A couple of weeks ago I was interviewing Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, for a foreign business magazine.  He told me that India’s middle class’ favourite game is Blame the Politician.  But after the ghastly terrorist strikes in Mumbai, a clearer picture of which is just emerging, Indian business could be justified in declaring that India’s political system and its administration are seriously wanting.

A day after terrorists armed with automatic weapons, grenades and RDX attacked the Chathrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the Trident and Nariman House, all within walking distance of Mumbai’s financial district, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was on live television to deliver a message to the country.  For Indian business, already besieged by the fact that 10 men took a city of 13 million hostage, and looking to draw courage and inspiration from the political leadership, that deadpan speech and its lack of a significant message was a massive letdown.

As the siege ended, analysts estimated the economic losses of the Mumbai attacks as 50,000 crore rupees. A travel company said the Indian travel business was hit with a double whammy: the global economic recession and then the Mumbai terror attacks.  The chief of a large hospital chain estimated that it would take months if not years for foreigners to venture into India for medical treatments given the state of security in the country’s hotels and hospitals. Some foreign companies were rumoured to have put their expat executives on the first flight home. No surprises then that neither the man on the street nor the business leader in his office is comforted that the taxes they pay can guarantee them a feeling of security.

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