In retrospect, the 26/11 terror strike was a defining moment for the Congress, helping it to reclaimthe nationalist plank from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and win the battle for hearts and minds in urban India. Like the Kargil war rallied the country behind the Atal Behari Vajpayee government and the BJP in 1999, the attack on Mumbai saw the country unite behind the Manmohan Singh government and the Congress in 2008.
It may have been a sense of insecurity that prompted people to cling to the government of the day. Or it may have been the perception that the Congress rose to the occasion with a series of steps that gave a shaken people confidence in the ruling establishment.
Or it could have been the BJP’s confused response to the biggest security challenge in a decade. As television cameras captured and replayed the outpouring of Mumbai’s anger against crass politics and those who practice it, the opposition beat a hasty retreat and left the field clear for the ruling party to step in.
One year later, the BJP and the rest of the opposition, including the Left parties, are ruefully surveying the scattered remains of the political space that was once theirs and they admit that the Congress succeeded where they failed. “The Mumbai attack had a Kargil effect,” says BJP leader Sushma Swaraj. “We saw it as another attack on the country and decided to support the government. We didn’t want to criticise because it would have seemed that we were playing Pakistan’s game. This definitely benefited the government.”
Congress leaders attribute the success of the salvage operation after a potentially damaging event to the steps that the government took post-26/11. One was the decision to axe home minister Shivraj Patil, Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy RR Patil. The second was P Chidambaram’s image-building exercise as the new home minister.
He not only shone in comparison to his inactive and dour predecessor, he bombarded public discourse with ideas, plans and decisions to create the impression of a government at work. The third was the coercive diplomacy unleashed by foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee to put Pakistan on the backfoot.
Although there hasn’t been any actual delivery by Pakistan subsequently, the high-decibel campaign by the government did extract a grudging admission from Pakistan that the terrorists were indeed its citizens and that the conspiracy was hatched on its soil.
“I think people are wise and discerning,” says Congress spokesman Abhishekh Singhvi. “They judge parties and governments by the effort they put in and the sincerity of those efforts. People felt that the UPA government made the best possible efforts after 26/11. In contrast, the BJP was seen as playing crude and cheap politics.”
There is a strong message for politicians in the public response to 26/11. Political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan sees it as a maturing of Indian democracy. “The politics of panic is not working anymore. People don’t believe that any one party owns the silver bullet against terror. The BJP seemed to be playing an old record whereas the government and the Congress were able to convey a sense of strength with restraint. That worked,” he says.
Comments