Two terrible nights in November
It was late on a Wednesday night in 2008 in Mumbai, and I was just about to step out of the house when my mobile phone erupted with messages from friends and family about something strange happening in the city. I decided to stay at home and put on the television. There were multiple stories doing the rounds about bombings and shootings all over the city, but all of them sounded unconfirmed.
Although there had been several bombings and attacks in Indian cities before, there was never a sense of fear to go out or travel by public transport. Mumbai is a huge city and I was quite sure the incidents would not affect my plans, so I was about to dismiss the news as rumors when I heard it, a blast in a cab not very far from where I lived, in Vile Parle.
What happened?
So to put it across briefly, 10 highly trained members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant organisation based in Pakistan, carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308.
All of the attacks ended the very night itself, except for the main site of the attacks, the iconic Taj Mahal Hotel, long a symbol of Mumbai’s glamour and progress. The Taj chain is often rated as one of the world’s best hotel chains, and the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai was their first and flagship hotel. It was also especially close to Indian hearts as an Indian entrepreneur Jamsetji Tata, also the founded of one of India’s largest conglomerates: the Tata Group built it during the times of forceful British occupation in 1903.
Impact on Tourism
Tourism took a hit in India after the attacks. Alarmed after the 2008 attacks, many countries issued advisories to their citizens traveling to India regarding terrorist attacks in the country.
India on the other hand, issued a new visa regulation, which made it mandatory for all foreign nationals to maintain a two-month gap between exiting the country and re-entering it. The regulation was a big blow to tourists who would want to visit the country again.
In numbers
The Government of India admitted that the number of tourist arrivals in India had dropped by 3.3% but also added that the reasons apart from terrorism were global meltdown and swine flu scare. The figure crept down to 5.11 Million foreign tourists in 2009 from 5.28 Million in 2008.
Spirit of Mumbaikars
One positive and probably the most amazing thing about the attacks was that it showed the world the true spirit of Mumbai, a truly cosmopolitan world city that never sleeps nor stops for anyone or anything. The very next day everyone was at work, even as the hostage crisis at the Taj Hotel went on. For the first time political parties were not blaming each other and there was a unanimous demand for substantial action to be taken.
Unfortunately, Pakistani authorities released the mastermind of the attacks, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, two days after the Peshawar school attack where 132 school children were massacred by Pakistani terrorists due to the degrading situation of law and order in that country.
Fast forward 7 years, and it was a cold November night in Paris, France. I was living in the 4th arrondissement and was about to head out to the 11th arrondissement to meet my friends when I heard a lot of sirens on the street and many helicopters overhead. My phone erupted with messages from friends and family about something strange happening in the city….
