26/11, the Attack on Mumbai

The attack on Mumbai on 26 November 2008 shocked the world. For three days terrorists wreaked havoc over multiple venues in India s commercial capital leaving a trail of blood death and destruction.Reporters from Hindustan Times tracked the events as they unfolded at Cama Hospital and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and followed the three-day siege at the Taj and trident hotels and at Nariman House. This collection brings together the dispatches, Investigations, profiles and commentaries, published in the paper-including those written by major figures in their fields- during the attack and its aftermath.IntroductionSometimes crises tell us more about the victims than they do about the perpetrators. So it has been with the Bombay attacks of 26 November 2008. We know now that they were carried out by jihadis who were trained in Pakistan, possibly by official agencies. That is politically significant- at least in terms of international relations-but it is hardly a surprise. The same was true of the attack on Parliament a few years ago and of many other terrorist incidents. But the real lessons of the Bombay attacks emerge out of the Indian response. The way we have reacted holds up a mirror to our society and tells us something about our country and how it responds to hostility, aggression and pressure.The Bombay incidents have caused so many debates within Indian society that is hard to think of a contemporary parallel that has so provoked the Indian intelligentsia. There has been an outpouring of anger against the political establishment, a radicalization- no matter how temporary of the upper middle class a rethinking of the we all want peace attitude that c