Analysis: SNAP TIES WITH PAKISTAN

By M H Ahssan

...say a majority of Indians. But don’t give up Kashmir to buy peace for the rest of India

With less than a fortnight gone after the terror attacks in Mumbai, young Mumbaikars are seething and in a mood for unilateral, aggressive action, whatever the consequences. Young urbanites in some of India’s other biggest cities are only a little less in ‘do it now’ mood.

The responses to a whole slew of questions on who must take the blame for the attack and what should be done to tackle the menace drew unequivocal answers from Mumbai respondents in particular. Clearly the city is at the end of its tether and fed up of being repeatedly targeted.

To a question on whether the Pakistani government supported the attacks, for example, the answer was a loud Yes from 100% of those polled in Mumbai. But it wasn’t as if in other cities there were too many people willing to buy Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari’s ‘non-state actors’ line. Between 77% and 94% in the other cities too rejected that theory.

So should India take out the terror training camps in Pakistan irrespective of the consequences? Again 100% of Mumbai respondents said yes, but in cities like Chennai and Bangalore this was a minority view. Somewhat surprisingly, the strongest support for such strikes apart from Mumbai, of course came from Kolkata, Lucknow and Pune, cities that have not really felt the heat of terror too much.

On the question of whether India should immediately snap all commercial and social links with Pakistan, there was a more even response across cities other than Mumbai, which again gave a 100% thumbs up to the suggestion. However, Delhi was noticeably less enthusiastic about it than most other cities, perhaps because of its greater social and cultural links with Pakistani cities.

Mumbai — more than any other city — is for the idea of India presenting all the hard evidence about Pakistan’s involvement in the terror strikes to the United Nations Security Council. That, however, is clearly not a sign that young Mumbaikars are willing to wait for the international community to act to solve India’s problem. Whereas only 59% overall expressed the view that terror is a problem that India must solve on its own, in Mumbai 98% were for such a course.

Who in the political leadership must pay the price for a failure of such a magnitude with such drastic consequences? Interestingly, while 43% overall felt the PM too must carry the can, only 11% in Mumbai shared this view. In Chennai, in contrast, 87% said the PM too must be held accountable. Respondents were allowed to make more than one choice in their response to the question.

Will P Chidambaram do a much better job than Shivraj Patil in the area of internal security? About 60% overall thought he would and only 26% disagreed, but worryingly for the current home minister, one of the cities less optimistic on this count was Chennai, the capital of his home state.

The responses to a question on whether any other party could have handled terror better were also very interesting. Not only did over three-fourths of those in Mumbai say no party would have done a better job, 78% in Narendra Modi’s Ahmedabad too expressed this view. Clearly young urban Indians are not willing to accept any political party’s claims to being tough on terror.

Should India be willing to let go of Kashmir if that means buying peace for the rest of the country? The overall response is along expected lines with 76% rejecting the idea. But what’s interesting is that in Delhi a majority are willing to make that tradeoff and perhaps more surprisingly in Ahmedabad too 38% weren’t averse to it.

Is India paying for wrong policies adopted by the developed world towards Islamic nations? Over 60% thought it was, with Mumbai once again agreeing wholeheartedly. In contrast, in the three southern cities, opinion on the issue was almost evenly divided. Mumbai apart, Ahmedabad was the city in which the largest proportion of respondents see the West as having to share the blame for the predicament we face.

One of the tougher options posed in the questionnaire was whether defence budgets should be cut so that more money can be allocated for internal security. It was truly revealing about the extent of the insecurity felt by urban Indians that a majority (56%) said yes and only 2% found it a difficult choice to make.

Support for the idea of cutting defence budgets to accommodate more spending on homeland security was strongest in Bangalore (93%). In the northern cities of Lucknow and Jaipur, however, a majority felt this was not a very good idea.