Measured in fatalities and injuries, the worst terrorist attacks have been in New York, Al-Qataniyah (Iraq), Al-Adnaniyah (Iraq), Abadan, Beslan, Bombay (1993), Nairobi, Dar es Saalam, Beirut, Ben Talha (Algeria), Ami Moussa (Algeria), Mecca, Sidi Moussa (Algeria), Hais Rais (Algeria), Kuta, Baghdad, Mumbai (2006), Moscow, Oklahoma, Sophia, Anuradhapura, Karachi, Manila, Colombo, Kandahar and so on. Within India, in addition to Mumbai, we have Coimbatore, Srinagar, Delhi, Jammu, Varanasi, Malegaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad, not to mention Surat. Given terrorist objectives, attacks work when there is a concentration of people. The Akshardham temple, Sankatmochan Mandir (Varanasi) and Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad) follow the same logic. Barring planes and trains, terrorism is an urban phenomenon. Naxalite violence is somewhat different. This is Carlos Marighella in his1969 Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla: “The government has no alternative except to intensify its repression. The police networks, house searches, the arrest of suspects and innocent persons, and the closing off of streets make life in the city unbearable.” There are reasons why cities evolved, all centred around positive externalities — transport, other infrastructure and services, security and protection, larger markets, economies of scale and scope in production and distribution, labour markets.

After the recent round of attacks, there will be discussions on cross-border effects, ineffectiveness of intelligence, under-manning of police, the proposed federal counter-terrorism agency and ineffectiveness of the judicial system. In its attempt to be fair to the accused, the judicial system imposes collateral damage on the innocent. Why should it be different when the accused are terrorists? These points are extremely important. However, let’s focus on the urban aspect: any urban Indian resident will now be exposed to police barricades and metal detectors. No bombs have ever been identified through metal detectors, and no terrorists have ever been caught through barricades. We will be told gathering preventive intelligence in cities is impossible. Every individual is anonymous. Terrorists have imbibed Mao Zedong’s adage to guerrillas: they disappear like fish in the sea. But that’s not really true. An individual is anonymous only if one looks at a city as a unified urban agglomeration. No city is like that. The residential areas of every city are nothing but modernised villages, connected to each other through networks of the kind that made cities evolve. Am I, however, anonymous to the centralised police system? I probably am, because no one remembers police verification at the time of passport-issuance. Am I anonymous to the local police station? I probably am, because data collected at the time of passport-issuance has not percolated through to local police.

... contd.