Though no group has claimed responsibility for last week's bombings in India's financial and business capital, Mumbai, suspicions of foreign involvement are bound to bring India and the US even closer in the war on terrorism. But a pragmatic alliance alone will not end cyclical violence, unless Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee also addresses the reasons why so many of India's 150 million Muslims - the world's second largest Islamic community after Indonesia - are receptive to mischievous propaganda.
India is no stranger to terrorism. The Mumbai blasts, which left 52 dead and 178 wounded, were not as vicious as the 1993 serial explosions that killed more than 250 people and injured more than 700. The provocation was said to be the destruction by Hindu revivalists of a 16th century mosque that, they claimed, had been built on the birthplace of the Hindu god-king Rama.
This time, militant Muslim organisations may have been seeking to avenge the massacre of Muslims in the neighbouring state of Gujarat which, in turn, was sparked when Muslims set fire to a railway coach packed with Hindus.
This spiral of revenge killings would have been deadly enough without al-Qaeda's involvement. Bracketing India and the US as the two 'biggest enemies of Islam' two years ago, Osama bin Laden called on the faithful to 'target them using the best of their efforts'.
The Indian government's problems in Kashmir played into his hands, producing a promise of support for the secessionist mujahedeen. If he is still around, bin Laden must be laughing in his beard as outrage follows atrocity, provoking retaliatory bloodbaths.
This is where foreign and domestic policies overlap. The international dimension prompted the US and India to set up a joint working group on terrorism in 2000. Last week, US President George W. Bush at once condemned the explosion as cold-blooded murder.
The last American ambassador in New Delhi, Robert Blackwill, who resigned only recently, had also categorically said that far from being freedom fighters, Kashmiri separatists were criminals and terrorists. The speculation is that the powerful neo-conservative lobby in Washington was annoyed by this analysis, which may have been one reason why Professor Blackwill, a Harvard academic, quit a job he obviously enjoyed. The post is still vacant.
