Tamils are cryptoterrorists. They are not above offering covert support and safe houses, and arranging for landing RDX and plastique at Dhanushkodi. Sikhs are utterly brazen terrorists. They actually take the field against the State bearing Kalashnikovs.

This is the sort of rabid regional prejudice that the Jain Commission report, despite its plodding, conservative wording, manages to convey. It reflects the regional bias that is endemic to north India but that, at least, does not seek to criminalise communities. Malayalees are merely laughable Communists who seek economic advantage in the Gulf. Tamils are difficult bureaucrats. Bengalis are decadent cultural supremacists. Biharis join the IAS specifically to cadge for a fatter dowry. The only people that a north Indian can safely talk to are those born north of the Tropic of Cancer and west of the Ganges delta.

Such prejudice may appear to be harmless. But it is the bedrock for the development of potentially dangerous opinion on races which, unfortunately, have come in contact with terrorism. As Karunanidhi has rightly pointed out, painting the people of a whole state black reflects an injudicious mind. That mind should also have realised that the Sikhs are the victims of terrorism, not its creators. Separatism in Punjab was masterminded from the Centre. Only its frontline generals operated out of the Golden Temple. Can either the Tamils or the Sikhs be blamed for taking serious exception to such sweeping prejudice? For that matter, can the Nagas be blamed for asking visitors it they are from India? When the Hindi heartland is at such pains to render foreign all lands beyond the Chicken's Neck, surely their people, regularly denigrated as inscrutable, problematic slant-eyes, have a corresponding right to regard the Gangetic plain as foreign soil. Much of the problems of the Northeast stem from its impression that it will always be cut off from that mysterious area of human enterprise termed the national mainstream.

Only one definite fact is known about this area: it is physically located in north India. It is loosely defined by the usual delimiters of national character: language, food habits, forms of dress. What is conveniently forgotten is that it is only one of a multitude of subnational characters. The national character is defined by other, higher criteria, notably faith in the Constitution. The multiculturist State's success depends on whether it is able to ensure equity among communities. By that criterion, the Jain Commission report shows up a State that is in danger of resounding failure. It has reduced Tamil Nadu to a convenient scapegoat when its people only reflected the national mood. It has criminalised the Sikhs for crimes that were plotted elsewhere. Had it been called upon to expound on the whole terrorist problem, it would have concluded that the entire Northeast, right up to Tawang, was a national threat. Every Muslim in Kashmir, too, would have been classified as an anti-national. There is a danger inherent in such sweeping statements. They devalue the authority of the statement itself -- and the agency authoring it. In the present circumstances, the least the Jain Commission should do is to tender an apology to the people of Tamil Nadu for hurting their sentiments.