The Freedom Tower

The Globe and Mail.com says “More than any other place, Mumbai is the centre of the New India: open, dynamic, cosmopolitan - the capital of frothy films, capitalist finance, champagne lifestyles and everything else that extremists despise. In that sense, Wednesday’s attacks recalled the 9/11 attacks on New York, a deliberate assault on the capital of U.S. finance in a city renowned for its go-go pace and relentless materialism.

As such, it was an irresistible target for the attackers who burst into gilded hotel lobbies with guns blazing on Wednesday, killing more than 100 people.

No one can say for sure yet who was responsible for the highly organized attacks, but the choice of Mumbai and the targets there - first-class hotels, a café popular with Western tourists, a Jewish centre - appeared to be a deliberate assault on all that Mumbai represents.

“Mumbai is a symbol of wealthy, modernized, Westernized India; an India that, in the mind of radicalized Muslim youth, has lost it way,” said University of Toronto intelligence expert Wesley Wark.

Prof. Wark said homegrown extremist groups such as the Indian Mujahedeen have been trying to court disadvantaged Muslims who are being left behind in the country’s rush to riches. If those groups are responsible, the attacks “could be the start of a war of poor against the rich, or country against the cities,” he said. “In that respect, Mumbai is a perfect target.”

Mumbai is the Manhattan, Chicago and Hollywood of India rolled into one. Bollywood, India’s film industry, is centred in the city. Almost all the big business dynasties, from the Ambanis to the Birlas, make their homes there. The owner of the glorious Taj Mahal Palace hotel, invaded by the attackers and set ablaze in the fighting, is the Tata Group, headed by India’s best known business mogul, Ratan Tata.

Mumbai’s stature has grown as India has emerged from its inward-looking, protectionist shell in the past two decades, opening up to trade and investment and embracing the free market with a distinctly Indian verve. It is a mandatory stop for any executive hoping to drum up business with booming India and a magnet for tourists keen to see “Indian shining,” the phrase a former government used to tag the country’s rise.

By hitting it, the attackers could achieve several objectives at once. First, they could kill or seize Westerners, who congregate conveniently in the city’s big hotels and night spots with little or no protection.

Second, they could guarantee themselves around-the-world coverage. A string of deadly attacks over the past year in lesser cities such as Ahmedabad and Surat got little coverage internationally, even though they killed more than 200 people.

Third, they could wound India’s $1.2-trillion (U.S.) economy, already faltering from the global economic slowdown. As India’s biggest city, with a population of up to 20 million, Mumbai accounts for 40 per cent of the country’s foreign trade, 40 per cent of its income tax revenue and 10 per cent of its factory employment.”