A Gash in the Fabric of Mumbai

The boys sent to wage this destruction dressed in the uniform of urbanized youth around the world: jeans and designer T-shirts. The surviving captured terrorist, Azam Amir Kasab, the baby-faced 21-year-old in the faux Versace T-shirt whose picture was widely circulated and who looked like any normal kid but for the AK-47 on his arm, reportedly underwent such sophisticated training that he and a handful of others were able to kill nearly 200 people -- including women and children mown down in cold blood -- injure hundreds of others, nearly destroy Mumbai's greatest landmark and bring a city and a country to the point of crisis.

These kids were turned into precision killing machines by professionals, almost certainly by Lashkar-i-Taiba, a terrorist organization dedicated to "freeing" Kashmir from India that works with both al-Qaeda and the Indian organized crime don Dawood Ibrahim. It appears increasingly clear that both had a hand in the Mumbai attack. Their goals are also becoming increasingly clear: to punish Mumbai, give the lie to India's economic rise by bringing its financial capital to its knees, scare the living daylights out of foreign business investors and tourists, tempt Hindu nationalists into retaliating against India's Muslim citizens, focus the United States and a weak government in Pakistan on dealing with an angry India rather than targeting the Taliban and al-Qaeda elements they work with in the Afghan borderlands.

But what about those kids who were sent in to do the deed and to reap certain death? It strikes me that they look just like the young contestants on "Indian Idol" or the sweet kid who's the main character in the movie "Slumdog Millionaire," who wins a spot on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and is certain that the girl he loves will be watching. Except that these guys were starring in an action-movie-style orgy of destruction where the millionaires were the targets, dropping like bloodied rag dolls with every squeeze of the trigger. With each furtive glance at their BlackBerrys to check the progress of the international television special in which they were starring, did the terrorists in Mumbai think about the folks back home who might be watching with pride? Did their hearts swell to know that they'd made it, like the contestants on the many game shows, for one brief flash of fame? As my heart bleeds, I imagine that is why they were smiling.

miraukamdar@gmail.com

Mira Kamdar, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute and a fellow at the Asia Society, is the author of "Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World."