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| (1) Taj Mahal Hotel |
Over one year ago a pretty
significant terror attack happened here in Bombay. It was no 9/11-Two
Towers catastrophe, but not because the terrorists did not want it to
be. Most reading this probably remember the attacks carried out by
these terrorists at the Taj Mahal Hotel on November 28. The reason they
attacked the Taj Hotel is because it is the most expensive hotel in
India and for the terrorists, it represented western opulence and
decadence… and an opportunity to strike fear into the hearts of "white
people" the world over. Their message: "we will find you in your richest hotels; nowhere is safe.”
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| (2) |
What most do not know is that the Taj Hotel was only one of eight
coordinated attacks upon Bombay that day. The terrorists had planned to
kill over 5,000 people and they attacked in South Bombay, Chhatrapati
Shivaji Terminus (train station) Oberoi Trident, Leopold Café, Cama
Hospital, Nariman House, and the Metro Cinema.
According to Peter Foster, who published an article on this subject: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3529804/Bombay-terror-attacks-Why-the-Taj-Mahal-Hotel-was-chosen.html, the
National Security Guards were brought in and they were quite effective
at ending the violence, but not so effective at minimizing collateral
damage. A local on the ground said that western Special Forces go in
with SWAT teams and snipers, while Indian Special Forces solve their
terror problems by blowing $%@^ up. They did exactly that. They named
it Operation Black Tornado and unleashed their fury upon the Pakistani
members of the Lashkar-e Taiba—a terrorist organization centered out of
Pakistan. The result was that 295 people died; among those were six
Americans.
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| (3) |
As stated, their goal was mainly the
Taj Hotel and the surrounding area, as they were targeting a very
specific demographic that frequented the hotel; those people being:
India’s leaders, politicians, white tourists, foreign investors, and the
country’s new economic heavy hitters.
I explained all this because we are
staying exactly one block away from the Taj Hotel and that is why the
managers of the guesthouse we arrived at were being such sticklers about
not letting us stay there. It just so happens that the terrorists
stayed in these very kind of guesthouses and were coming and going at
all hours (like us) and they kept adding new people into the rooms at
all hours (like our group had been doing) and because of these factors,
new rules were created for travelers to more easily track them and their
whereabouts.
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| (4) The Taj as it Stands Today |
I want to be clear that this area is
not dangerous. It has not been dangerous in the past and is not a
dangerous place to be right now. Like New York, it was randomly
attacked and that attack does not make New York or Bombay inherently
more or less safe than they were before the attacks. The goal of
terrorism is the leverage of fear: for a minimal price they get a
maximum bang for their buck. Terrorism’s mission is to change the
psyche into thinking violence is just around the corner when
statistically, nothing could be further from the truth.
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| (5) The DC Snipers |
Think back a few years ago in Washington D.C.; Steven Levitt, author of Superfreakanomics, pointed
out that in a typical year, D.C. experiences fifty murders. In 2002,
however, that average stayed the same but ten of those murders resulted
from shootings that caused panic to set in, ultimately paralyzing the
entire area in fear. The culprits were two men acting as snipers,
picking off random individuals from the back of their car. They were
domestic terrorists and their ten coordinated attacks did not change the
average death toll in the area for the year, but because they were
coordinated, everywhere felt as they were the next to die. It is psychological warfare and it plays to our darkest
fears that tell us: "the world is not safe and you are about to die."
That is, in part, why we visit some of these places; we wish to confront
those very fears.
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| (6) |
But I digress: as it was, Chad—the leader of
the OutDoor Program, Annie, and I were looking for breakfast and
accidentally wandered into Leopold Café. We sat down and found out
this was the very same café that had been attacked on that fateful day.
The place has been restored, for much of the damage came from the
Indians blowing up the terrorists, but they left the bullet holes and a
shattered bullet-ridden window as reminders of the carnage and as a pull
for tourists to frequent their establishment.
I bet the
terrorists never counted on Robert Merton’s economic Law of Unintended
Consequences: the terrorists wanted to drive fear into the hearts of travelers and
scare them away from India, which, in turn, would hurt India’s economy
and its already poor population. However, the terrorists inadvertently turned on a whole new generation of travelers onto the already famous spot. The bullet holes now drive dumb tourists like me to a place where mafioso figures and backpackers the world over had been frequenting for decades. The Taj Hotel has also been
remodeled as most of its bottom floor was destroyed; they are open for business again as well.
Reporting from Bombay and one of the largest cities in the world...
Reporting from Bombay and one of the largest cities in the world...
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