As Mumbai lifts itself back on to its feet, the most immediate question facing India’s citizens and government is who exactly were the attackers and how did they manage to gain such ready access to the city and to hold it to ransom for almost three days? If the answer is indeed as initial reports suggest – militant Islamists with links to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba – then some difficult questions lie ahead about India’s national security in the light of the shifting forms of terror in the region.

Terrorism in India over the past half century has not crystallised around one central motivating ideology – it has by no means been uniquely Islamist. Nor have its wellsprings been purely Hindu-Muslim religious rivalry. The country’s many and various political and economic divisions have incited terror too. Importantly, past terrorist attacks have been largely driven by local and regional frustrations.