I can not congratulate the author enough for this precise expose of India - quite contrary to what MSM, Friedman and the likes weave a fantasy about India - essentially a lopsided version on the prosperity and lifestyles of educated middle class Indians. If we look closely beneath the call center and Software export Eldorado that is stereotyped as India, we see at least half a billion people with no access to the basic amenities of life.

As an Indian born and raised in India (& now living the US), one can not but feel the constancy of poverty and the growing rich-poor divide. Every time I visit home, the numebr of homeless people lining the roadsides of metros is only seen as increasing. Trust me, poverty and affluence cut across all religious, caste and communcal divides. Three generations of ruthless politicans and unscrupulous bureuacrats have enriched themselves with tax payer monies.

It is precisely this reality of India that motivates the "flatworld" that Friedman hails as the second coming of Jesus to India. While the average software engineer in Bangalore would make a handsome 40,000 rupees (or the equivalent of USD 900), his domestic servant will be making at the most Rs.2000 a month (or the equivalent of USD 50). The economic totem pole is even deeper when we speak of many others who offer services to the noveu riche middle classes. The middle class themselves are very resilient in adapting to deteriorating living conditions in order to make their living. While the Software Moghuls like Infosys and Wipro make billions a year, the traffic conditions in Bangalore are so pathetic that it could take one hour to commute a kilometer in some parts of Bangalore. Yet, the software moghuls, who prospered enormously from the deterioration of Bangalore from a garden city to a soot city, do very little themsleves to improve situation for thier employees.

I would argue - it is this very collapse of civic life, deep rooted political corruption and underpaid wages to the working classes of India, that subsidize the lifestyles of the noveu riche middle class & in turn of the global behemoths that employ them. If India were politicaly as civilized and as respectful of the basic rights of one and all (as the developed western nations), it would be very costly for the global behemoths to do business with India.

Things have defintely improved since the nation got independence in 1947, but all changes are miniscular compared to the vast mass of poverty that has outpaced the development.

The history of Hindu Muslim interactions and conflicts is chequered since the takeover of India by Muslim conquerors 800 years ago. They had transformed from being conquerors and looters to rulers, emperors and care takers. Yet, religious fundamentalism dominated for 400 years before the takeover of British colonialism. Britishers used all preexsting religious divide to their best advantage and to deny political freedom to Indians. Notwithstanding all this, Muslim are an integral part of India, most of them culturally indistinguishiable from their Hindu neighbours. Yet, the Nehru/Indira Gandhi/ Sonia Gandhi led Congress party (that ruled most of the last 60 years) used Muslims as vote bank, pandering to the extermist elements among them. (Case in point: they refused to extend family planning medical practices to Muslim population - a population already reeling under poverty, with a historical/cultural prepsenity to polygamy & large households with a single earner/bread winner).

The spirit of this article, if I were to read it correctly is this: poverty, illiteracy, joblessness and diseases are the most common agents of terrorism the world over. They silently kill more people every day more than any other instance of gunning down by religious extremists. Instead of battling these common enemies, the repressive nation states (even those hailied as "great democracies") that have amassed more power than any other violent dictator or monarch known in history (such as the Caesers, the Genghisz Khans and the Hitlers) have become become extravagant war/defense spenders at tax payer's expense. The 2 trillion odd dollars of tax payers money that the present US govenment had spent on warfare & the death of several hundred thousand people in Iraq, is unconscionable to anyone with a loving relation or friend in this age of reasoning, information and enlightenment (?).

"No, I don't regret the tough training I got and am in fact a proud vigilante with it. I may be compassionate but in this day and time, it doesn't hurt to be a kick ass vigilante just like Paul Kersey of the Death Wish movie series except I don't use guns."

Oh my. Carla.

Wow.

I'm done. People are getting too carried away here.

WOW ! I am amazed that even on this site, people would show their hostility towards the Hindus. My wife's brother lived in Pakistan for 2 years and in India for 3 and I can tell you straight up that in India, there's actually far more religious tolerance whereas in Pakistan and Afghanistan, your life is at risk unless you convert to Islam. I'm afraid that much as I detest bombing a nation, Carla Waters is correct.

