Conventional wisdom would have it that the drumbeats of change that followed the Mumbai tragedy will mute; memories will fade and life will return to business as usual.  Sure, there will be a tightening of the security apparatus and an organisational review of the government agencies.  But there will be no serious effort to address the systemic causes behind the lapses, no concerted drive to improve the quality and morality of our leadership. The changes that do occur will be symbolic not radical.

I have to admit that in the 6 weeks since 26/11 there is much to support conventional wisdom.  The drumbeats have quieted. The challenge of shifting the needle of governance in a polity riven by the conflicting demands of multiple political groups does appear insuperable. The issue is whether it is impossible?

A flashback review of 2008 would suggest that conventional wisdom can and indeed has been turned on its head.  No public figure foresaw the near collapse of the world economy and the fading lustre of the liberal-capitalist model of economic growth.  Few if any professional economists predicted the resurrection of Keynesianism.  Only a handful of political seers expected Obama to clinch the presidency or for that matter for Sheila Dixit to retain her chief ministership for a third consecutive term.  And certainly no oil company executive forecast that oil prices would run up from less than $50/bbl in January to just under $150/bl in July and then collapse again to below $50/bl by December.  What conventionalism did suggest was that the world economy would slow but not hit the brakes; that the financial crisis would be severe but not engulf the global real economy;  that oil prices would oscillate but within the bounds set by the fundamentals of demand and supply and that whilst Obama was a candidate of rare talent and Dixit a chief minister of competence and integrity, the traditional determinants of race, experience, and incumbency would ultimately scupper their political ambitions.

... contd.