The worldwide sickness...

Today there has been a series of terrible bombings in Mumbai. When I first heard of this, I thought of how India is so often the victim of this kind of violence. Mumbai itself, back when it was known as Bombay, suffered a similar multiple bombing back in 1993 that left over 200 dead. In 2003, a pair of bombs in the city left almost 50 people dead. The struggle over the Kashmir has provoked many horrible massacres and bombings, including a brazen gun assault on India’s parliament in New Dehli in December, 2001. Recently, I’ve been reading up on the 1985 Air India Flight 182 bombing, where over 300 people (mainly Canadian citizens of British descent) died over the Atlantic ocean in a terrorist attack attributed to Sihk separatists. This was part of a long, vicious struggle over the Punjab region, a struggle that also claimed the lives of prime minister Indira Gandhi (assassinated by Sihk bodyguards on Halloween, 1984) as well as thousands of everyday Sihks who were massacred by vengeful mobs.

India, unfortunately, is a very dangerous and volatile place. If today’s bombings are the work of Al Qaeda (and they seem, at least on first glance, very similar to Al-Qaeda guided or inspired attacks in Madrid and London), then it means that the long-suffering Indian people have yet another band of fanatics to be on their guard against.