Madam, - Your Editorial of November 28th calls for "firmly targeted security measures" in India to meet the challenge of non-state terrorism. This approach may work in a lock-down city state such as Singapore, but ignores the situation on the ground in this vast country which has one in six of the world's population.
If disaffected Kashmiris, jihadis or others wish to target Mumbai they have very little to fear from either the police or the country's intelligence agencies.
How good is Indian intelligence? According to a recent article in Tehelkamagazine, "most [Indian intelligence] field officers do not know the language of the country they operate in. Languages like Pashto, Burmese and Sinhalese are, in fact, considered inferior and officers are not even willing to learn them, a senior reliable source said. 'Everybody wants to learn French or Spanish'."
The local police spent the last fortnight arguing over the status of the current chief of police in the service's hierarchy. Most police officers in Mumbai are overworked and many consequently suffer from untreated depression. As soon as a politician arrives in the city, all work is dropped to ensure that traffic is cleared to allow the "VVIP" to rush to his or her "VVIP" meeting. Police are underpaid given the cost of living in the city and many resort to demanding bribes from drivers, hawkers, shopkeepers and prostitutes to supplement their very low incomes. This is the reality of police work in the developing world.
India remains a poor, largely corrupt and disorganised country, despite a few years of impressive economic growth. It is in no position to become a new front in the long-running and increasingly futile "war on terror". -Yours, etc,