By Michael Backman
COMMENSURATE with accepting investment and trade from foreigners is a duty of care to protect them when they are on your soil, particularly when it is at your invitation. India has failed in this. Until it dramatically improves the physical protection it offers foreign business people, particularly in Mumbai, it cannot be seen as a secure destination for business and certainly not for business conventions and conferences.
Among peaceful nations, India is one of the most prone to terrorism. Up until last week, terrorists in India have exploded at least 86 bombs in the past 10 years, and killed at least 846 people, mostly by bombings. There have been three spates of bombings in Mumbai itself in the past five years — two in 2003 that killed at least 71 people and one in 2006 that killed 180 people.
So you would expect that India's authorities would be very good at dealing with terrorists; that they would know exactly what to do when under attack. You would certainly expect a country that runs the world's call centres and much of its back-office IT outsourcing to be able to tap the expertise needed for the electronic surveillance of would-be terrorists who similarly rely on modern communications infrastructure to plan and co-ordinate their misdeeds.
That less than a dozen young men could invade Mumbai, take up positions all over town and kill people for several days is extraordinary.
It's not as though Mumbai is a surprise terrorist target. It is India's financial centre. No longer do terrorists concentrate on political targets. Increasingly, they choose business targets.
The targeting by al-Qaeda of New York's World Trade Centre and by the IRA of London's financial district in the early 1990s are examples. In some respects it underscores the root cause of almost all terrorism: disparities when it comes to economic opportunity. Religion provides an air of moral justification, but only an air.
Similarly, it is business people and not politicians who are the new targets. Most of the killings in Mumbai last week were at the main train station where ordinary Indians were commuting home. The attacks at the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels were aimed not so much at tourists — Mumbai is hardly a tourist city — but at business people.
An India-Korea business conference was under way at the Taj Mahal hotel when last week's attacks took place. A British man who lost his life was the founder of a luxury boat-leasing business and worth around £325 million ($A750 million). One of the Australians to lose his life was a NSW Trade delegate. A Japanese businessman was shot and killed as he checked in.
The attack on Leopold's Cafe was in a similar vein. It is frequented by independent travellers — the sort of travel that educated Westerners do when they are having a break. It was an easy, unprotected target: its front is open to the street. All the gunmen had to do was stand on the footpath and shoot. Footage showed the table at which I've sat in the past and enjoyed fresh pomegranate juice and local Parsi-inspired curries, but now surrounded by bullet holes and blood.
The failure of the Indian authorities is glaring. Initial images of the stricken Taj Mahal hotel did not show the area cordoned off. Instead, people seemed to be milling about the front doors. Members of the security forces walked this way and that, unsure what to do.
What a contrast with how security personnel in, say, London react when there is a terrorist threat. Their cool precision and clockwork efficiency is a marvel to watch. Should we not also expect the same of India? Or should we simply declare India to be too poor and too hopeless? Perhaps it is the Indians themselves who can advise.
Protecting any city from terrorist attack is difficult, but protecting Mumbai should be relatively easy.
The business district is geographically small and sits on a thin peninsula formerly composed of a series of small islands, now joined.
The City of London might provide a model. The financial district (known as the City) was targeted for bomb attacks by the IRA in the early 1990s. The authorities developed what became popularly known as the "ring of steel" whereby roads entering the financial district were narrowed and chicanes were put in place to force drivers to slow down so that cars could be inspected or, at the very least, recorded by CCTV cameras. Road blocks and police sentry boxes were erected and armed police controlled entry to the area.
Patrolling access to Mumbai's business district should be even easier given that mostly it is surrounded by sea.
But can India afford this? How can it not? India is nowhere near as poor as it used to be and Mumbai itself is rich. India is quite able to offer special industrial estates where policing and infrastructure are all of a high standard so that business people need not face the inefficiencies that are the reality of India. So why not make Mumbai a special zone when it comes to security?
This is one thing that the Singapore Government gets right: it understands that foreign businesses don't simply want excellent telecommunications infrastructure. They also want to be safe in a region that has its share of Islamic extremists. And when it comes to protecting Singapore, its people and its visitors, the Singaporean authorities are devastatingly professional.
When it comes to security, Mumbai needs to become the Singapore of India. Until then, visiting business people in Mumbai should not feel safe because they are not safe.
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