In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, Somini Sengupta of The New York Times reported:
…there were countless condemnations of how democracy had failed in this, the world’s largest democracy. Those condemnations led Vir Sanghvi, a columnist writing in the financial newspaper Mint, to remind his readers of 1975, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed emergency rule. Mr. Sanghvi wrote, “I am beginning to hear the same kind of middle-class murmurs and whines about the ineffectual nature of democracy and the need for authoritarian government.”
I’m not sure what to make of the fact that Indians began to question their government – and indeed democracy itself – as a result of these attacks while in the aftermath of September 11, Americans rallied around our government and our president and ignored the obvious indications of incompetence.
But it certainly is significant.