New Delhi, August 12: There is a paradox concerning current public mood on terrorism: public opinion seems to be hardening just as terrorism appears to be fading from the political agenda. Opinion surveys done in early 2009 in the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai terror strikes had found remarkable maturity and poise in how the Indian public responded.
When the CNN-IBN-CNBC-TV18 State of the Nation Poll in association with Forbes India conducted by the CSDS asked similar question in the wake of another, smaller, terror attack in Mumbai last month, it found the public response a shade more hawkish than before.
The information about the Mumbai blasts was quite widespread, understandably higher in western India and in cities. But the level of approval of the government’s handling of that incident has fallen dramatically as compared to the post-terror strike rating in 2009.
On balance, those who approve still outnumber those who don’t; but the gap is much smaller and gets reversed in western India and among BJP voters. Asked to assess UPA’s general handling of terrorism in the last two years, the verdict is negative: for every person who thinks that the terrorism related situation has improved in the last two years, there are three who think that the situation has worsened.
Compared to 2009, there has been a coarsening of public attitudes on internal security. The proposition that terror is somehow related to one religion (a reminder of the allegations linking terror to Islam) is rejected by an overwhelming majority of those who respond, yet the
proportion of those who hold opposite opinion has gone up.
Similarly, while there is a recognition that terror strikes can take place anywhere, the proportion of those who feel that India is a soft target has increased.
All this leads to a hawkish demand that India must go beyond diplomacy and dialogue and take “strong action” against Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism. As yet the pressure is not very intense — given low salience of foreign policy related opinions this is not strong enough to upset the PM’s peace diplomacy — but is significant enough for policy makers to take note.
It is not clear what explains this paradoxical shift in public mood. It could be that the alacrity with which UPA I responded to the Mumbai terror strikes was absent in the response to the recent blasts.
It could also be a result of the difference in the timing of the surveys: figures for 2009 are from post-election survey while the present survey was held within weeks of the recent Mumbai blasts. This needs further exploration.
Courtesy: CNN-IBN