Opinion Let’s do it differently this time

What are we supposed to do? Sometimes I think we should just leave Mumbai and move somewhere else. Cursing the police and intelligence agencies is something that comes normally to us. But now even this has become something that we do mechanically. What can these agencies do? Our city is so chaotic,so anarchic,so thickly populated,so completely open and vulnerable,such a tempting target — in short,we have all the ingredients that make “prevention” virtually impossible. The public response of our state actors has been better than before. We now have control rooms,official press briefings,some order in the way we hospitalise victims. Previously,every police officer,every army officer and every politician would have said crazy things and spoken out of turn. Every TV anchor would have revealed vital facts to all viewers,which include terrorists and their handlers. Speculation would have gone on forever.

So I guess we should feel just a tad better. The maniacs have struck again. But at least we haven’t been bumbling,incoherent,childish and completely mindless for the whole world to witness our Indic incompetence. But that does not address the simple question: what exactly are we supposed to do? The powers that be advise us to “stay calm and peaceful” — of course we will — haven’t we always been that way? In any case,what choice do we have?

I have a thought — a trifle crazy,but something we should not reject out of hand. Suppose we did not say “this is an attack on our sovereignty,on the financial capital of our country”; suppose we did not bother to give the incidents 24×7 TV coverage? Strangely enough,I believe that our adversaries may actually cool off. I am not sure we can take this approach to extremes — but if we let the terrorists know that not only are we not amused,quite frankly,we are bored. Admittedly,this response is easier if the death toll is zero or in a callous manner of speaking,it is less than twenty. If it goes to two hundred,we could not countenance such words. So these maniacs may get the impression that they need to kill at least two hundred to get our attention.

We need to find the right balance between not exaggerating the impact of their acts (“attack on sovereignty”,for instance) and not feigning complete indifference,which might encourage them to increase the intensity of their attacks. Yet another way to counter them may be to let them know that these attacks do not have any effect on the activities of our financial capital. Market activities are carried on using networked computer terminals and the data is backed up in multiple places. Modern markets are not as vulnerable to bombs as these half-educated terror-mongers might think.

The creative tension that we,as residents of Mumbai (which by now must have been attacked as or more often than Belfast or Tel Aviv) have is to get the message across to our terrorist enemies that they are certainly killing folks,but they are not getting too far in achieving any of their larger objectives,assuming they have some. Only then will they reduce their efforts at targeting us. In this process,we need to be careful not to egg them on to more horrendous acts. This is not going to be easy. But the vastly improved public response of our state authorities (poor folks — I feel sorry for them — it’s so easy to call them incompetent,but I really wonder if I could do a better job if I were a senior cop in Mumbai) gives me some hope that if we start the discourse among ourselves as to how we can position ourselves as a less tempting target,we might make progress. This may appear to be a coward’s approach. I don’t believe it is. It is a practical suggestion that we need to collectively apply our minds to. Killing of innocent civilians anywhere is shameful and sorrowful. But for now,I would be happy if it happened less often in Mumbai.

The writer is chairman of the Nasscom Foundation