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title: 2008 Mumbai Attacks: See TIME&#x27;s Cover Story Seven Years Ago
description: How the killing of more than 150 people made the city, and India, take a long hard look at itself
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article:published_time: 2015-11-26T06:16:08.000Z
article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:57:01.616Z
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og:title: See TIME&#x27;s Cover Story on the Mumbai Attacks of 2008
og:description: How the atrocities made the city, and India, take a long hard look at itself
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![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd592f717fc7aca8/698872d92dce0100cf9e6ac2/20081215_400.jpg?branch=production&width=400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9)


# Seven Years Later, a Look Back at TIME's Cover on the 2008 Mumbai Attacks

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MSiBK5G0.m3u8" -->
## Video: Mumbai's Defiant Residents

[Watch (HLS stream): Mumbai's Defiant Residents](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MSiBK5G0.m3u8) (3:20)

![Mumbai's Defiant Residents](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/MSiBK5G0/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2008-12-02. At a candlelight vigil, Mumbai residents rally and demand change after their city was attacked_


by 

[Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/)


## Rishi Iyengar


Nov 26, 2015 6:16 AM UTC

![TIME-cover-india-pain-mumbai-attacks](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd592f717fc7aca8/698872d92dce0100cf9e6ac2/20081215_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=3:2)

"India's Pain," cover of TIME's Dec. 4, 2008 issue.

"India's Pain," cover of TIME's Dec. 4, 2008 issue. TIME

by 

[Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/)


## Rishi Iyengar


Nov 26, 2015 6:16 AM UTC

Mumbai is no stranger to terrorism. The bustling, teeming metropolis on India’s western seaboard has faced nearly a dozen militant attacks since the early 1990s, most of them in the form of explosives placed on its overcrowded public transport systems. The South Asian nation’s financial capital has thus become known for its resilience, and the so-called “Mumbai spirit” that allows it to bounce back and move on from such atrocities.

On this day in 2008, however, the gunning down of more than 150 people in a series of coordinated simultaneous attacks, by terrorists who entered from the Arabian Sea that frames Mumbai’s picturesque skyline, would make the city — and country — take a long, hard look at itself.

As TIME wrote in a [cover story](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1864207,00.html) a week after the attacks entitled “India’s Pain”:

---

> “”

---

Most of the core social and political issues that the story goes on to describe, laid bare by the shock of the “26/11” attacks — India’s [tenuous relationship](http://time.com/4065782/ghulam-ali-mumbai-concert-canceled-shiv-sena/) with neighboring Pakistan, its [treatment](http://time.com/4060906/dadri-lynching-beef-bisara-mohammad-akhlaq/) of its own Muslim population and its [preparedness](http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/today-india-is-as-vulnerable-as-mumbai-was-on-26-11/story-pro9TL39zQUvb3WqHO0KWK.html) for future acts of violence — endure today.

But even as Mumbai stops to remember, it continues to question.

[_Read the full cover story from 2008 here in the TIME archives_](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1864207-1,00.html)

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