--- title: 2008 Mumbai Attacks: See TIME'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 canonical: https://time.com/4127725/mumbai-attacks-2008-2611-india-pakistan-time-cover/ author: Rishi Iyengar article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-26T06:16:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:55:13.611Z article:section: History og:title: See TIME'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 og:url: https://time.com/4127725/mumbai-attacks-2008-2611-india-pakistan-time-cover/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd592f717fc7aca8/698872d92dce0100cf9e6ac2/20081215_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 20081215_400 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See TIME's Cover Story on the Mumbai Attacks of 2008 twitter:description: How the atrocities made the city, and India, take a long hard look at itself twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd592f717fc7aca8/698872d92dce0100cf9e6ac2/20081215_400.jpg?branch=production&width=828&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Seven Years Later, a Look Back at TIME's Cover on the 2008 Mumbai Attacks ## Video: Mumbai's Defiant Residents [Watch (HLS stream): Mumbai's Defiant Residents](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MSiBK5G0.m3u8) (3:20)  _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  "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. 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