There is a famous observation by Sherlock Holmes in one of his cases about the dog that did not bark. That was the clue to the criminal’s identity. I cannot resist a similar unease about the attack on the Rajdhani Express, which did not injure any passenger. Here is a classic case of the politics of a particular province being leveraged into condoning a national disgrace. We shudder when Raj Thackeray pursues his Marathi manoos obsession in acts that are subversive of the Constitution. Of course, he has not been really brought to book because as we saw in the latest Maharashtra elections, he is quite useful for the Congress to keep the BJP and the Shiv Sena at bay. Divide and Rule is always an effective strategy. Sometimes, of course, it blows up in your face, as Indira Gandhi found with Sant Bhindranwale. She promoted him to harass the Akali Dal and then could not control him.

Mamata Banerjee was similarly elevated by the Congress during the Singur agitation. It did not matter that the ejection of Tata industries was bad for India’s image as a good place to do business in. What counted was to get the CPM government down. It paid rich dividends in May 2009. Intoxicated by this success, the Trinamool Congress and its leader have decided they need to displace the CPM government by causing chaos and having President’s Rule imposed.

This is not unusual in the context of Indian politics where local parties like Trinamool or Samajwadi Party or the MNS show impatience for the grubby fruits of power. But if such a desire is pursued at the expense of national security, then one needs to take heed. Naxalites are not just local trouble but a serious menace to national security. The bhadralok radicals of Kolkata are disappointed that the CPM no longer feeds their teenage fantasies about the Red Revolution. So they cuddle up to the Naxalites. They don’t ever suffer from the violence that they glorify. It is their darling ‘proletariat’—the poor working class people who pay with their lives and livelihoods.

... contd.