Another thing that is ignored is this. Did you notice that the news networks covered only the Jews and Westerners on the attack while everyone else's lives were rendered irrelevant? If all those Americans and Jews were just regular Indians, the Mumbai attack on the hotels would have made no news whatsoever. As a matter of fact, on July 11, 2006, the terrorist attack on a Mumbai subway was similar to the one in Spain in 2004 and yet the media coolly ignored the Mumbai one unlike the Spain one. I find it also truly amazing the like the rightwing, the leftwing has the nerve to come up with double standards in religion. If Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc ... had actually done the terrorizing against the Muslims, this board and the rest of the liberal blogosphere would be showing their outrage at the lives whereas in this case, the leftwing would much rather say that Indians (except for the Muslim ones) are bad people despite the fact that they are the people we rely on for business and use them as slaves. And I noticed on conservative blogs that it is no different from the rightwing. If Christians and/or Jews are attacked, show outrage and go after the terrorists whereas if the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc ... are the victims, then give them the middle finger. I am disheartened to find such religious animosity even on the left. I'd expect the rightwing to be hostile but not the leftwing. Oh well, I guess those ordinary Indian civilians who were the most to lose their lives don't matter to you rightwingers and leftwingers out there, do they? And don't give me lame shit about Muslims and Jews being the main victims.

Jason Jordan
Sandpoint, Idaho

"I used to be a Christian but having been the victim of religious abuse, I switched to atheism and haven't gone back and I'm proud of it ! Thanks for understanding."

So what are you going to do if a group of atheists commit an act of terror or abuses you? You seem paint entire groups with a broad bloody brush when some of them do something heinous.

jonabark

I personally do not think it is helpful when the religion of violent criminals is given importance. This only feeds the intent of the criminals to draw attention to their "cause" and cloak their crimes with ideology. Neither should the charge of terrorism be assigned only to outlaws without a state. One does not have to look into ancient history to find examples of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Communists, Capitalists, Muslims, etc. engaging in the most horrific kinds of violence , often claiming religious or belief based inspiration. Thousands of Muslims have been killed in India by Hindu extremists. It is in fact dishonest to ignore the fact that Muslims have been , and continue to be among the most numerous victims of state and non-state terrorism around the world. This does not justify the violence in Mumbai but it contributes to the popularity of extremist ideology. The most effective means of combatting violence is to delegitimize violence accross the board, and that certainly includes economic violence.

We need to support national and international laws like the Geneva accords and the UN charter that oppose all forms of terrorism. We need to empower peaceful means of political actions. The idea that some kind of religious war is the answer to the cycles of violence and revenge we are seeing here is pathetically hateful, self righteous , and bound to failure, as the enormity of history shows.

The mindlessness and horror of violence as a tactic are fully displayed in this event. It is hard to imagine it inspiring others. The response of world leaders must be measured and focused on the actual perpetrators of the crime. We must be equally adamant to pursue crimes against Muslims. When Law benefits and brings justice to all members of our global human society then Law will take the rightful place in human affairs.

The trouble in Mumbai are not unique or as simplistic as may first appear. As per Arundhati Roy: "In the state of Gujarat, there was a genocide against the Muslim community in 2002.

"I use the word Genocide advisedly, and in keeping with its definition contained in Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The genocide began as collective punishment for an unsolved crime-the burning of a railway coach in which 53 Hindu pilgrims were burned to death. In a carefully planned orgy of supposed retaliation, 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered in broad daylight by squads of armed killers, organised by fascist militias, and backed by the Gujarat government and the administration of the day. Muslim women were gang-raped and burned alive.

"Muslim shops, Muslim businesses and Muslim shrines and mosques were systematically destroyed. Some 1,50,000 people were driven from their homes.

"Even today, many of them live in ghettos-some built on garbage heaps-with no water supply, no drainage, no streetlights, no healthcare. They live as second-class citizens, boycotted socially and economically. Meanwhile, the killers, police as well as civilian, have been embraced, rewarded, promoted. This state of affairs is now considered 'normal'. To seal the 'normality', in 2004, both Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani, India's leading industrialists, publicly pronounced Gujarat a dream destination for finance capital.

"The initial outcry in the national press has settled down. In Gujarat, the genocide has been brazenly celebrated as the epitome of Gujarati pride, Hindu-ness, even Indian-ness. This poisonous brew has been used twice in a row to win state elections, with campaigns that have cleverly used the language and apparatus of modernity and democracy. The helmsman, Narendra Modi, has become a folk hero, called in by the BJP to campaign on its behalf in other Indian states.

"As genocides go, the Gujarat genocide cannot compare with the people killed in the Congo, Rwanda and Bosnia, where the numbers run into millions, nor is it by any means the first that has occurred in India. (In 1984, for instance, 3,000 Sikhs were massacred on the streets of Delhi with similar impunity, by killers overseen by the Congress Party.) But the Gujarat genocide is part of a larger, more elaborate and systematic vision. It tells us that the wheat is ripening and the grasshoppers have landed in mainland India."

