After Jaipur

Terrorism has been such a non-existent fear amidst Jaipur’s celebrated sociability that Tuesday’s seven bomb attacks had an element of acute surprise. On the days after, as the city counts its dead and surveys its vandalised neighbourhoods, the grief can be overpowering. But as our columnist points out, Jaipur will find the resilience to overcome this moment, as great cities do in their own ways. The question is also already being asked, could this have been prevented? It is a question that obviously opens up possibilities of speculation. But the way in which this question is posed and acted upon will show the maturity and responsiveness of the Indian state and polity.

The blame-calling between political parties has already begun. They need to calm down. Those in opposition should know that terrorists will strike even in the presence of the most quality intelligence possible in a democracy. Those in government must know that there is only false comfort to be had by comparing records in office. The UPA government’s record on internal security is poor not because the terrorist has shown the ability to surprise. It is pathetic because in the trail from Delhi to Varanasi to Mumbai to Malegaon, Hyderabad, Ajmer and now Jaipur, follow-up investigation has been so inadequate. It is, as we have repeatedly said in these columns, as if Indian politics cannot find a way out of a peculiar binary: making communitarian political capital out of terror versus flattening the response to terror in political correctness. As a government more than four years old, the UPA must answer that question about prevention with details about the follow-up investigations to other terrorist attacks. Outright prevention is of course the best-case scenario; but in its absence — in the absence of acute surveillance at odds with a thriving democracy — it is the busting of terrorist networks with leads in thorough investigation that sharpens intelligence and prevents many future attacks.

Will Jaipur cope? It will. But it would be tragic if it does so only on the strength of its residents, and not with the effort of the state and Central governments. A terrorist strike carries the danger of perverting the political and economic discourse. But for that to happen, it needs a willing political and security establishment.