Guard the guards

Terrorism Squad now believe is involved in a series of attacks — many of which were previously blamed on militant Islamists — is a serving lieutenant-colonel in the Indian army. In his Nashik speech, the special prosecutor added to that burden: by discussing the 60 kg of the specialised explosive RDX that Lt Col Purohit is believed to have brought back from an official trip to Jammu and Kashmir. Just the suspicion will leave Indians everywhere with a sense of violation, of a trust betrayed. The political establishment, the

bureaucracy and the police lost public confidence a long time ago; other institutions — the courts, for example — aren’t doing too well in that

respect either. The services have always been an exception. Until now.

Of course, the overwhelming probability — realistically, the only possibility — is that Purohit, if proved to be guilty, was a single rotten apple, one who got away with too much for too long because nobody was capable of believing a serving army officer to be involved in such criminality. Yet that metaphor has an origin: of how a single rotten apple is capable of infecting an

entire barrel. That is the fear that Indians will now be forced to carry around with them: the fear that a section of the officer corps have been allowed to become radicalised precisely because it was always

believed impossible such a thing could happen. Those who remember the politicisation, the pull of

divided loyalties that some Sikh officers suffered during the 1980s will be particularly worried. The army has set an example worth following in so many different circumstances, under enormous pressure, with

little thanks; showing other Indian institutions how to deal with the threat of subversive radicalism within is just another way in which it will have to take the lead.