But perhaps not India’s 9/11. There are those who will certainly disagree with me, but I must note how easily life in other Indian cities appeared to continue even on Thursday, as the hotels were still under attack. Perhaps it couldn’t have been any other way. People were certainly concerned, upset, and angry, and security in Kolkata was definitely more than usual, but the kind of stunned silence, disbelief, and grief that I felt–and felt all around me on 9/11/2001 and the days following–were not present in India last week.
One might argue that it is because I myself am not Indian that I did not feel the same sadness and disbelief, but I honestly don’t think that’s the case. I was deeply upset by the terrorist attacks last week, and I followed the news every day. But those around me did not seem to have the overwhelming sense that this event would change their lives and their way of looking at the world forever (perhaps because India has suffered so many terrorist attacks in the last two decades).
And it just doesn’t seem useful to me to talk about anyone’s 9/11, in the same way that I don’t think it’s useful to talk about the Holocaust outside of the Nazi Germany context. This is Mumbai’s.. India’s … own tragedy, and it should stand on its own as a horrible, terrifying ordeal. The rest of the world shares in it–indeed, citizens from all over the world died–but it should not be compared to other events.
One of my favorite authors agrees with me, although he is much more articulate about it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/opinion/03ghosh.html?_r=1&hp
