A quick listing of recent targets is telling. Terrorists hit one of the holiest temples of the Hindus, in Varanasi. They attacked the controversial Ramlala (Infant Ram) temple at Ayodhya, where a Muslim mosque had been demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, resulting in India’s last widespread Hindu-Muslim riots. Both attacks were preceded by serial bombings in New Delhi’s bustling bazaars, during the same week as the Eid and Diwali festivals, the year’s biggest for Muslims and Hindus, respectively. On the other side, in April Hindu fanatics bombed the Jama Masjid, the stately 17th-century mosque in old Delhi that is an abiding symbol of Islam in the Subcontinent.
This pattern makes clear what terrorists in India really want–to break the unique, synergetic Hindu-Muslim bond that has survived the partition, radically different approaches to worship, and grievances of history, geography, and ideology. India cannot survive if its establishment and Hindu majority begin to perceive Muslims as a permanent, and growing, fifth column. Unlike Israel with its Arab citizens, it cannot afford to exclude its Muslims from the social mainstream–including police, intelligence, and armed forces. In fact, the government’s challenge is not merely to maintain public peace between communities, but also to use the current wave of economic growth to integrate the Muslim minority even more deeply into mainstream society.
That is why the most stunning aspect of India’s response to these latest bombings is not that the stock market went up 3 percent. Rather, it’s that there was not even a whiff of tension between communities after the attack. Not one political leader, in a city dominated by the worst kind of sectarian politics, made a provocative statement; there was no public protest, no call for a strike. Why is this unique Indian story relevant to the rest of the world? There is a growing argument today that the war against radical Islam can be best fought–and won–in liberal democracies where Muslims live, where there is a polling booth to vent rage, where there are institutions for legal redress, and where inclusive economic growth is the ticket to fame, not a bomb-belt. There are 150 million such Muslims in India, and that’s why when terrorists fail here, it should be cause for comfort everywhere.
