By Amulya Ganguli,IANS,
The Delhi blasts have further magnified the Manmohan Singh government’s woes. Reeling as it is from the anti-corruption campaign, it now has to respond to the deep disquiet even among its supporters and anger among its opponents about continuing terrorist attacks after a brief period of respite.
It appears the steps taken after 26/11 such as the removal of the then “spectacularly inept” home minister Shivraj Patil, as the Wikileaks said, and the installation of the apparently more methodical P. Chidambaram are no longer as effective as was earlier believed.
In the nearly three years that Chidambaram has been home minister, there have been seven cases of terrorist attacks, including three major ones – the blast at German Bakery in Pune Feb 13, 2010, which killed 17 people, the serial explosions in Mumbai July 13 this year, which killed 26, and now the blast in the Delhi High Court premises Sep 7, killing 13.
What is more, there has been little progress in tracing the killers, suggesting that the intelligence apparatus remains nearly as ineffectual as it was in Patil’s time. It is only a matter of time, therefore, when a more deadly attack can take place since the patrons of terror in Pakistan and their accomplices in India must have realised that it is now safe enough for them to crawl out of the hideouts to which they had retreated after the Mumbai massacre of Nov 26, 2008.
Considering that the Delhi high court is next door to the Supreme Court and not too far from Parliament House, the target of the terrorist attack Dec 13, 2001, which nearly led to an India-Pakistan war, the daring of the Islamic militants is evidently on the rise.
Arguably, the government has lapsed back to its earlier lethargic ways, leaving ample scope for a motivated band of outlaws to meet, plan, assemble their deadly material and carry out an attack. As much can be gauged from the “dry run” which they carried out May 25 by setting off a blast no more than 100 metres from the site of last Wednesday’s far more powerful explosion.
The “success” of that endeavour, in which no one was injured, must have convinced the terrorists that they will not face too many problems in planting their briefcase packed with explosives at the chosen spot in the high court. Among the “advantages” from their point of view was the absence of closed-circuit cameras despite an official decision to install them.
The government’s problem is that had its record been at least passable in other fields, such as economic reforms, it might have been able to deflect some of the criticism for its failure to check terrorism. But the list of the government’s lapses is a lengthy one. While the scams underlined its ethical and governance deficits, as Chidambaram once acknowledged, the economic slowdown and rising prices have conveyed an impression of a paralysed government unable to take a decisive step.
Little wonder that in a rare act of discourtesy, the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, had no hesitation about refusing to accompany Manmohan Singh to Bangladesh to register her protest against the signing of an agreement on the Teesta river waters.
Clearly, the government had not only bungled by failing to secure the chief minister’s prior approval but it was also seen as a pushover too weak to stand its ground just as another chief minister, M. Karunanidhi, thought during his days in power when he prevailed upon Manmohan Singh to retain the then telecom minister, Andimuthu Raja, till the Supreme Court’s strictures forced him to quit.
To confirm the impression of drift, Sonia Gandhi’s illness has exposed the vacuum at the top while Rahul Gandhi has seemingly been unable to decide on his role – whether he should project himself as someone who stands by the victims of police action, as his visits to Bhatta Parsaul earlier and to Pune more recently showed, or offer suggestions on crucial issues, such as on the Lokpal bill, to which few paid any close attention.
The government’s problem is that the increasingly vocal middle class has turned against it, first, on the issue of corruption and now on terrorism. The slogans raised against Rahul Gandhi when he visited a hospital to see the victims of the Delhi blast testified to this anger and disenchantment. Apart from eroding the political ground from under the government’s feet, the impact of the two issues on the economy can be fatal. Just as sleaze will deter investors, so will terror.
The social scene can also come under strain because a section of urban middle class Hindus can fall prey to propaganda about the government being “soft” on terror. Noting this proclivity, the group which carried out the blast linked it with the fate of Afzal Guru, who is facing a death sentence for his complicity in the attack on parliament.
(10.09.2011 – Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected])