"Several questions, of course, have remained unasked and unanswered. Even the number of the militants is nowhere near ascertained. We still do not know whether the terrorists included some British nationals. And no one has disputed reports that some of the miscreants spoke “fluent Marathi”. All this has not prevented some eminent experts and non-experts from rushing to draw conclusions designed to disappoint and depress those trying hard to preserve faith in the India- Pakistan peace process.

Few pundits, even outside the Parivar[Hindu Right wing], have dwelt too long on the possible political significance of the elimination of Hemant Karkare, chief of Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad, and his entire team during the shootout. Karkare was leading the investigations into the case of the Malegaon blasts. The explosions of September 2006, which took a toll of 37 lives, had become an acute embarrassment to the Parivar, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The ATS investigations had threatened to expose what came to be known as “Hindutva terror”. As I have pointed out before (“BJP’s true face”, Daily Times , November 21), the ATS findings had come at an inopportune time for the BJP, engaged as it was in election campaign with terrorism as the priority issue on its platform.

Many, especially in the minority communities, fear that the end of Karkare (shot thrice and in the chest, thus a specific target of the terrorists, the ones reportedly fluent in Marathi) may be the end of the investigations too. Lal Krishna Advani and other BJP leaders, meanwhile, are proceeding as though even the earlier ATS findings had become irrelevant with the hypocritical tributes to Karkare whom they have reviled in the harshest terms recently.

The Malegaon affair had led briefly to a makeover of Advani and his party as defenders of human rights. They had waxed righteously indignant at alleged violations of the rights of the accused in the case. Mumbai has helped them make a quick U-turn and to re-appear in their more familiar role as loud campaigners for a more draconian law against terrorism.

A particularly disturbing reaction is one that sounds deceptively non-political but can only strengthen the Far Right in the end. Politician-bashing, ever a favourite pastime of the middle class, is now being equated with passionate patriotism in its own media. Mumbai has given the politician-baiters yet another opportunity to broadcast the dream of a democracy without the participation of plebeians.

What makes the reaction all the more disturbing is the accompanying call for the cult of the uniform. “Salute the men in uniform who have risked their lives for us” – that is the recurring refrain assailing our ears ever since that fateful November night. Those who issue the clarion call have never asked Indians to salute the drainage worker without the minimal protective gear or the “untouchables” carrying night soil on their heads still – and keep exposing themselves to deadly diseases and dying slow deaths for us all."