Unlike many such events, the reports from Mumbai weren't exaggerated. If anything, they were understated - the BBC didn't make it their top headline until the deaths were officially thought to be into three figures, while initial reports said that the number of explosions was two, then three, five, six, eventually seven. Deaths were initially assumed, but not quantified, then said to be in the low tens, then the dozens, then 130, then 180. Now it is thought that 200 have died. When the scale of atrocity was finally extraordinary enough to top the headlines (and look how strangely fast has been its relegation back into the fragmentary, chaotic, pot pourri of racist media reporting about Over There), the usual template for dealing with these things was accessed with glib facility: We Sympathise, We Stand Firm, They Hate Our Democracy, Whodunnit, Is it Al Qaeda, They Hate Our Freedom, They Hate Secularism etc etc. We will, supposing there is much more heard of this, have to hear from various hacks that Mumbai is unbeaten, and that India's political leadership has vowed to stand firm. There was the suggestion that it might be groups fighting for independence for Kashmir, or 'Al Qaeda'. It is certainly a tactic redolent of those used by the latter, but I don't feel like speculating for ages only to insult you with the conclusion that "I dunno". The Indian state would certainly like to blame Kashmiris and increase its repression there.

One thing that is very obvious is that the coverage has shown little concern with the people who live and work in Mumbai, but then it never does. Neither the Indian government nor its wealthy elite are particularly interested either. The fact that it is India's financial capital is much noted, but nothing will be said about the slums where almost fifty per cent of the city's population lives and the fact that the death rate there is fifty per cent higher than elsewhere - forty per cent of total mortality in Mumbai's slums is attributable to infections and parasitic diseases resulting from water contamination and lousy sanitation. People are literally dying in their tens of thousands every year simply because of the state's capitalist development policies in which: water costs 4000% more than usual because they have to get it from vendors rather than having it piped in; half the population has no toilet; the vast restaurant and food service economy is supported by a huge pool of child labour; local power has been usurped by 'urban development authorities' whose remit is to plug the city's wealthy elite into the global cyber-community; World Bank schemes supposedly designed to help the city's poor have poured state money into improving the property of the middle and upper classes. Mumbai is suffering, like everywhere else in India, from a ruthless process of wealth transfer (sometimes known as 'liberalisation') ordered by the IMF and implemented by the government. This is why the IMF was among the targets at the World Social Forum in the city in 2004.

And what of the trains? There is a reason, apart from the number and size of the blasts, why so many were killed. One thing that everyone in my workplace commented on when hearing the news (there are lots of people with relatives in India, both Hindu and Muslim) was that the trains in Mumbai are absolutely stuffed to the rafters, with people transported in conditions that would raise considerable protest if applied to animals. Mumbai's Western Railway, targeted by the attackers, has been the scene of satyagrahis only this year because of the preposterous, crushing overcrowding on the trains, and the company's decision to cut back on rolling stock. Predictably, the police repressed these. These packed trains were an easy target for whoever wanted to bomb them.

It is platitudinous but necessary to mention that of course Muslims were among those targeted. 17% of the city's population is Muslim. There are real fears that these attacks could be used to spark a wave of communal violence as was the result when the city was bombed in 1993. Indian Muslims, for their part, have been giving blood to the wounded victims of these attacks. So much is to be expected. Also worth noting is that India's Muslim electorate has swung sharply to more left-wing parties in recent years - a radicalisation strongly rooted in the success of the World Social Forum, which gave expression to the anticapitalist and anti-imperialist movements. The politics of unity and working class struggle have been supplanting those of accomodation through the Congress party. (Historically, anti-colonial Muslims were often prominently involved in the communist party in its foundation, partly preferring it to the Hindu iconography that sometimes dominated the Congress party). Something will be done about that. As Ellis Sharp notes, the Hindu-supremacist tradition of nationalist-religious bigotry associated with the BJP also happens to be the most hawkish, pro-Zionist, pro-imperialist force in India. It is easy enough to imagine how they and their political allies might try to use these attacks to resuscitate their support and break the rising tide of militancy by scapegoating Muslims. At the same time, the Congress party has betrayed supporters by pushing through more IMF-inspired 'reforms', sought nuclear and military collaboration with Bush and consolidated relations with Israel. India's ambassador recently told an Israeli audience that their two countries were "heirs to great and ancient civilisations". Congress has been as repressive in Kashmir as their reactionary predecessors, and precisely as fervent in the military build-up against Pakistan. The reaction to these attacks from the External Affairs Minister has been to demand that Pakistan 'dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism', which closely mirrors the reaction of the BJP to the 2001 attacks on the Indian parliament building. All indications are that the Congress government will pursue the same dogged path, while using the situation to bring errant Muslims back into line. Who knows, perhaps some 'moderates' will be selected to go to their communities and 'root out this evil'. And then capital can resume at an increased pace the exploitation of Indian labour, while the state continues to holds its population under the threat of thermonuclear megadeath. The fact that this is how states almost always respond to terrorist attacks tells you how concerned they are for the population, and for those who died.

Oh, and good news for investors: Mumbai's stock market shrugged off the attacks and market pros are upbeat.

***

Statement on the bombings.