In his intervention in Thursday’s Parliament debate on the Mumbai aggression, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh outlined a three-pronged strategy to defeat the relentless terror originating from Pakistan. Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the prime minister called for a galvanisation of the international community in rooting out the sources of international terrorism in Pakistan; ruled out, at least for the moment, a military response, favouring persisting with diplomatic pressure on Islamabad; and promised a root and branch overhaul of the internal security system. Although it might be the only way going forward, the road ahead is full of potholes.

The most important element of the three-fold strategy is the reform of the internal security system that has utterly failed to address the terrorist challenge that has stared at the nation for so long. To the extent that the new home minister, P. Chidambaram, inspires a lot more confidence than his predecessor and has already outlined a number of steps to revamp the internal security structures, there are welcome signs of a new purposefulness in North Block.

But the tasks that confront Chidambaram are contradictory. On the one hand, his focus must necessarily be short term — to prevent a follow-on attack after Mumbai that would destroy the nation’s political confidence in the government’s ability to protect citizens. On the other hand, in the few months that he has in hand, Chidambaram must also lay out an ambitious framework for a structural reform of India’s internal security apparatus. Even in the best of times that is a daunting task. But better late than never.

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