Before I share my quasi-social-science experience of terror with you, I wish to suggest that following the tradition of classical Indian music, I begin with “Alap”, meaning rhythm-less, free elaboration on newer rags or moods/colours of violence in order to reflect, introspect and remember victims of violence, not just in India but elsewhere too. In other words, I will keep shifting between social science discourses and a mythopoetic language. So, while I reflect on terror strikes in Mumbai without any “evidence” or “opinion”, as I was away way from Mumbai, I also dare to look into the future, a future loosely handcuffed and half-blind and half-deaf! In short, I have no choice, but to speak and speak, and feel utterly influenced, dominated by a distant, remote, strange, and terrifying ‘master narrative’ – a mix of truths and lies –  called “9/11”, “September 11”, “le 11 septembre”. Unfortunately, “9/11” has become an “unforgettable event in the shared archive of a supposedly universal calendar” (Derrida, 2001). And we don’t yet know what it is, so we are forced to repeat it. In repeating, however, we also register our protest and resistance. I am told that all universal calendars run the risk of being split, ruptured, and ultimately overrun by so-called duplicate, counterfeit histories. And I am also reminded by my own ghosts of the past that, eventually, “bandits queens” turn out to be the most seductive and desirable. So repeating and remembering could be a potentially subversive act!

Social Science Context of Terror: New Violence

Mumbai terror has once again reminded us in the starkest and darkest terms about the most ugly and horrifying face of global terror. Though India is no stranger to terror, given the level of coordination, sophistication and efficiency in the execution of terror plans in Mumbai, it has become abundantly clear that global terror is no longer unpredictable, arbitrary and chaotic. It has also become clear that Mumbai terror was not a case of spontaneous volcanic outbursts of some so-called “ancient rage” or frequent manifestation of “India’s own atrocity” or a “violent conspiracy to deny India its rising power status in the world”. Indeed, it was a calculated, calibrated act of violence aimed at eliminating not only the “idea of India” but making the very idea of human freedom irrelevant around the world.

In contrast to the violence of World War I and II and also the violence of the “totalitarian” regimes of the 20th century, the violence of terrorism is epochal, messianic, carnivalesque, and purely anti-political. More significantly, it derives its psychotic energy and political appeal from the spectacle of breaking or big news. Spectacle releases it from the shackles of invisibility and inaudibility. So it would be a grave mistake to think that the modern terror represents violence of the “wretched of the earth” or “double mediation of violence” required to become a new man without “white skin and black mask” (Fanon, 1952). Unlike the violence of the revolutionary peasants or working classes, the new violence does not like soiling its feet in the muddy-slushy rice fields or dirty factories in the poorer parts of the world. In fact, the essence of global terror lies in the sanitization, deterriteriolization and depoliticization of violence – a picture perfect world of violence!

Popular understanding of terror as “unforgivable crime”, “culture wars”, “ethnic cleansing”, “neurotic disorders”, “deficit of secularism”, or reducing Mumbai terror to a particularistic reading of a nation’s “past and present” would not again help us understand the nature of a new type of violence rooted in the rationality, technologies and networks of globalization. Though it often speaks in the multiple languages of “avenging historical wrongs”, “primordial loyalty”, “homelessness”, “perversions of nationalism”, “evils of capitalism”, and “stigmatized Other of the modernity”, etc., the new violence of terror is powered by modern technologies of globalization and characterized by totalitarian’s dreams to erase cultural and political differences among nations, communities and individuals. Ironically, fuelled by the twin processes of associational and informational revolutions in the 1980s, global terror has slowly emerged as “a supranational sphere of social and political participation” for newer social actors, especially those excluded from the hegemonic neo-liberal structures of power and prosperity. In other words, global terror has intimately been aligned with “mobile, slippery, shifty, evasive, and fugitive power” structures of what Bauman calls “liquid modernity” (Bauman, 2000). It is in this sense that India has finally, willingly or unwillingly, joined the unfolding universal journey of so-called “9/11”!

In contrast to the centrally organized, bureaucratically managed, legitimate secular violence of the nation-state system, the new violence is deeply ingrained in the emerging globalized moral economy of war. Ironically, terror has also emerged as the “movement of the movements” as it has replicated itself on the organic, decentralized, interlinked pathways of the Internet. So it does not come as a surprise that affirmation of the terror is often claimed in the emails. The violence of the old wars of the nation-states was organized by the standing army and maintained by the extensive system of public revenue. On the contrary, new violence has been largely financed by “private donations” and perpetrated by irregular “violent entrepreneurs” without any fixed military uniforms. In Mumbai terror, clean shaven entrepreneurs of violence discarded their dangerous-looking traditional outfits and wore modern cargo pants and t-shirts emblazoned with “Versace”. This shows their painfully complicated relation with both tradition and modernity. The new terrorists prefer “flux metaphysics” (where nothing is stable or enduring) rather than transcendent metaphysics. Therefore, Mumbai terror is not a typical Clausewitzean case of “continuation of politics by other means”. It is fundamentally anti-political and essentially nihilistic as it speaks only of “grievances, identities, and virtues” without any reference to human beings as constituted by their real social relations and individuals rights. It flourishes on the fear of no future -ask any suicide bomber!