There will be no long term solution unless India can reduce its population through birth control. I told my first Indian coworker, 35 years ago, that I had once collected for a charity called "Wells for India". He smiled and told me something like: "Feed India and all you get is more hungry people".

BTW, this guy and his fellow Indian students at U Penn International House in West Philly once got so fed up with being mugged and beaten by African Americans, they all got sticks, went out on the street, and beat the tar out of the first black guy they came across. Terror begets terrorism.

As climate change continues to melt the glaciers supplying water to much of India (and China), the situation may even get worse, and as more areas of the world have to deal with overpopulation and declining food supplies and resources, India will become a triaged abandoned basket case with hundreds of millions starving.

I've spent lots of time talking to sane, peaceful and sensible Muslims in India, including in Kashmir. One thing they will admit very quietly is that many live in fear of their neighbors. There may be a lot of Muslims in India but they are still a minority and still victims of prejudice from Hindus that surround them in many places. There has been a lot of unrest in Kashmir all this year starting will the attempt to give an important Hindu Shrine board land for rest stops for pilgrims this spring and continuing right into Kashmiri elections. Protesters have been shot by army and police and highways blocked by Hindu extremists. I don't think we have to look much farther than internal tensions in India itself for reasons for terrorism. Of course, Pakistan is not much help and would love to claim that all Kashmiris would prefer to join Pakistan and Americans and other westerners would love to see all terrorist activity as part of a huge centrally conducted terrorist operation aimed at them, but I don't think we have to look that far. As the writer said, living conditions are bad enough for the majority of all Indians to keep many angry people on the edge of revolt for any reason.

America may be finding out pretty soon itself that the cheapest way to keep poor people from murdering rich people in their beds is to feed them.

"Americans are largely shielded from all the benefits (poverty, famine) that Empire brought to India."

I wouldn't say shielded, more like distracted, preoccupied with their own survival. Americans are drowning too, and the true story of India isn't something that gets much attention in the mainstream US media. That's why I found this piece so enlightening. It proved my initial instincts correct.

The problem is not religion, it is capitalism and imperialism.

You kill poverty and disenfranchisement, you kill terror.

It is haves vs. have-nots, and the haves pit the have-nots against each other in any way they can.

Anyway, I was hoping to come across an article such as this concerning the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and once again CD delivers. Thank you.

The author's facts are correct, but the link to terrorism is untenable. While the structural violence of India's poverty and economic inequity dwarf terrorist violence, the latter isn't related to the former. The groups doing this are religiously motivated and not drawn disproportionately from India's poor. Much of the Islamist terrorism in India is sponsored by Pakistan, the US's ostensible ally in the war on terror; our foreign aid indirectly funds these attacks.

The perceived Indian occupation of Muslim-majority Kashmir, and the US's and UK's slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, are the proximate causes of these attacks, and until we learn the lesson the the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi and Dr King tried in vain to teach us--that violence leads to more violence, and that just and compassionate behavior ends it--we're going to see more and more of it.

Let's hope the ordinarily perceptive and intelligent Obama figures it out soon. While he's thinking, he should consider that India--a secular, democratic country, for all its shortcomings--and not Pakistan is our natural ally in South Asia.

Alex

the writer makes very good points until the last sentence:

"By showing genuine concern for the plight of the millions of people who are at risk of death from poverty and by honoring the sanctity of the lives of the most destitute, we have the best chance of defeating the ideologies of hate"

the US is in a position to defeat ideologies of hate????
tell that to the palestinians in gaza who are being brutalized by the israelis with the support of the US. the US is a source of support for ideologies of hate.

So let me crystal clear on this.....the author's whole attitude is terrorism is wrong, but he understands?
Poverty cannot be an excuse for every person in the third world to pick up a gun or plant a bomb.
They might have had my sympathy but now they've destroyed it. Try to excuse it all you must, but violence is violence whether it comes from a 19 year old American farmboy in Iraq or a 50 year old slum dweller in Calcutta.

Shame on the Left for trying to legitimize and justify these acts.

Help reduce the National Debt - TAX CHURCHES!

Americans are largely shielded from all the benefits (poverty, famine) that Empire brought to India.

How many jobs did Hillary outsource to India? Time to fess-up!
The press is sleeping on this one, as was the Obama Machine..

