Another group’s Facebook page urges taking military matters into citizens’ hands by making basic military training mandatory for all Indians. “Why should we depend on our political leaders to protect us when we know that our entire political system is rotten to the core with corruption and greed for power?”
But doubts have already begun to emerge about the efficacy of the various citizen-driven peace marches and protest groups that have sprouted like wild flowers. “One of the more mocking messages to my email said: ‘How come nobody thought of it before, that we wear a black badge and Mumbai’s problems get solved?’” Sundaresan, a partner at a law firm, says. An undercurrent of sentiment doubts the tangible change that these groups can bring about, despite the best of intentions.
Dealing with death
Partly, it is because they have to struggle against the dubious perception that mass deaths, however caused, have become a part of life in Mumbai. Even at St George’s Hospital, where the wounded and dead were first rushed in, a doctor could not shake that perception. “We’re so familiar with this, you know,” says the doctor, who refused to be named because he was not allowed to speak to the press. “Every year, something happens—a building collapse, or a bomb, or very heavy rains. We’ve gotten used to dealing with injury and death on this scale.”
Another part of the problem lies in the language used in an otherwise noble quest, language that is often as platitudinous and devoid of clear targets as that used by the politicians it decries.
One circulating SMS, intending to rally people at the Gateway of India on Wednesday evening, called itself a non-cooperation movement “of sorts”, to “tell the leaders…that we want our safety” and show “we are not going to take this lying down”.
Placards on the pavement near the (Oberoi) Trident hotel ask politicians to “leave us alone”. A petition on the website Avaaz (voice) wishes simply to declare that “the terrorist attacks in Mumbai have not divided us, will not divide us, and that we stand together, as one people” and asks for “effective action” against the spread of violence.
Lulla occasionally lapses into such stale terminology himself—at one point, he says the black badge will stand for “accountability”; at another point, “commitment”—but he insists this movement has measurable objectives. He mentions the now-widespread demand for a Mumbai-based unit of the National Security Guard (NSG), one that is likely to be fulfilled in the aftermath of the attacks. “If the NSG has to be woken up somewhere else and then flown in, that is unacceptable for a city like Mumbai,” Lulla says.
Financial plank
The other objectives of the Black Badge Movement include “an effective crisis-management infrastructure” for the city, though it does not specify the nature of the infrastructure, and a demand for a public report on these terror attacks, to be filed by the Union and state governments, on what went wrong and what is being done to prevent further attacks.