India’s Experience with Global Terror

Interestingly, with their hands soiled in the hierarchical feudal social order and dreams tucked into the faraway “land of opportunity”, post-Nehruvians both from Secular and Hinduvta benches, stylistically pride themselves on the unintended consequences of “democratic upsurge” but have miserably failed to protect people from the regular and dramatic furies of violence, local and global. More importantly, the “political class” in India as a whole has refused to read the new alphabet of violence. Busy in breaking down the last barriers of a caste-ridden hierarchical society, democracy’s will to power, or lust for power has kept growing more strident ignoring deeper issues of substantive justice. It is no surprise that “welfare state” in India has gradually turned into an idiosyncratic paradox – a noir of crude devlopmetalism and market fundamentalism. The search for a new genealogy of increasing cases of so-called “mindless violence” has taken our “predatory politicians” everywhere from Kashmir to Narendra Modi in Gujarat, but they have deliberately decided to ignore the new “heart of darkness”. In fact, they mischievously feign ignorance about farmers committing suicides in Vidharbha or birds committing mass suicide in the Jatinga village of Assam. Some politicians have in fact come to relish “terror tourism”. (India’s former Home Minister allegedly changed his dress three times while visiting blast-affected places in Delhi.)

Moreover, fighting terror, ironically, does not guarantee electoral dividends. That’s why the struggle against terror has become a form of chasing ad-hoc, provisional cases of violence from one moment to the next. The points, knots or centres where the new “community warriors” reside have became so opaque that we think blaming usual suspects like surrogate agents of ISI in Pakistan or Dawood Ibrahim in the Gulf would be enough to end the cycle of violence. This amply explains why India has failed to respond not only strategically but also politically in dealing with the increasing cases of terror. This is no surprise for some of us as we are aware that liberal democracy has not always been an antidote against terror; terror against itself and its citizens especially “suffering, insurgent citizens”. Historically, liberal states have also been involved in mass murders, assassinations, massacres and pogroms of populations considered “suspect”, “subversive” and “evil doers”.

Now there is more order and sanity in the chaotic universe of global violence; Mumbai comes after Delhi, Ahmadabad, and Jaipur etc. The strategy is clear – the new violence does not want remain anonymous any longer, now it wishes to serialize the violence. First elevating it to the “sexy, seductive” narcissistic pleasure of a grand spectacle then reducing it to the level of a banal soap opera! It is in this sense that terror becomes a unique opportunity to experience an abstracted hedonistic sexual pleasure. More importantly, by choosing to attack hotels, railways stations, busy streets, hospitals, restaurants, etc., terrorists have decided to suffocate free, open public spheres where people act in concert with each other as sweating, suffering, breathing and, also, smiling creatures. Arising from the “breakdown of communicative rationality”, the new violence has brutally reminded us about the darker layers of public spheres and vulnerabilities of open societies (Habermas, 2001).

This shows why teenaged terrorists from a little-known so-called Deccan Mujahidden (the word “Deccan” shows continuing fascination with territory) attempted to eliminate the “multitude” at the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy in India. And, unlike riots and caste massacres, they indiscriminately killed rich and poor, men and women, native and foreigner and slaughtered Hindus, Muslims, Christians and foreigners without respecting any signs of difference. According to media reports, about 40 Muslims have been killed in the Mumbai violence.

The entrepreneurs of new violence live perpetually in the private space as they can’t be brainwashed, trained and taught “fidayeen methods” in the open public spaces. The growing complexities, anxieties, and dilemmas of perpetually living in the “private sphere” constituted by deeply hierarchical, masculine, gendered power relations have forced these terrorists to seek revenge against the very idea of “multitude” that has allegedly marginalized and humiliated them, to the extent that they have become a new species, a new breed of self-sacrificing monstrous martyrs – unfortunately without any memorial service! Revolving around dangerously fictitious ideas of brotherhood, loyalty and trust, terrorists reject the conception of individual rights, universal rule of law and social justice as Nietzschean “historical tragedies and injuries”. So the “micro-politics” of terror anchored in the heterogeneous, dispersed, decentred networks, hubs, spokes beyond borders is the most violent and brutal effect of globalization. Paradoxically, as Baudrillard reminded us in his notorious remark that the “Gulf war did not take place”, once the terror loses its status of “grand spectacle”, (loss of primetime status or breaking news status) the terror will be normalized into everyday forms of daily violence of living – this is the strange victory of new terror. It will continue to remain a strange monster and an intimate neighbour. It is in this sense that neoliberals and suicide bombers shall live together longer than expected or anticipated!

Conclusion

In short, Mumbai terror symbolizes the unfolding global march of an extremely exclusivist, violent, modern project to make human beings superfluous and human freedom irrelevant. Unfortunately, democracy can’t afford more zones of “closure”, “seizure” and “exits”, as these will suffocate its intrinsic capacity to resolve the dilemmas of open society. There already exists a growing global consensus on respecting both the living and dead and minimizing the social distance between dwellers of paradise and hell. I am sure terror can kill only our first lives; it cannot maim or kill our more “authentic second lives” that are meant to begin as soon as we begin mourning the loss of lives – separated in life yet united in death.

In other words, not only victims need an honourable remembrance but perpetrators also deserve a respectful burial – this I am sure will lead to what Hannah Arendt called “natality” – an unprecedented beginning – resisting universal calendars of tyranny and respecting the multitude, however messy, dirty, unpleasant they may be. Therefore, norms of civility and justice demand No crusade, No jihad, and definitely No counter-terror – self sacrifice must ultimately be rooted in radical non-violence! After all terror is notoriously unreal and obscene!