An important component of the terror war on India is to create a wide base of support for it within our country. And this is being sought to be achieved by mounting a systematic campaign of falsehood that Muslims in India are a persecuted lot, that they will never get justice in secular India, that secularism is itself against the tenets of Islam, and that Muslims can lead a truly Islamic way of life only in an Islamic state. This too is not unconcealed in the documents of terrorist organisations or in the speeches of their leaders.

All this is known to those in important positions in the government of India. The question is: what are they doing about it? Are they taking necessary steps to check infiltration from Bangladesh, which even the Supreme Court has described as a form of ‘external aggression’ against India? Have they instructed the IB and other intelligence agencies to mount a warlike campaign to bust the modules and sleeper cells of terrorist organisations and their supporters? Have they put aside vote-bank considerations to put in place all the necessary legal and administrative instruments to stop the flow of funds, movement of arms, networking of operatives and provision of local support to them? Have they promoted an intellectual climate in the country whereby no support is extended to terrorists, in the way that many self-styled secularists have done to the likes of Mohammad Afzal, who is convicted in the case of the terrorist attack on Parliament? The answer to these questions shows how bogus is Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s oft-repeated claim that the UPA government has a zero-tolerance approach to terrorism.