Congress’s software

Since Bangalore has been attacked, let’s call this National Security, Version 2.0 (NS, 2.0). In this version, the country’s government either “equates politically correct liberalism” with mealy-mouthed responses to terrorism, or it wants to cash in on a softly-softly approach with “the Muslim vote bank”. The strategy is, of course, hopelessly misconceived. You can be politically correct and liberal to the point of aggravation, as Tony Blair frequently is, and still be steadfastly hard on terrorism. As for the Muslim vote bank, it really doesn’t exist when it comes to anti-terror policies. Indeed, a political plan hatched on the presumption that Indian Muslims like governments soft on Islamic terror, is deeply offensive to the community. It ignores the fact that Muslims can become the direct and indirect victims of militancy. But the Congress-led UPA government seems quite chuffed with NS, 2.0.

The enormously serious implications of targeting Bangalore — terrorists are trying to blow a hole in India’s biggest success story — are unlikely to change that. After all, the attack on Ayodhya was scary in its scope — had the terrorists not been stopped literally at the gates, the political and social consequences would have been catastrophic. The pre-Diwali (and, “secular fundamentalists” please note, pre-Id) blasts in the Capital were a brazen challenge to national administrative authority. Neither made the Congress up its rhetorical and policy ante on terror. Just as the recent escalation in Kashmir militancy didn’t. Just as, in the matter of internal security, the dangerous spring in the Naxalites’ step has gone officially uncommented on.

The terrorists are obviously watching this. If that doesn’t quite bother the government, it should know that the people are watching, too. A political-policy approach that started from killing an anti-terrorist law (Pota) because of pamphleteering, is now dangerously close to being seen as one that kills the anti-terror spirit because of pusillanimity. If the Congress thinks this doesn’t matter because it can always accuse the BJP of communalising terrorism, it must understand voters won’t be thrilled either with a party that seems to communalise the fight against terrorism. And whom do voters see as the government’s face on security issues? Shivraj Patil. The strikingly ineffective figure Patil cuts when representing official security policy suggests he would rather just nicely ask the terrorists to go away. Ministers, mind you, have to go away when they are asked.