India’s wake-up call

The Mumbai terrorists should wake up India’s emerging middle class, said Navtej Dhillon in The Wall Street Journal. “No matter how wealthy their country grows, they cannot escape the regional conflict with Pakistan and domestic sectarian divides.” So it’s up to newly prosperous Indians to exercise their “political and social responsibilities” and demand that their government do better.

Ordinary Indians have made it abundantly clear that they are “disgusted with a lot of our public servants because of their pathetic performance in a time of crisis,” said The Times of India in an editorial. But there was a ray of hope in the impressive turnout in recent state-assembly elections. Voters seem to recognize that the political process” gives them the power to “deal with corrupt and inefficient politicians.”

Everybody, everywhere, shares the responsibility of fighting the jihadists, said Boaz Ganor in the San Francisco Chronicle. The attacks showed how hard it is to protect the “soft belly of open democratic societies,” with their “endless potential targets.” Fighting their “extreme, violent version of Islam” is a job for the entire civilized world.

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