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As Mumbai and the rest of India come to terms with the carnage in Colaba and count the long-term costs of the devastation, there are two small points of reassurance.

First, the prolonged 60-hour shot-by-shot, live TV coverage of the siege of two hotels and a Jewish community centre, has bluntly brought home to Indians — particularly the country's opinion-makers — the ugly face of terrorism. The threat to national security and the well-being of the country could not have been driven home more unequivocally. India is no stranger to terrorism and Mumbai in particular has suffered incessantly since March 1993. But the sheer audacity of this particular operation and the spectacular publicity surrounding it ensured that every Indian, with access to TV, lived through the horror. If there ever was a wake-up call to rouse a Kumbhakarna, this was it.

Second, this was one outrage which finally snapped the endurance and infinite generosity of India. In the past, every assault on Mumbai — where, at times, the death toll was higher — had produced a flicker of anger, followed by an astonishing display of fatalism. What was often flaunted by the angst-ridden section of the media as the ‘spirit of Mumbai' wasn't a display of the gritty, stiff upper lip resolve Londoners showed during the Blitz in 1940-41. It was actually a demonstration of lofty aloofness which very easily translated into indifference or, worse, denial.

The mood is different this week; it is palpably angry. It is one thing for the three Thackerays to spew indignation. That's habitual. But when pillars of Mumbai society such as Ajay Piramal and Shobhaa De say enough is enough and when Ratan Tata expresses his understated dissatisfaction with the administration's unpreparedness, it suggests that something has finally given way. Those Swami Vivekananda once caricatured as “the patient Hindu, the mild Hindu” may well have become angry Indians.

The transformation was waiting to happen. For more than a decade terrorists espousing unacceptable causes have blown up trains, bombed crowded markets, hijacked a plane and attacked places of worship. Indians have suffered stoically but left it to governments to take remedial action. Instead of building on that trust, the political class has approached terrorism as a game of political one-upmanship, stoked subliminal fears and then left India vulnerable. Every terrorist atrocity was followed by assurances of “tough” action, greater preparedness and continuing laxity. The fanatically motivated terrorists who held Mumbai to ransom for 48 hours have made a mockery of the state's ability to protect its citizens. They not only killed but made a whole country suffer.

The men in uniform did a wonderful and professional job under difficult and even adverse circumstances. They showed what the country is capable of achieving when driven by a common resolve. But India has been shamed by the incompetence of those it entrusted with running the country. Mumbai wasn't a victim of ordinary intelligence failure; the grim truth is that there was zero intelligence. India was caught napping.

It is important to vent our anger through the ballot box, to reject those who preened while our cities burned. Unfortunately, this isn't enough. The collective choice must be shaped by a candid realisation that India is no longer on a conventional flight path: it is at war. Another wrong turn and a Mumbai that is already suffering the burden of a government's mismanagement of public finance will end up as a Beirut, a Karachi.

India doesn't need to replace an uninspiring tweedledum with a dreary tweedledee. It needs someone inspirational, someone blessed with guts, imagination, energy, integrity and application. It yearns for a leader who has the self-assurance to prescribe a bitter dose of medicine. India doesn't need a leader to manage the peace; it needs a leader who can lead us in a war. We are through with a Chamberlain; it's time for a Churchill.