US daily blames squabbling Indian leaders' for terror attacks

New York (PTI): A leading US daily has blamed "squabbling" Indian political leaders' failure to put national security above partisan politics for a series of terrorist attacks that the country has witnessed, saying its approach to terrorism has consistently been "haphazard and weak-kneed."

"When faced with fundamentalist demands, India's democratically elected leaders have regularly preferred caving to confrontation on a point of principle. The country's institutions and culture have abetted a widespread sense of Muslim separateness from the national mainstream," the Wall Street Journal said in a stinging commentary.

"The country's anti-terrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Its failure to either charm or cow its Islamist-friendly neighbours -- Pakistan and Bangladesh -- reveals a limited grasp of statecraft," the Journal said.

The country's diplomats and soldiers have failed to stabilize the neighborhood, it said, adding that the ongoing attacks in Mumbai underscores the price both Indians and non-Indians caught unawares must now pay.

India's leaders "who invariably swan around with armed guards paid for by the taxpayer" - can't even agree on a legal framework to keep the country safe, it says, adding that on taking office in 2004, one of the first acts of the ruling Congress Party was to scrap a federal antiterrorism law that strengthened witness protection and enhanced police powers.

The Congress, it says, has stalled state-level legislation in Gujarat, which is ruled by the opposition BJP. And it was a Congress government that kowtowed to fundamentalist pressure and made India the first country to ban Mumbai-born Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" in 1988.