This time it is different. Forget Batla House, forget Malegaon, or Godhra or Ayodhya. Set aside the normal incivilities about minority community or Hindu terrorism.

This is war. This is not a problem of the government or of a political party. It is an attack on the Indian state. It is an attack on all political parties, secular and communal, Left and Right, on fundamentalists of all faiths and of no faith.

It is an attack on Mumbai and on Maharashtra and on every city and every state of the Union of India. It is an attack on all

Indians as much as all those who are our guests. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. All our guests are our family.

This is India’s own 9/11.

The world and India will never be the same again. India has stood alone thus far for 60 years in South Asia and indeed Southeast Asia as the one nation-state which has not broken up. It has never had a national civil war. It has contained all its enemies within — whether we mean Khalistan, Nagaland, Kashmiri separatists, communalists, or Naxalites. The lives of our soldiers and our police, our citizens and even our leaders have been sacrificed to achieve that.

But when it has come to the enemy without, the Indian state has been notoriously soft. It was unprepared against China in 1962 and against Pakistan in Kargil. It was held at ransom in Kandahar. This has happened once again. This week, India was exposed, stripped naked and assaulted. The attack was thoroughly planned, immensely audacious and devastatingly successful. A small number of determined, well-trained, dedicated warriors managed to hold the millions of Mumbai and the billion-plus of India at their mercy.

... contd.