darshan has 3 more new locations

1. Oberoi Towers
2. Taj Mahal Hotel
3. Nariman House

The terror tourism was inaugurated by our honarable Cheif Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh , his son Ritesh Deshmukh and his friend (read: new mentor / director of his next film) Ram Gopal Varma.
As Mumbaikars after few weeks we are going to remember these locations as a part of Terror Tourism, you know why , because we will have something more to talk about, we might be discussing how many runs Dhoni needs to take to complete a certain record, will sachin tendulkar play today or not. If not any of these our Media people are good enough to give us a spicy story of some bollywood love affair or something related to some minister etc.,

Our memories are short lived, we are not going to remember even the names of the people who died protecting us from these terrorists. Can any of us name them without searching for their names in blog and search engines? No matter how ever bad our security agencies weapons are, but still these people who had sacrificed they lives to protect / save mumbai will be forgotten in short span of time.
Terror Tourism will be the only way we might remember then, that too because some political party will make a scribe at these location and inscribe the names of the people who lost their lives in these locations (i am not sure even this happen).

First few days of terror tourism, its with curiosity of what happened there, next few days we might want to show our friends or family what happened there, might even walk up to some wall to show the bullet marks.
We all are planning to meet on 3rd December infront of these terror tourism location, so that we can have the view of these locations and get some media coverage…this is what thats going to happen on 3rd December.  We will not be adding any more value, none of our voices will be heard, for media its just a spicy news and moment to add value to their TRP by showing the live coverage…no actions will be there in the results of the protests or requests….

Our system need radical change, and it has to happen now. Boycott the tax payments, they can arrest if 10 people are not paying taxes, what if 1 million people are not going to pay their taxes, do we have jails to keep so many people? Protest and make a point in such a way that it will hit them where it hurt them the most. Our government is not poor, let them form a committee and show us the progress and the implementation of the security plans, then we will pay our taxes…can we do this?
Even I will forget about it in next few weeks, then what taking my friend / family to terror tourism will be my hobby , as with this kind of phase and environments, we might have few more terror tourism spots in near future…

There are quite a few mistakes from the government , if not the entire attack , we could have saved some lives.

1. As per the media sources and the points agreed by various defense agencies in India, there was some solid information about the attack. To this our local security agencies response was , we were not aware when they were going to attack and how many are going to be there, all we know was Taj was under threat.  So what do you think the terrorists are going to tell you about the travel plans, so that you can go and catch them.

Mumbai is always a soft-target for the terror events, all the terrorist know about this, they know if they hit Mumbai, the pain will be reflected to the entire nation. Mumbai is also a breeding ground for gangsters, and these gangsters can help these terrorists in logistics need to make their objective successful one…Mumbai is a very good healer, but its not a good defender when it comes to terrorists attacks or as a matter of fact any calamity.

2. Commandos reached the location only after 8-10 hours of the siege incident. How can our government plan like this? Why the commandos reached late ? Our government’s response is , A.K Antony (Minister in charge of securities) has asked for 200 Commandos, so we had to organize all 200 Commandos before sending them across…Cant they send these commandos in batch of 40-50?

3. Preparation part, I think this is the area where our government and security agencies had failed very badly. There was no specific information, they have not done any study about how many terrorists are there, what is the hostage situation, are they using the hostages as human shield , detailed plan of the building etc., nothing. there were very very less informed about these things, in this area terrorists were too good for our commandos, so it took 50+ hours for them to fight 3-4 terrorists (in Taj Hotel).
As a common man if we could think of these things, why being combat specialists our commando team failed, if you take the victims account, 90% of them had not seen any terrorists, all of them heard gun short fired and some rooms are burning…those who had seen the terrorists is not fortunate enough to be alive to tell the tale…..They have not literarily taken every one as hostage, instead the people who had trapped inside assumed themselves as hostage…and the few whom they have actually taken as hostage were killed by them, as they had no plans to keep them alive or negotiate with the government.

It was an easy see-through point that , these terrorists meant business…no mercy, no negotiations…just kill and terrorize the environment…The commandos could have invested couple of extra hours , use air-drop methods, morphine gas, multiple entries at the same time and then try to corner these terrorists. Instead they used the main entry as a normal law respecting citizen and trying to capture them…and during an interview one commando also mentioned that, the terrorists were fully aware of the building plans and secret passages in the building which we were not aware of…isn’t this a failure from the planning front?

3. Our government doesnt have strict anti-terror laws,  our actions speaks we are very very soft on terrorism. If one terrorist comes and bombs your parliament,  even after giving him death sentence , you havent hanged him.  If this is the message you are sending out, then even a child of some unknown country can attack you,  we will not do anything about it. What are you waiting for ? We should have strict anti-terror laws, you can even forgive a rapist (just for the words flow i have used it, i am not asking anyone to forgive a rapist), because hes raping only one women, but you cannot forgive a terrorist as they are raping the entire nation….

4. Vulenrable Waters, even though we have coast guard, naval base everything in Mumbai, why the waters are not monitored , even when the fishermen community had complained about the few suspecting persons with big bags came through sea and left their raft un-attended, why didnt the police reacted to it?

5. MEDIA is the biggest culprit for this entire event and the prolonging the battle with the terrorists.  Every body knew from the 2nd hour of the attack the terrorists were carrying phones with them, and media was giving out running commentary of the events like who entering from which location, going to which window etc., just like a cricket match. Some of the new channels were projecting their reporters in same level of the commandos as they were reporting by putting their life at stake and bringing you the news…hey, first of all we didn’t asked for it, as a responsible media, it was your responsibility to avoid passing information live about the national security.