Pretty soon, Opra will have her own Network and will take us to school to learn
the bnefits of Obama's win..
With all her power, does she believe that we had to invade Iraq?
Seems like she does not have a clue as to what is going on..
If Obama keeps re-introducing us to the New Clinton Machine, the Blacks who
supported him [like 95%] are in for a major surprise, one that will educate them
to the New World Order, as being practised by Obama..The rich will get
Super Rich, and we will become their Slaves once more, as we are on the way
to the plantation..

To Penelope---

"he will be tested."

Joe Biden, catholic zionist motormouth VP-elect. The senator who recommended a couple of years ago that Iraq (like Gaul) be divided into three parts based on Shi'ite, Kurd, and Sunni persuasions.

Meanwhile, notice how NPR (and doubtless others) is hinting that Pakistanis are to blame for the attacks in India...

-30-

Eradicate poverty and economic oppression, and see if this does not have a significant impact on terrorism. Additionally, stop making war and producing instruments of war that always seem to fall into the 'wrong' hands. We forget that many of the problems we and the rest of the world are experiencing are interrelated, and are often symptoms of a more systemic cause. For example, oppression of the multitudes (now it's mostly economic in nature), has always led to some type of negative outcome (i.e., a violent revolution)in the past. Economic disparity has a LOT to do with it. And if it is not addressed here, the same thing will happen, homeland security or not. Hungry and desperate people do not make for a peaceful society. By impoverishing the multitudes, the greedy rich ultimately destroy themselves. While nature seeks a balance in everything, man thinks he can thrive by defying this principle--how is it working out for him?

"When it comes to dealing with Islamic terror, the connection is a rather weak one at best. The 9/11 hijackers were mostly middle class, educated Muslims. The London train bombings and other Islamic terrorist acts in the U.K were committed by middle class Muslims. "

Please awaken from this fairy tale........

~ Some people live their whole lives without ever waking up ~

I disagree with the premise of this article. As usual, many well-intentioned people on the left try to make a case that there is a strong connection between poverty and terrorism. To them, it is a rather simple cause(poverty) and effect(terrorism) relationship. When it comes to dealing with Islamic terror, the connection is a rather weak one at best. The 9/11 hijackers were mostly middle class, educated Muslims. The London train bombings and other Islamic terrorist acts in the U.K were committed by middle class Muslims. Even the bombings in Spain, and terrorist acts in Russia show virtually no connection to poverty, but do show a connection to radical Islam and centuries of religious and/or ethnic conflicts. There is nothing wrong with bringing attention to poverty, and trying to do something about it, but trying to connect it to issues that have little to do with it is disingenuous. In trying to understand the motives of terrorists, this "it's due to poverty" interpretation misses the mark, in my opinion. Examine various other recent terrorist acts committed by Muslim extremists, and you will notice that poverty almost always has little to do with them. As for crime in general, the crime statistics do not suggest a significant rise in violent crime in most industrialized countries during economic hard times(Depression era U.S for instance comes to mind).

I'm not saying that poverty isn't a serious problem, or has nothing to do with terrorism. It's just that assuming, often erroneously that extreme poverty breeds terrorism misses so many other more important factors. There have even been studies demonstrating that college graduates in Muslim countries are more likely to commit terrorist acts than poorly educated Muslims. Even the terrorist groups who claim responsibility for these atrocious acts usually don't say they are acting on behalf of the world's downtrodden, for the most part; it is an extremist, unquestioning religious faith that makes them act psychotic(and the U.S of course helped arm and finance this so long as they were fighting communists). Even if Islamic terror organizations do claim they are motivated by a desire to fight capitalism on behalf of the world's poor, this is at best a secondary reason; they do this perhaps to make themselves appear more virtuous, and is meant to win the support of much of the world's poor in their war against the west. I see little reason to believe they actually care about the poor, Muslim or not. In some parts of the world Muslims may even have legitimate grievances, and are entitled to self-defense, but this does not justify their wanton murder of civilians. If these terrorist acts were primarily economically motivated, why aren't the terrorists Hindus or both Hindus and Muslims? Indian socialists and communists who engage in violence or terrorism seem to use different tactics than Islamic terrorists, and usually make much less news than Islamic terrorists since they are much quieter.

That said, I do not support the War on Terror and hope that Obama will pull U.S forces out of Iraq. I hope there is no war with Iran, and I also hope there will soon be an independent Palestine. While I disagree with much of the left, the neoconservatives use their own set of lies and distortions to get people to support their war-mongering("they hate our freedom" and other nonsense). The neoconservatives are much more dangerous.