India's bestest Home Minister evah!

India Inc. appears to be completely enamored by Shri P Chidambaram, who has already been anointed the best Home Minister ever by the secularatti. How quickly we forget that he has been at it for just a little over a year, having taken over the reigns very reluctantly in a politically expedient transition post 26/11. Till date Chidambaram has little to show for other than the creation of ever bigger bureaucracies.

There appears to be little evidence that any serious domestic investigation was even undertaken, if FBI hadn't caught Headley, India's "breakthroughs" post 26/11 would be exactly zero. Despite strong evidence of domestic terror cells in many cities, there seems to have been no attempt to bust these cells. Perhaps one such cell, alleged to be linked to Indian Mujahideen, which in turn is a polymorph of SIMI, may have been behind the recent Pune blast.

Yet, media persons covering the Pune terror attack proclaimed in reverent adulation how Chidambaram had "rushed" from Chennai to Pune and how well he handled the aftermath. This handling mainly consisted of a press conference, held in his preferred style, which is essentially a royal sermon. He does not like to be asked questions, setting the boundaries at the get go. The few he chooses to answer, he makes no attempt to hide his contempt towards the questioner, making hand gestures of impatience, his body language reeking of elitism. He drops recycled cliches ("they have to get lucky just once..") and his fanboys in the media lap it all up.

After Pune, Chidambaram claimed that there had been no intelligence lapses, which is probably true. There had been ample information related to flourishing terror cells in Pune. What was lacking was the political will to act on this information. It is obviously hard to prevent terror attacks, but "you are a sitting duck, too bad" isn't exactly confidence inspiring.

Perhaps what is most astonishing is that even after establishing the much touted NIA, the Pune terror attacks are still being investigated by Maharashtra ATS. Meanwhile there is something brewing with the whole NSA thing.

In any case, minor structural adjustments within the bureaucracy isn't really the job of the Home Minister. A seasoned bureaucrat can pull this through, there is no direct political consequence involved. A Home Minister is supposed to provide vision and handle politically difficult situations. This is where P Chidambaram has so far proved to be a complete failure, sending wrong signals to both fundamentalists and Naxalites.

The Naxalite situation has gotten progressively worse, now we are down to blaming local state governments. One wonders if the said state Governments will be given credit if the situation improves. P Chidambaram himself has denied there is such a thing called Operation Green Hunt.

On the other hand, for someone who insists on taking the secular version of the ministerial oath, P Chidambaram allowed himself to be summoned by an Islamic seminary who then read him the riot act. Chidambaram went with his tail tucked between his legs and then surrendered. A good dog knows his masters. Under P Chidambaram's watch, Kashmir type tendencies has spread throughout India. It started with the student agitations post Batla-house encounter. Conspiracy theories abound yet the Home Ministry remains silent.

If P Chidambaram doesn't wipe off the smirk on his face soon and start showing some leadership, his legacy might as well turn out to be the Kashmirization of rest of India.