The grief and anger of India’s most dynamic city found expression yesterday in street protests and furious criticism of the Government’s failure to protect its citizens from terrorism. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, accepted the resignation of his Interior Minister. