Deep Currents

The result of the attacks in Mumbai could be a spike in the tensions between Hindus and Muslims that have dogged India for much of the last decade, reversing the recent progress with Pakistan and perhaps even resulting ina Hindu nationalist government in the next cycle, speculates Robert Kaplan in the Atlantic:

…the immediate result of the Mumbai terror attacks will be a further hardening of inter-communal relations within India. The latest attacks will also increase the likelihood that in national elections slated for early 2009, the result will be a BJP-led government, as Hindus, who comprise the overwhelming majority of Indian voters, take on another layer of insecurity.

Internationally, this event will further aggravate Indian-Pakistani relations, making it harder for the incoming Obama Administration to effect a rapprochement between the two countries, necessary for progress in Afghanistan, where the two subcontinental states are engaged in a proxy struggle that goes on behind the immediate conflict between the United States and al-Qaeda.

Written: November 29th, 2008