Terror comes to India.

• Author: Pal, Amitabh
• Position: Attack on Indian Parliament

I returned to India for my brother's wedding, which was on December 11. When I landed in New Delhi, life seemed to be going on in the city's normal, chaotic way. Even security at the Indira Gandhi International Airport did not seem to be tighter than usual, though for many years it has been much more rigorous than in the United States.

Two days after the wedding, my family and I were sitting down for lunch at my parents' home when a cousin of mine rushed in and informed us that he had just seen television footage of the attack on the Indian Parliament. People in India, after decades of terrorism, have become so inured to such attacks that no one among us got up to take a look at the television coverage. We figured all the gory details would be in print in the days to come. And sure enough, the covers of Indian publications in the subsequent weeks were emblazoned with photos of the mangled bodies of the militants, photographs so bloody that not many U.S. journals would dare print them.

The December 13 attack gave India its own version of September 11, albeit on a smaller scale. The same militaristic reflexes were evident, the same outbreak of nationalism, the same crackdown on civil liberties.

During a two-day train ride that my extended family and I undertook from my hometown of Basti to Chennai in the south, the topic of terror came up often. Like a lot of Indians, my relatives are fed up with what they see as Pakistan's attempt to bleed India to death by sponsoring such attacks. The only way to end this, they said, was an all-out war with Pakistan, even if it involves the possibility of nuclear conflict. I have the feeling that my counterarguments failed to make much of an impact on them.

The terrorist attacks of September 11 and December 13 fit in very well with the mindset of many in the Hindu-dominated upper middle class in India (a segment I belong to). The episodes validated their notion that nearly all global terrorism is Muslim-inspired. Never mind that this ignores the various other types of non-Muslim insurgencies pervading South Asia. These range from the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (Hindus who have mastered the science of suicide bombings) to the Maoists in Nepal. There are a number of rebellions in India itself that have nothing to do with Islam, such as secessionist uprisings in North-East India (conducted mostly by indigenous tribe members) and Maoist rebels (called Naxalites) in other parts.

These distinctions were lost in the rubble of September 11 and December 13, which a lot of Hindus took as confirmation that Islam is an inherently violent, intolerant religion.

The Indian government seized on September 11 to demonstrate to Washington what India has been going through for the past two decades. It urged Washington to join India in a crusade against terrorism, including that being perpetrated by Pakistan against India. It was the...