Terrorists claim more casualties as heads roll in Congress

The Congress led UPA Government at the Centre has finally found itself under pressure to act. After the second attack in New Delhi months ago, the government promised to set up an anti-terror agency and Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal assured the nation that the government was moving its feet. It turns out that those feet were made of solid lead.

Stung to the quick by public outrage over the Mumbai terror attacks, the Congress has had to remove the most notorious of its lazy figureheads. Senior Gandhi family loyalist Shivraj Patil, having disgraced the Home Ministry for four long years, has had to put in his papers. The same fate has befallen Vilasrao Desmukh, who between hopping socialite parties in South Mumbai and pushing for his son's movie career, has never taken affairs of state very seriously.

There are two questions here, one obvious and the other more subtle. The obvious question is why the underperformers in question had not been previously removed. Does it take scores of terrorist attacks, culminating in a 60 hour showdown in the financial capital of the country to remove a Union Minister who, time and again, has been rated as the worst government functionary, a man who has neither administrative ability, political acumen nor mass support.

The weakness of the UPA government actually follows from a political culture created way back in 2004. After the rousing victory of the Congress and its allies, the winners took the extraordinary step of excluding the enthusiastic new leaders from the administration. Those such as Ambika Soni, Jaipal Reddy and even Kapil Sibal were either excluded from the ministry altogether or pushed into unimportant positions. Young leaders such as Milind Deora, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot and Jitin Prasad were also kept away, for fear that they would steal the thunder from the Congress' highly unintelligent heir apparent: Rahul baba. Instead the group of people who were summoned to New Delhi to govern the country were mostly die hard Gandhi loyalists, leaders of a bygone era. The plan was to make the country slide backwards into 1980.

The second, more subtle question is what actually impelled the government to act to remove its senior functionaries. Was it public pressure or media pressure? There is an uncomfortable class war issue underlying the Mumbai episode that needs to be addressed. After the 26/11 attacks, those in the elite media realized that their own lives were under threat as well and that their support for the human rights of terrorists had not earned them sympathy of radical Jihadis. Much to their horror, they figured out that terrorists understood the power of symbolism and henceforth would be more likely to attack "high value targets" instead of taking the cheaper human lives on footpaths and temples. Notice that the media, the fourth estate of democracy, is actually the least democratic of all. Ironically enough, it always seems to be the most democratic of them all...the true voice of the people. Therein lies the danger.