Looking at the Mumbai attacks through a historical prism

The good thing about history is that you are referring to events that happened in the past. Even though it is colored by the perceptions of those who wrote it and the circumstances under which it was written, if you are diligent enough, you can come pretty close to figuring out what might have happened.
History is also instructive because it allows you to see patterns. And if you can trace a pattern several times over, you can pretty much understand how it relates to the present and to a large extent use it to predict the future.
While it is hard to predict the behavior of an individual over time, it is fairly easy to predict the behavior of a society or even a collection of individuals based on past history. And it is that aspect of Indian society and Pakistani rogue elements that is a bit disconcerting here. This is not the first time it has happened and this is not the first time Indians have reacted the way we have reacted, and this is not the first time we have had something to lose whereas they walked in with nothing to lose but their lives.
If you go back many centuries, you will find that prosperity has never been a generation or two away from Indian society. There are specific communities or sub communities that have the attributes which when acted upon inevitably lead to prosperity. There are the entrepreneurs who have always been willing to act on their instincts. There are innovators who are willing to work for the entrepreneur class and for the most part you have a society that is law abiding and plays by the rules. Education is a prime concern for vast sections of the society and the intense competitiveness leads to hardworking people who, when left to their own devices, are pretty good at wealth creation.
Unfortunately, that is only a small part of the story. India, for almost all of its existence, has been a society that has been dealt with and accepted weak governance, relied heavily on individual brilliance rather than well defined processes, and suffered a surprisingly large number of people who lack self esteem and/or integrity and can be bought for favors or money.


Perhaps it is the yoke of feudalism that results in the Indian populace having such low expectations from their ruling class. But back to history. From Babur to Mohamed of Ghazni, marauders from the west have raided India's prosperity, committed huge atrocities on the population and have never really learnt anything that would deter them from passing that on to their progeny. Self-belief is a funny thing. It leads you to do audacious things that others might consider impossible. Lack of self-belief is also extremely debilitating. It leads you to fail in situations that most people might consider easily surmountable. Every audacious act that is successful leads you to consider and succeed in situations where the odds are higher and every failure lowers your expectations on what you are capable of doing. Repeat this over a few hundred times and you have established patterns of behavior on both sides that are depressingly predictable. And every time, it has been in our interest to take stop gap measures because we are in the middle of wealth creation and cannot afford to disrupt it, whereas the raiders have no hope in their soul from the time they are born. As a result, almost every Pakistani rogue can be led to fancy their chances against India and every Indian law enforcement official will likely think its beyond their pay grade to stop it.

Now lets get specific.
Consider the behavior of the Indian coast guard ship when the terrorists were making their way in a hijacked Indian trawler. They came upon the trawler, and passed them by. Did they really think that terrorists would try to come into India sporting the moon and star flag? What due diligence did the skipper of the coast guard ship perform when he was trying to deal with the enforcement of India's maritime security? My guess is none, because he was just doing his "job" and had never seriously thought about how he would do his best everytime he wore that uniform. His lack of integrity translated into lack of vigilance on the part of his crew. Will he be punished? Unlikely. Will a new process be put into place? Sure there will be a lot of noise but nothing really will change long term. What explanation will the coast guard provide? They will explain the logistical difficulties in scanning every trawler and ship that passes through Indian waters and strangely enough, everyone will accept it, when the real solution lies in putting in place a process to solve the problem using technology and some old world accountability.


Consider the behavior of the Mumbai police. They had no operational command or control center that was coordinating anything to detect patterns of behavior. They sent in a few policemen to the hotel thinking that it was a gang related warfare. The security cam at CST shows policemen running away from the terrrorists and doing a good job of beating the passengers to the door. However we see some quick thinking by a couple of police officials in nabbing one of the terrorists and firing their service revolvers in the air to keep them thinking that were more cops than there really were. It saved lives. You can put that down to individual brilliance (never in short supply in India). The staff at the hotel, totally untrained to deal with anything like this, showed individual brilliance,and a sense of sacrifice in dealing with the situation. The police did not even bother to secure the perimeter of the buildings before launching counter attacks. Will anything change as a result of this attack? Unlikely. There is one difference however. The attacked hotel (and other hotels) will put in place very efficient measures to protect themselves and will reduce their dependency on the local law enforcement (who are only too happy to cede their role because the only thing you can add to job security is not even having to pretend to do the job). There will be enquiries, some police officials who do not have money to pay off the politicians will pay the price, but the system will not budge, and will be as unprepared to deal with the next atrocity.

What about the fire brigade ? They are supposed to have trained for emergencies, have a plan in place to get water and deal with fires. That is their job, for god's sake. They are supposed to coordinate with local law enforcement. Did they do any of it? No, and its unlikely that they will. Same goes for railway security. Again, there will be no real accountability gaps measured.

What about the commandos? They will have performed a national duty under a grave time of crisis and analysis of their performance will be confined to the official secrets act. We really dishonor the deaths of soldiers when we fail to rectify and learn lessons from our mistakes. But at least, the saving grace for this crew is that it was not their job to begin with.

Politicians, who consider lack of integrity to be one of the pre-requisites of the job will make a show of "resigning", which is the most annoying way of saying that "I do not hold myself accountable for the causes or the effects. Right now I need a break and I will be back later when its time to horse trade", and resurface later when the public ire has calmed down. Some politicians like Mr. Cement, will even try to make some political capital out of it. What about the opposition? They will oppose. Exactly what, they do not know. The minute you are in opposition, you even drop any pretense of being accountable to the people of the country.

And the people, well, the people have no say in the matter. Life is cheap. Rulers have historically been inept and there is not much that one can do about it. Also, every loser almost unapologetically wants to forget and move on. A cricket match here or an "India shining" there, some tough talk (its tragic because most of them talk through both sides of the mouth so it is hard to know what is it that they intended to say) and life will get back to "normal". We will congratulate the fact that we got away so lightly. Believe it or not, compensation meant for the victims will end up in the hands of politicos or their henchmen. Discussions on the talk show circuit will talk about how devastating it would have been if the terrorists had detonated a dirty bomb. (Well, they would have, if they could have gotten their hands on one) A lot of money will be spent and most of them to no good end result. It will definitely enrich the political class and their cronies, who will now sport their "security credentials".


Folks, its our history. We create wealth. We fail to defend it, and then go back to creating it without learning the lessons of the past. We cherish individual brilliance over collective wisdom and instinct over processes. We show apathy to the suffering of our fellow citizens, hoping that it never happens to us. And when it does happen, we blame it on karma.
We resign, withdraw, deny, focus on our children's education, applaud our progress, but refuse to acknowledge that we need to do things differently. And until that happens, misery will visit us, again and again. Each time, it comes with a different name, but the results are always the same. Nobody, no country can help us. Each crisis brings with it an opportunity to break the cycle. It is for us to learn the lessons from the past, acknowledge our weaknesses, and then put them to rest. For no society that was unable to defend itself has managed to protect its prosperity, its innovativeness or its culture and we should know that better than most. It is up to us to decide whether we choose to fail our children and grandchildren in providing them with the security that they need, to lead meaningful lives filled with accomplishment.