Armoredd.com

Aditya Sinha
First Published : 11 Jan 2009 02:07:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 11 Jan 2009 10:32:47 AM IST
Express Buzz

CHENNAI: Despite India’s fury over the Mumbai attacks, an exclusive Express survey shows that an overwhelming majority does not approve of Israel’s military action against the Hamas in Gaza, and most do not want India to take on an Israeli type action. Indeed, almost half think Israel should learn from India’s successful conduct of J&K elections.

The six-question poll of over 600 residents of Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi may come as a surprise to policymakers, politicians and voices in the media which have been clamouring for “action” against Pakistan for the Mumbai attack.

More so because the survey has been limited to cities, which are presumably “hawkish”. Even city-dwellers, it seems, have appreciated that nothing beats terrorism better than democracy, going by their satisfaction with the J&K polls.

The Express posed the respondents a wide range of military options to a question on what India’s response should be to the Mumbai attacks. Nearly half preferred strengthening the police and intelligence over “surgical” or other military action, or even to massing troops on the border as was done in 2002’s Operation Parakaram.

Including those who favoured continuing the current diplomatic offensive, a majority ruled out use of force.

Still, if India were to find itself in a war situation, half of the respondents thought it unlikely that nuclear weapons would be used (though a quarter thought they would). Surprisingly, Indians were confident that the US would support India in case of war, either by looking away (one-third) or in the way it supported Israel (one-half).

Also interesting is that nearly two-thirds think that over the years, military action has not reduced the security threat to Israel; one-fifth thinks that any reduction of threat has been marginal. And finally, respondents saw only two Indian leaders who could emulate Israel: BJP leaders L K Advani and Narendra Modi. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who thumped his chest after the Mumbai attack, inspired confidence in just three percent of our respondents.