In this past week since terrorists struck Mumbai, a lot of Indians have poured their hearts out in newspapers, magazines, and blogs. A lot of their writings are angry, hawkish, and nationalistic; many are gushing, mawkish, and oozing with purple prose; a handful offer vignettes of courage or heartfelt pain. Below are some of the more significant and less popular viewpoints I’ve encountered:

Enough is Enough by Badri Raina:

“As I have listened to the outrage pouring out from a diverse assortment of some celebrity Mumbai citizens whose haunts habitually remain restricted to the affluent South Mumbai—a zone of peace and prosperity that has had its first rite of passage to the ugliness that afflicts the rest of the city, indeed the rest of India, and rest of the world—I find myself asking the question “who is it saying ‘enough is enough’, to whom, and why now”?” (thanks to Ruchira Paul)

Mumbai Atrocities Highlight Need for Solution in Kashmir by William Dalrymple:

“In the months ahead, we are likely to see a security crackdown in India and huge pressure applied to Pakistan to match its pro-Indian and pro-Western rhetoric with real action against the country’s jihadi groups. But there is unlikely to be peace in South Asia until the demands of the Kashmiris are in some measure addressed and the swamp of grievance in Srinagar somehow drained. Until then, the Mumbai massacres may be a harbinger of more violence to come.”

The Fires in South Asia by Vijay Prashad:

“Bombay is not virginal. It is experienced. But this violence has struck at the heart of the enclave of the elite. When they say that this is Mumbai’s 911, it is true. This is an attack into the heart of the zones of comfort in Indian cities. Other dates resonate in other neighborhoods. Some of them refer to events forgotten or unresolved: killers remain at large, justice remains unfulfilled. Almost a thousand people died in the riots of 1992-1993. They died in places like Dharavi and Pydhonie. Two hundred thousand Muslims fled the city in its aftermath”

Fresh Blood from an Old Wound by Pankaj Mishra:

“[In a phone call, a] gunman invoked the oppression of Muslims by Hindu nationalists and the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. Such calls were the only occasions on which the militants … offered a likely motive for their indiscriminate slaughter. Their rhetoric seems all too familiar. Nevertheless, it shows how older political conflicts in South Asia have been rendered more noxious by the fallout from the “war on terror” and the rise of international jihadism.”

Democracy Now’s panel discussion hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez:

“A discussion on the attacks in Mumbai … with South Asian History professor Vijay Prashad, New York City-based activist Biju Mathew, veteran journalist and commentator Tariq Ali and award-winning activist and journalist from Mumbai Teesta Setalvad.”