What next for community classification? That the army chief publicly indicated what his force had told the government in private — soldiers and identity politics don't mix and ignoring that means stirring trouble — should hopefully somewhat lighten the onerous burden of the Rajinder Sachar committee. If the government does not instruct the committee to withdraw the Muslims in armed forces questionnaire even after this, we will know that this variant of "minority welfare" policy can be dangerous.

And then the Sachar committee will join a list currently headed by attempts to link the Iran/nuclear proliferation issue to Muslim identity. Politics and policy of these kinds are united by their chilling indifference to consequences that can follow from deliberately fracturing certain institutions' national identity.

Foreign policy was never really a matter of sub-national angst till Tehran found out recently that Indian politics has produced some of its finest spokespersons. The result is that we are looking at an unnecessary, immature and potentially divisive ruckus that will be glorified in the name of debate.

The "debate's" sponsors are not asking whether a nuclear-armed ...

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