By Sareeta Bipin Amrute

Forget Islam: Notes on thinking through the Mumbai attacks

What if we forgot, for a moment, the rush to judgment? What if we put aside the quickly made link between terrorist violence and the Muslim world, what if we resist the idea of Islamic fundamentalism and its adjacent terms—9/11, Hindu-Muslim conflict, jihad, al-Qaeda?

By putting aside the question of religion, we might begin to make sense of this carnage in Mumbai in a way that unites rather than divides, in a way that looks beyond ideologies towards a common set of complaints and constraints on life that affect people across the subcontinent. This is not to say that groups of whatever religious or political persuasion are doing much to train potential terrorists, and have a huge role to play in violent acts of terror around the world. Yet, a quick glance at the casualty list reveals dozens of Muslim names. We miss a potential non-military response to the attacks when we put the blinders of binary thinking on and retreat behind the all-too-easily drawn lines between ‘Hindus’ and ‘Muslims’, or even between ‘radical’ and ‘peaceful’ Islam.

What we know of the attackers is that they were men between the ages of 20 and 28. Although we may not know the details of the lives these young men led, we do know that across India, and indeed South Asia, there are increasing numbers of young people with little to do. And although the Indian economy may be growing in some sectors like Information Technology and Communications Services, there are too few jobs to go around, and not enough schooling and training to make people ready for the jobs that are available. The fact is, India as a whole is not Rising, but that that cities like Bombay and Bangalore are rising, often at the expense of rural areas, and areas to the north and to the east. On the other hand, it seems now that the Indian Security forces who battled terrorists at the Oberoi, the Taj Hotel and at CST Station, were ill-prepared for the attack. Some of this lack of preparedness was due to the nature of the attack; security forces well prepared for bombings were not expecting a gun-driven siege. But there was also the problem of equipment. The Security forces did not have enough materials to go around, greatly in contrast to the attackers, who seem to have been very well trained and well equipped.

The Indian public has grasped a fundamental connection between attackers and the attacked in their call for government reform. How can we understand the vocal and angry calls on the streets of Mumbai for the government of India to do more to protect its citizenry? To move beyond a purely military response to the question of protecting citizens means to move towards battling one of the longest-standing and pernicious issues on the subcontinent—corruption. There is a tremendous chance here to mobilize an anti-corruption push in the country in the name of national stability and security. If once upon a time kickbacks, nepotism, and skimming off the top may have been a form of steal-from-the-rich economic redistribution, clearly the long-term effects of corruption have meant a drain on the ability of Indian public and private institutions to care for the people they serve. Solving the problem of corruption would not solve all problems. Yet, adequate social services would help reduce the appeal of fundamentalisms among the young and underemployed. It is often when fundamentalist groups (Hindu, Muslim, Maoist) rush to fill the breach left in social, economic, and medical services that young men become susceptible to training in violence, and its is clear that radical groups often gain support from the populations whom they provide necessary services, running blood banks and procuring jobs. And it is often corruption that prevents teachers from being present at rural schools, buildings from being built, people from getting adequate attention and respect in bureaucratic offices.

Those who ask for bribes, those who take cuts and misuse their authority, those who demand of their workers that they engage in politics when they should be engaged in their jobs, those who arrest young men because they have the wrong last name or wear the wrong clothes and turn a blind eye to others should know, when they do so, they are endangering the very cities, towns and villages in which they live. They are sowing the seeds of adversity even while they are weakening the very civil and government institutions that protect them as well as society at large. Although it might be unseemly to think there might be a bright side to these attacks, there is a possibility here for change, to no longer think of corruption as a necessary evil but as a system of power, influence and specie that has outstayed its usefulness. It might be time for an anti-corruption campaign, not only on the level of political agitation, but also on a personal level; it might be time for ordinary citizens to think through anti-corruption as a form of patriotism, of social justice, and of a way of undoing the causes and preventing the unfair consequences of violence.

It definitely feels like a time for change.

Sareeta B. Amrute is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington. She is currently writing a book on the Indian IT industry.