Mumbai, 26/11 might have done its bit to resurrect the long-dead notions of “national character”. Even an elusive, momentary revival of this ghost would put us in an incredibly unflattering light. But how does it feel when sympathy and counsel come from foreign shores, but with “national character”, a stereotype if ever there was one, blinkering columnists and papers? They cannot altogether sunder us from ancient images of us built into their heads. From headlines and all-explaining straplines, you know what the Yanks would say. You know what the Brits can’t forget and what they don’t get. The curious variations on the same theme from the Continental press. And you know how boring the Israelis can be.

No offence should be taken where none is meant. In times when we are hurt, we seek out what others have to say about our pain because of their outsider’s “perspective”. We get part of what we want; we remain disappointed. To be fair, we’re guilty of looking for what we want to read. The Israeli press has been the most vocally sympathetic and outraged. They were reasonably more concerned about the Chabad victims, but came out ostensibly in support of closer Indo-Israeli ties. But then comes the harangue on Islamist terror which begins right but goes wrong as its rhetoric explodes and writes Palestinians into Indian Muslims. And yet, the Israeli and American press have made the best efforts to pull 26/11 in a global context; not just the fallout for the international community as the British press seems to have in mind. The US and Israeli press differ in the maturity and practicability of what they suggest. The three-pronged Israeli reading has been: the horror and sorrow of it all; the dangers posed by Islamist terror, with its origins in Islam per se; and how inefficient the Indian defence establishment is. P.S.: Of course, it must have been Pakistan.

... contd.