The secular demand for security

The writing is on the wall: internal security has become an electoral issue

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

The march of terrorism in Indian cities, along with the government’s inability to prevent attacks, this blog wrote this August, was “on the verge of crossing the chasm and (rightly) becoming a electoral issue. The parties that fail to see it are quite likely to pay a price”.

And in November, The Acorn noted that “if the UPA government’s pussyfooting on counter-terrorism was due to electoral calculations with an eye on the Muslim vote bank, here’s something for Congress Party strategists to think about: terrorist attacks across India are making security an aam aadmi electoral issue. Muslims are not likely to relish a situation where bombs go off every now and then putting them on the defensive. Conspiracy theories too are subject to diminishing returns; and one attack too many—as we have seen in the last couple of years—could cause a secular demand for security.”

That’s exactly what Shishir Gupta concludes from the results of the Gujarat assembly elections. Narendra Modi’s electoral victory owes itself to many factors. Yet the fact that his government delivered on security was not lost on Gujarat’s voters.

The right lesson for all political parties—including the BJP but especially for the Congress—is that there is a tangible electoral advantage to be had by being serious about forcefully countering terrorism. These are not merely the words of some opinionated blogger (or, for that matter, a columnist in The Indian Express). After the Gujarat election, they are revealed preferences of the electorate. The demand for security is secular in every sense of the word.

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