AWorld To Win News Service

24 July 2006. A World to Win News Service. Once again the Indian people experienced a nightmare as simultaneous bomb blasts hit seven jam-packed city trains in Mumbai (once known as Bombay) 11 July.  Ironically, although government officials, politicians and prominent journalists have raised a hue and cry, the numbers of the dead and wounded are not considered important in this part of the world. Human life is rarely accounted valuable unless it is that of higher aristocrats or feudals or big bureaucrats. More than 180 commuters died; many others were injured. Many people lost a son or daughter, wife or husband, friend, neighbour or relative. Indeed, a wave of shock and grief spread all over the subcontinent. Feelings of panic, uncertainty, frustration and anger have gripped much of society.
The blasts terrorised the people of Bombay, but the regime’s reaction terrorises the entire region. “Cross-boarder terrorism” has been the prime mantra of every regime lucky to occupy the imperialist-blessed government chairs. No sooner had the blasts occurred than the regime quickly pointed to Pakistan, not necessarily accusing the Pakistani government of being behind the bombing but of harbouring the people behind it. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “We are also certain that… terrorist modules are instigated, inspired and supported by elements across the border.” The Indian police began to propagate that huge amounts of explosive have been found in different parts of the country. Some Pakistani nationals were arrested in Kathmandu and charged with having links with the blasts. Fears are palpable that the Indian state may again unleash a rain of violence, death and destruction in many parts of the country or in neighbouring Pakistan, or against people in Nepal and Bangladesh.
Many prominent reactionaries are calling for India to follow the example of the way that the US has unleashed aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq in its so-called “war on terrorism”. By this they mean that the Indian state should act similarly against Pakistan or Kashmir. Newspapers instigated a hunt of Muslim people in India, calling the police to treat all of them as suspicious. The police in Mumbai and other parts of India have begun to take action against the Muslim community. Men with a beard and Muslim cap are stopped and questioned. The Kashmiri people have rebelled ever since India since sent its army to occupy it and crush their right to self-determination. Currently India has 70,000 troops serving in its murder machine in occupied Kashmir. India has fought many wars with Pakistan. It launched war in Kargil a few years back and threatened to attack Pakistan again and again. It has fabricated many logics to justify its aggression. And time and again its rulers try to pose as proponents of peace. In the last few years a foreign secretary-level dialogue was established as part of a so-called peace process. And this so-called peace process is going to stall after the blasts. The wrangling and wars between India and Pakistan are the kind that occur among warlords; in fact, these regimes are made of warlords. The so-called peace talks they were holding are without any real agenda of peace.
Further, Indian hoodlums like Narendra Modi, the head of the state of Gujarat, have unleashed anti-Muslim terror time and again. The Indian state has tolerated countless anti-Muslim pogroms. And neither the Indian nor the Pakistani regime touches the real problems of the people.
The Mumbai bombings were an anti-people act no matter who committed them, whether it was the Islamic religious fundamentalist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba, as some Indian authorities claim, or other reactionaries with different motives. But the basic cause is a situation that inevitably breeds all kinds of violence, India’s oppressive social system and state and its hegemonic policy in the region.