After 32 hours when few people were rescued, again the media caught that person who had spent 32 hours in the fear of death , asking him about the entire operation , how the commando entered , how they were rescued, on the 34th hour 1 of our commandos was killed and 2 got hurt, because they were going to use the same route to rescue more people…how come these terrorists come to know that the commandos are rescuing people in this manner?  isn’t our media responsible for the death and the injury of the commandos?

They will never say this…!!!!! Our government should have strict law on these kind of media , again this is not the first time….remember Barka Dutt in Kargil War….at that time also we have lot few jawans due to this kind of aggressive , new hungry media…

PS: This blog is not to criticize NSG Commandos or MARCOS or even Mumbai Police on their gallant efforts to help our people , sacrificed their lives to save our city. Instead its a pointer which make common man like us to think about there are certain missing links and uncertain questions which arise in our mind when we walk out of our homes…I salute all the gallant officers involved in the operations to rescue our people and save our city…these questions should not be misinterpreted as criticism

There is always one statement after every Terror Attack or Disaster that happens in Mumbai, that’s called “The Spirit of Mumbai” . What exactly is this spirit?

The Hidden-Truth

Its nothing but the fact of survival, if we don’t go to office the next day of the incident, there might be some one else sitting at your desk. It’s a state of compellation, the fear of losing business, the fear of losing clients, the fear of losing money , the fear of losing position, the fear of the missing opportunity. As every body knows Mumbai has a highly competitive environment, here 40% of people are depending on their daily earnings , they don’t have the leverage of taking off on the next day, a small time share broker cannot take a day’s off, as he has to survive , he needs to invest and re-invest in stock markets on day to day basis.

Given a chance these people are also ready to take rest , their family members are also concerned as much as anybody in any part of the world. But the life goes on, they have to ’sing for their supper’ which leads them on to the streets or to their business locations.

The Politicians view

The politicians exploit this statement “The spirit of Mumbai” , they are pushing it beyond the limit. They use this statement to cover up all their mistakes , they might have already utilized the resources (read: money / funds) for their personal purpose, due to which certain these causalities happened, now they want to cover it up, how? say …”The Spirit of Mumbai”

The tax payments consolidated in Mumbai amounts 40-50% of the entire India’s tax collection. Maharashtra being on the top in tax collection, is due to Mumbai being in their state, check out the gross tax collection of rest of Maharashtra against Mumbai, it will be a minor fraction of the entire value. Even after contributing so much to the state and the country we complain only when some disaster happens, a couple of weeks after that, we forget it till the next incident…this is called “The Spirit of Mumbai”. Being fools and believing in the politicians statements on the media, and expecting some big change is going to come and forget about this in the due course of time…this is the spirit every politician wants so that they can make more money in cricket, buy land in the places like Lonawala, Pune and other upcoming locations, participate in a reality show , divide the people with provocative statements etc., And still we vote for these politicians and make him/her win for the next time…this is called “The Spirit of Mumbai”.

Is this what “The spirit of Mumbai” is all about?

No, the actual spirit of Mumbai is its people, who have come from various locations with various dreams , who speaks various languages live together harmoniously without reflecting any of these differences and being a helping hand to each other when there is a need…this is spirit of Mumbai.

These are the same people who keep Ganapathi at their house regardless their background has the ritual to keep the idol at home. These are the same people who celebrate ID with their Muslim neighbors. These are the same people who try to learn the neighbor’s language. These are the same people who help their neighbor’s son or daughter in their employment or business. These are the same people who will be there for you regardless their busy business schedule…these are the same people who keep the spirit of Mumbai alive.

When a disaster or terror happens in the city, these are the people who helps the security personals with food and snacks , these are the people who update the family with the whereabouts of their loved ones when disaster strikes us, these are the people who will help you with cash and kind as and when needed, these are the people who take care of your children when you are not around or sick. This is called “the spirit of Mumbai”

The current affair..

No matter what ever happens the spirit of Mumbai will be alive, but suddenly everybody started having the feeling that we have been exploited by this statement : “the spirit of Mumbai”.  We don’t want resignations of the ministers or the security chiefs. We want results, we want to know the following…

• Who attacked our city
• Why they attacked the city
• How could they enter the city
• Why we failed in protecting our city.
• Why don’t we have a proper planning of the city
• Is our city the only target or are there going to be more attacks in other part of India
• Accountability of the Tax payer’s money spend on the security.
• Now what are the future plans to protect the city (we just need the areas not the information on how you will protect and what technology you use)
• We need to know fool proof your new plan will be ( as we don’t want you to come back and say our security measures were only for the terrorists who come by water or come be train, if they come by plane we haven’t thought about it…)

We also understand terrorism is something we cannot avoid, no matter how ever we try they will still crack us, but our security measures should be in such a way, were by we can reduce the collateral damage during these kind of situations, we can reduce the number of death toll, we can reduce the amount of loss in our assets / property.

We don’t want the government to focus on some corporate project on building rails and roads, when we already have enough infrastructure to move on peacefully, the infrastructure development is causing us to spend more on reaching the destination leave alone the petrol cost and the maintenance cost due to this new infrastructure . We dont want the politicians to escape from the blame by simply resigning from the post. We want results.

Even after these kind of requests and protest in various way to our government , nothing will happen, what ever they want to do , they will do it no matter who raise the voice …they have media partners who are there to cover for them , keep the people’s mind out of these kind of thoughts…make the people believe that they are staying in a safe country…by making some singers sing patriot songs …making some film personalities saying ..”Bharat Matha Ki Jai” ….as fools we will also recite the same….Thats is “The Spirit of Mumbai”….