Healthy composure

The security forces at Ayodhya, the state government in UP, the central government and, above all, the people of our country must be congratulated for keeping their heads after the abortive attempt by terrorists to attack the religious site in Ayodhya.

The BJP has done itself no credit by seeking (futilely, it seems) to make political capital out of the issue. It must also be said that it was probably only a matter of time before the site was attacked.

After all, in 2002, there had been the attack on Akshardham in Gandhinagar in Gujarat. These religious targets are altogether too inviting if the objective is to cause riots.

So the more often such riots don't take place, the less the attraction will be to attack them. Eventually, one must hope that if we all keep calm, the attacks will cease altogether.

In the meantime, though, India has to deal with a new problem. This is that there have been enough reports to pretty much confirm that the jihad against the US in Iraq has now been taken over by around 2,500 freshly-recruited Saudis.

This means that the Pakistani and Arab jihadis who had gone to Iraq from Pakistan and Afghanistan are going home. Some of them are coming to India, with the result that there has been an escalation of terrorist incidents since April.

The bottom line is that India must expect the trend to continue. Much will depend on how well the intelligence agencies perform.

This time, it seems, the government had general information that an attack was imminent and had passed on the information to the state government.

The fact that the latter has denied this suggests two things. One, such linen must not be washed in public; and two, there must be a machinery for better coordination. Hopefully, someone in the government will do something about it.

There remains the other question, the role of Pakistan in all this. Thanks to the thaw, India has not said it suspects Pakistani agencies.

But few in India believe that, despite the bonhomie that is currently being generated at the government level in the two countries.

Most think that Pakistan has not completely given up on its chosen path of creating problems in India. The issue becomes more complicated when the Pakistan government denies that it has anything to do with terrorism at all, because that leads to the unspoken question: are you not in full control then?

Given the vested interest that the ISI has in keeping the terrorism pot on the boil (albeit on a low flame for the nonce), it would appear that General Musharraf is not fully in control.

Alternatively, if he is indeed in full control, is it not legitimate to ask if he is not being economical with the truth when he says he wants to bury the hatchet with India? The truth may well be that the Pakistan army and the ISI are keeping all long-term options open.

While the army permits a degree of normalcy to return, if only to please the US, the ISI is holding the other end up to bat on when play resumes the next day""perhaps by reviving some old ghosts in Punjab.