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I have been tracking the role of citizen journalism in the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack in a timeline, a work-in-progress case study and a Flickr set of screenshots.

Hundreds of people — led by Vinukumar Ranganathan, Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin — shared news and other useful information from Mumbai on Twitter, Flickr and their blogs. Several bloggers live-blogged the event while Global Voices and DesiPundit worked hard to highlight the best posts.

However, even as we spent sleepless nights highlighting the most useful information on the Mumbai terror attack, several other people were busy spreading hate through some of the same online tools.

I don’t think of myself as particularly political and, in three years of blogging, I haven’t written even one post that is political in nature. My first tendency is to shy away from participating in emotionally charged political discussions like the ones beginning to dominate the Indian blogosphere now. I’m sure many of you feel the same way.

However, we will be doing ourselves great disservice if we step back and let the loonies take over. The 11/26 Mumbai terror attack is over, but the work of the online community in India is not over.

We need to ensure that these extremist fundamentalist elements don’t spread hate in the aftermath of the attack. We need to ensure that several more innocent lives are not lost in a Hindu-Muslim riot or an India-Pakistan war triggered off by the 11/26 terror attack. We need to ensure that the upcoming Indian elections are not hijacked by extremist reactions to what happened in Mumbai. And, for those, who insist on comparing 11/26 to 9/11, we need to ensure that we remember to learn from America’s excesses post-9/11.

I agree that our government has failed us in not being able to prevent or control the attack. I share your anger at those who were supposed to protect us and your annoyance with those who want us to show our resilient spirit and return to life as normal. I applaud the thought that we need to stay angry this time to ensure that such an incident doesn’t ever happen again.

However, even as we hold on to our anger, we need to channel it constructively and I call on you to come together to mobilize a constructive and nuanced discussion on the 11/26 Mumbai terror attacks and drown out the voices of these extremist elements.

Here is what you can do –

1. Delete such extremist comments from your blog posts. If required, activated comment moderation for a week. I have already deleted close to a hundred such comments from my blog and activated comment moderation.

2. Do not link to sensationalist posts that spread hate and divisiveness or propose conspiracy theories. I would especially urge Global Voices and DesiPundit to refrain from linking to such posts. It’s not the time to highlight all perspectives, when some of these perspectives may result in more violence.

3. At the same time, do comment on as many of these extremist posts as you can, to temper the emotionally charged discussions with reason. You may receive some hate mail yourself, but that’s surely a small price to pay.

4. If you write a blog, write a post advocating a calm, sensitive approach to the 11/26 terror attack. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 readers or 10,000; even if your post has a calming influence on one person, you would have made a difference.

5. Link to posts and news article which promote such an approach, like these posts –

Take the time to be a Mumbaikar rather than parasites that live off its resources. Stop looking the other way when unscrupulous politicians and crass media barons offend our sense of civility. Speak up when family, friends or colleagues voice their bigotry. Turn up to vote. Look at, really look, and listen to, and care about the people we share this city with.

And keep doing it, whether anyone else does or not, whether the change it makes is visible or not, whether it makes headlines or not. Or, at the very least, stop the damned platitudes. (Ingrid Srinath)

If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid?

So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. (Suketu Mehta in The New York Times)

What I would like to see is a grass-root, decentralized guerrilla movement of our own– Not one that equips youth, the lonely and the estranged with hatred, propaganda, fanaticism, weapon skills and fake passports, but one that equips (them)… with an awareness of what it takes to preserve one’s home and city– the community skills and ideas that make individuals realize that they are the first care-taker and good neighbor, not the police, and that there is no entitlement to safety and well being based solely on social or income levels, anymore. (Priyanka Joseph)

If we are going to be saddled with this stupid India’s 9/11 nonsense, we may as well draw what lessons we can from the analogy. In particular, we should draw the lesson that we must be suspicious of any and all claims that ascribe these attacks to foreign influence, that we must demand strong evidence for every alleged link to an outside terrorist group, that we must not allow ourselves to be fobbed off with poorly specified conspiracy theories, or be blinded to government incompetence by the bluster of their subsequent response. But most of all, that we must not allow ourselves to be taken over by the lethal combination of outrage and ignorance, must not allow our terror over today’s events (and we should be afraid, very afraid) to translate into self-righteousness, prejudice, violence and the surrender of our principles and freedoms. Even if today’s attack really is India’s 9/11 (whatever that means) we must make sure that India’s next seven years are not the US from 2001-2008. (Falstaff)

The ‘spirit of the Mumbaikar’ meme be damned, the state needs to recognize this for what it is: helplessness. We go to work come hell or high water [where Bombay is concerned, hell and high water, literally so] because as long as we are alive, there is nothing else to do; nothing else we can do. We go to work not to prove a point, but because there are no options. We go to work like we breathe—because there is nothing else. Respiro, ergo sum. (Prem Panicker)

But while the Pakistani government’s sober response is important, and the sincere expressions of outrage by individual Pakistanis are critical, I am still hoping for more. I am still hoping — just once — for that mass demonstration of “ordinary people” against the Mumbai bombers.

Why? Because it takes a village. The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities. (Thomas Friedman in The New York Times)

India and Pakistan are more alike than politicians of either country tend to acknowledge. The triumphal narrative of India as an incredible success, and the defeatist narrative of Pakistan as an impending disaster are both only half true.

The reason to look at the similarities between India and Pakistan is not to drag India down or to deny the wonderful accomplishments of which Indians should be proud. Rather, it is to point out that the countries are in this together. Their fights against extremism cannot be separated by national borders into convenient compartments, one marked “domestic” and the other “foreign”. Just as Pakistan and Afghanistan must cooperate if they are to solve the problems of violent extremism, so must Pakistan and India. (Mohsin Hamid in The Guaradian)

6. Organize an event to show your support to the victims of the 11/26 terror attack or highlight such events organized by other — Nov 30 Tweetup at Leopold Cafe, Facebook Wear White Event, Facebook Support 11/26 Fighters Event, Avaaz Unity Petition.

(Update: Here are two posts from Shefaly on understanding evil before choosing to ignore it or engage with it.)

Let’s come together to shape a moderate, nuanced online discussion on the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack. Let’s come together to ensure that we don’t repeat the mistakes others have made after such tragedies. Let’s come together to bring back calm and peace to Mumbai.