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: Conventional wisdom would have it that the drumbeats of change that followed the Mumbai tragedy will mute; that memories will fade and life will return to business as usual. The cry for change that dominated TV and press for the first few days after the tragedy will in short be left unresponded. The changes that do occur will address the symptoms and not the root cause. It will be symbolic not radical.

I have to admit that in the six weeks since 26/11 there is much to support conventional wisdom. The drumbeats have quietened. And perhaps understandably so. The challenge of shifting the needle of governance in a polity riven by the conflicting demands of multiple political groups does appear insuperable. The issue is whether it is impossible?

A flash back review of 2008 would suggest that conventional wisdom can and indeed has been turned on its head. No public figure foresaw the near collapse of the world economy and the fading lustre of the liberal-capitalist model of economic growth and social development. Few if any professional economists predicted the resurrection of Keynesianism. Only a handful of political seers expected Obama to clinch the Democratic Presidency (not at least until it became obvious). And certainly no oil company executive forecast that oil prices would run up from less than $50/bbl in January to just under $150/bbl in July and then collapse again to below $50/bbl by December. What conventionalism did suggest was that the world economy would slow but not hit the brakes; that the financial crisis would be severe but not engulf the global real economy; that oil prices would oscillate but within the bounds set by the fundamentals of demand and supply and that whilst Obama was a candidate of rare talent the traditional determinants of race, experience, and incumbency would ultimately scupper their political ambitions.