Nip this in the bud, proactively

Glasgow airport bombing: India needs to clear its image

Last year, US president George W. Bush introduced Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to his wife Laura, saying: "He's the Prime Minister of a country with 150 million Muslims but not one of them is an Al Qaeda member." The failed terrorist plot to bomb Glasgow airport means that Bush's statement no longer holds true. Kafeel Ahmed, the alleged suicide bomber, now fighting for his life at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary with 90 per cent burn injuries, is believed to have links with the dreaded pan-Islamic terror outfit. More frighteningly, he and two of his accomplices are Indian, from Bangalore, and highly educated.

Already, there are noises in the West, most notably from new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, that seem to indicate that Indian professionals wanting to work in the UK will face more intense scrutiny than in the past. Prime Minister Singh has moved quickly to contain the expected backlash by appealing to all concerned not to typecast all Indians as terrorists based on the actions of these three.

But the government needs to do more. A country's soft power-an extremely important determinant of its international standing-depends critically on public perceptions of its place in the community of nations. Currently, India is seen as a knowledge superpower on the brink of global economic and political superpowerdom. This perception is fuelled by the country's steroid-charged growth rates, its successes in the IT arena and by the corporate achievements of the L.N. Mittals and the Ratan Tatas of this world. This is a massive change from the image of barely two decades ago when India was in the news only when issues like poverty, famines and begging bowls were discussed or when the Aid India Consortium met to determine the amount of aid it would offer the country. The truth is that large parts of the country still remained mired in the poverty and the problems that made people perceive India as a basket case, but only a few high profile successes have changed its image completely in the public eye.

This shows how fickle public opinion can be and how it can change very quickly. That is why the government must immediately and proactively launch a comprehensive campaign across the western world to nip in the bud any incipient perception of India as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.