Just one week ago, Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace hotel was symbolic of all that was best about the newly resurgent India: the glamorous playground of the beautiful, the powerful and the rich. In its opulent surroundings one could find Arab princes dining alongside Bollywood starlets and billionaire businessmen
Today the Taj’s blackened domes and bullet riddled marble corridors tell a very different and much older story of India: one of Islamist terrorism striking at the heart of the world’s largest democracy. It has revived tensions with the old enemy Pakistan as India points the finger of blame at Pak-based militants.
Much is at stake: India’s reputation as a safe destination for foreigners; Hindu-Muslim relations within a country periodically plagued by bloody religious riots; and a new freeze in relations between the nuclear armed rivals.
