On Wednesday, Mr Arora received a text message informing him that angry Mumbai residents were going to congregate in the evening to protest against the government's security failures.

No one formally organised the event, but people learned by word of mouth, e-mails, social networking sites and text messages that the victims of '26/11' were to be remembered. Around 20,000 people turned up at the Gateway of India monument near the Taj hotel. Some had never demonstrated before.

'I came because I don't think we can take it any more,' schoolteacher Abha Ansari said. 'We have been betrayed by our leaders. At every stage, they failed. No one acted. No one did anything to stop people dying a horrible death. I feel ashamed.'

In other cities, too, Indians spontaneously came together to mark the first week's anniversary of the attacks in which more than 170 people, including many foreigners, were killed at a railway station and in a three-day siege at the city's two top hotels and a Jewish cultural centre.

For decades, Indians have accused politicians and civil servants of failing to do their jobs. Critics say the police and intelligence services have been starved of equipment and training, politicians interfere in the functioning of these two forces, undermining their efficiency and the agencies ostensibly dealing with terrorism have worked at cross purposes.

A proposal to create an FBI-style federal police agency to combat terrorism, for example, has been gathering dust for seven years. Delhi has an elite National Security Guard (NSG) to combat terror attacks but Mumbai - the commercial capital and a known target - did not.

As a result, nine crucial hours passed before NSG commandos arrived in the city. Mumbai's fire brigade has been so starved of resources that its water hoses were too feeble to reach even the fourth floor of the Taj hotel, where fires raged.

The money that should have been spent on giving policemen, firemen and intelligence officers modern equipment and training had been used to line politicians' pockets, critics say.

These failures are particularly galling for Indians given that politicians routinely travel in siren-blaring cavalcades of bullet-proof limousines equipped with the latest satellite equipment and armed guards.

'We have a 19th century police force that has to fight terrorists who have AK-47s with nothing but lathis [long sticks],' said defence expert Maroof Raza. 'The police force is essentially the same as during the British Raj.'

The placards held by protesters in Mumbai and other cities do not pull their punches. 'Politicians are a bigger threat than terrorists'; 'A country of lions led by donkeys'; and 'Politicians twiddle while we die'.

An outpouring of middle-class bitterness against the political class on this scale is unprecedented. India has suffered many terrorist attacks over the years; since 2004, only Iraq has seen more. But the Mumbai attacks were different. Just 10 young armed men slipped into the city from boats and wreaked mayhem in the most audacious strike the country has seen.

Many affluent Indians knew people who perished in the hotels. The ordeal was drawn out over three days, and they watched every gory moment of it on television. Above all, they said, the attacks showed the total failure of the Indian state either to anticipate the attacks or to handle them.

'It's the culmination of so many things that have gone wrong,' said Sunil Lulla, head of the television company Alva Brothers Entertainment. 'Indians are sick of the government's apathy and lack of action. This was as close to war as you can get and it has left a deep, deep mark.'

Many Indians said the horror was followed by crass behaviour from some politicians. In the most egregious example, opposition politician Narendra Modi turned up outside the Oberoi hotel while commandos were still struggling inside to wrest control from the gunmen. Lambasting the government's intelligence failures, Mr Modi tried to extract political mileage out of the tragedy.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, toured the Taj the day after the fighting ended, accompanied by his son and a Bollywood film director. They looked, critics said, as though they were on a sightseeing jaunt.

Then Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi sneered that women who wore 'lipstick and powder' while protesting against politicians could not be taken seriously. Indians had been hoping for someone to show the sort of leadership that New York mayor Rudy Giuliani exhibited during the September 11 attacks.

Sunita Verma, who owns a boutique near the Taj, was shocked by Mr Naqvi's remarks. 'Look at the contempt they feel for ordinary Indians. They are meant to be public servants but they behave like medieval despots, insolent and imperious,' she said. The bravery of commandos, policemen and the hotels' staff in saving lives only highlighted the reactions of Indian politicians.

In the past, public anger with the government has quickly fizzled out. People have tended to lapse into their customary lethargy and fatalism. This time it might be different because many anguished Indians, particularly the young, are determined not to run out of steam.

The glimmers of a civil movement bent on forcing the government to improve are visible. It is incipient, rudimentary and fragmented. There is no leader. There is no clear plan. The various groups across the country operate separately. But their anger shows no sign of fading, at least not yet.

One such group is the Black Badge movement, launched by Mr Lulla. Wearing a piece of black cloth around his arm, Mr Lulla says that he will wear it until 'the day this country's politicians are accountable to the citizens'. Having lost eight friends and acquaintances in the Taj and Oberoi hotel sieges, Mr Lulla wants to force politicians to give Indians the security they deserve as taxpaying citizens.

The Black Badge movement has a g-mail address, a Facebook profile and a charter. Hundreds of Mumbai citizens have joined it, sporting black badges or armbands to show their frustration.

The badge is meant to be a symbol of protest so that, Mr Lulla explains, when 'people ask us why we're wearing these badges, we'll tell them that the system is rotten and we're going to wear them until it changes'.

Mr Lulla's group was present during Wednesday's protest outside the Taj, carrying big boxes. People were invited to drop their suggestions for better security and better government into the boxes. A group of prominent people will read them and choose the best ideas.

'We don't want emotion or hysteria but specific, concrete ideas. We want to draw up a list of demands to give the government that it can act on,' said Mr Lulla's colleague, Soma Shekar Sundaresan.

The Black Badge movement is just one of many. All over India, similar groups are finding ways - signature campaigns, processions, street theatre - of making the political establishment realise that the attacks represent a watershed.

'If we let them off the hook this time, we'll be finished. For too long, all politicians have done is get fat and rich without bothering about our needs,' said New Delhi bank clerk Asha Tiwari, who attended a protest in the capital.

Newspapers and television channels have joined the civil movement with their own campaigns. They have kept up a barrage of criticism of the government and given time and space to people to vent their frustration. Several channels and newspapers are going to present a charter of demands to the government.

'What all these efforts mean is that we want to find solutions and make this a better society to live in,' Mr Lulla said.

Some commentators, though, point out that while politicians are being ridiculed - in many cases justifiably - for corruption and dishonesty, the issue is wider.

In everyday life, they say, ordinary Indians also lack discipline and honesty.

'People don't observe traffic rules or pay their taxes. You have to set your own house in order before you can expect your leaders to be moral paragons,' said former Times of India editor Dileep Padgaonkar.

As the debate rages, calmer voices have cautioned against anger turning to irrationality and hysteria.

Political analyst Vinod Sharma points out that while it's all very well to shout 'hang them all', India is a democracy and a democracy needs politicians in order to function.

'I think there is a real danger of total cynicism setting in if we tar every politician with the same brush, and that won't be good for the political system,' he said.