—Santosh Hirlekar (PTI)

WARCRAFT: National Security Guard (NSG) personnel outside the Taj Mahal hotel where terrorists have held hostages, in Mumbai on Thursday.

The primary goal of terrorism and terror-related activities is to infuse a sense of fear and vulnerability in a big population like ours and at the same time to erode its confidence in government and law enforcement agencies to protect citizens against future attacks.
Hoffman in his book, The Logic of Suicide Terrorism, concludes, "The age-old strategy of terrorists everywhere — to undermine public confidence in the ability of the authorities to protect and defend citizens, thereby creating a climate of fear and intimidation amenable to terrorist exploitation."
The synchronised terrorist attacks that took place in Mumbai on November 26, at two top hotels and many other places in the city, is a classic example of the success of such an attempt.
The public confidence that people express has a two-fold meaning — an authority in which confidence is placed and a subject to which confidence refers. In the light of the recent horrific events that took place in Mumbai, the authority in question is the local, state and central governments in India and their corresponding law enforcement agencies, such as the police. The subject is clearly such authority's ability to prevent terrorist attacks. But the attacks did occur, which tells us that that the authority failed in preventing such attacks from occurring. This, in turn, has an effect of lowering the confidence the terrified people have in its law enforcing agencies.
A large body of research suggests that common people interpret messages from the authority and act upon them differently, depending upon the confidence they have in the source of the message, that is, the authority. If public shows confidence in the authority, then the public should interpret and react to the messages in the form that the authority wishes them to act.
A high level of confidence can improve the efficiency of response and recovery whereas a low level can drastically inhibit such efficiency. Thus, in such difficult times, the local public should maintain confidence in the local, state and central governments, so that swift and speedy action can be taken to control the situation.
The content and quality of communication about such acts also play a role in determining the level of public confidence. Here lies the importance of media in providing accurate information regarding acts of terror.
Within the US, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) presidential directive/HSPD-7 on critical infrastructure identification, prioritisation and protection, a government policy states that the "terrorists seek to destroy, incapacitate, or exploit critical infrastructure and key resources across the United States to threaten national security, cause mass casualties, weaken our economy, and damage public morale and confidence," and "…undermine the public's morale and confidence in our national economic and political institutions."
Thus, HSPD-7 forces all federal agencies in US to ensure that the public's trust and confidence are not damaged by the actions of terrorists and similar acts. In recognition for the same policy and its overall effect, the DHS includes "public confidence" as one of the major metrics used to evaluate the consequences of terrorist attacks. The use of such efficient metrics has ensured the safety and security of people of America in a difficult time post 9/11.
As the knowledge of change in public confidence can make the difference between producing a confident versus a fearful citizen, it is time that the local, state and central governments, and the law enforcement agencies in India rise to the challenge and make an attempt to follow similar aggressive anti-terrorism approaches that the West has managed to perfect in practice.
When the Mumbai attack is seen from the perspective of risk, the general populace becomes risk-averse. At this time the main perceived risk is that of fear. This tells us that greater the perceived risk of fear, the greater the degradation or lowering of public confidence. This has a trickle effect that constrains activities of people leading to public frustration. Post-incident actions taken by the government can further damage public confidence. An action such as extreme regulation by the law enforcer after an act of terror, for instance, a curfew, could induce greater fear, anxiety and stress among people than the original act of violence itself. Thus, the government should be tactful about how it handles the situation. The government's way of handling the Mumbai situation can enable it to use the public to become a positive and mobilising force to counter terrorism in the future.

The writer is a doctoral scholar in Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh