While the world rallies behind us after the ghastly attacks in Mumbai, India’s political leadership has not been able to close ranks. There were attempts, but they were botched.  Nevertheless, due to unprecedented public anger at politicians, it isn’t yet a lost cause to hope that from the ashes of Mumbai could yet emerge a pragmatic, centrist response to the problem of terrorism that could span the political spectrum.

First, there is no doubt whatsoever that the world is rallying behind India as never before.  A brief scan of the headlines and columns in mainstream media around the world quickly confirms that the Pakistani connection to acts of terror in India is now unequivocally accepted and denounced.  This is no small thing.  Even in the post 9/11 era, even when Pakistan was already being described as the ‘epicentre’ of worldwide terrorism, the compulsion to treat it as a ‘frontline ally against Al Qaeda’ led many western powers to balk at demanding that it be tough on groups that almost exclusively targeted India.  What Indian foreign policy had not been able to achieve in decades is now a fait accompli.  It’s a pity, though, that this could only come about through our bumbling, laissez faire approach to tackling terrorism.

The Mumbai attacks have been described as a threat to “the idea of India.”  While that threat is real, there is nothing new about it.  All previous waves of terrorism — involving ethnic, regional or religious separatist movements — were just as much a threat to the idea of India.  Whether it was the Nagas, Sikhs, Tamils, or Kashmiri separatists, the underlying threat was that India was too large to govern, and that it could not continue to exist in its present secular and diverse form.  What is new about terrorism in the post 9/11 era is the extent to which it has succeeded in polarising India’s polity.

... contd.