Is Mumbai India's 9/11? It's Not That Simple

By Lakshmi Chaudhry, TheNation.com. Posted December 4, 2008.

The past eight years have given Americans -- especially progressives -- plenty of reason to fear the media's post-9/11 narrative of loss and retribution, but we cannot forestall its ills by succumbing to its logic. Well-meaning progressives who point the finger at Hindu nationalists in their desire to protect Indian Muslims unwittingly play into its polarizing dynamic. Toronto Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders writes, "So it's tempting to describe this week's outrages as 'the Sept. 11 of India.'... Let me suggest that you ignore this narrative. To follow this storyline, to see these events as civilizational warfare, is to misconstrue the nature of India." He goes on to suggest that the true terrorists are not Muslims but Hindu nationalists, and that the attacks, in the words of the liberal legal and ethics scholar Martha Nussbaum, are "not a clash of 'civilizations' but another consequence of the 'clash within.' "

The greater irony is that this push to define the attacks as part of an "internal" conflict does Indian Muslims no favors, both in suggesting that they'd be justified in launching such a horrific attack (or likely to do so given their grievances) and in blaming a grieving Hindu majority in these volatile times. Whatever his motivation, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's staunch denial of any local involvement is a much-needed reprieve for a community that will face terrible reprisals if the attacks do indeed have a domestic connection.

We progressives would also do well to remember that the World Trade Center attacks are now an international symbol for a nation's grief and courage in the face of terrorism. A good part of the Indian need to claim the Mumbai attacks as another 9/11 is a call to the world to recognize their loss, to stand with them in their moment of tragedy. To deny or bracket their self-description of the events for whatever reason is both unkind and presumptuous.

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Lakshmi Chaudhry is a senior editor at In These Times and a former senior editor of AlterNet.

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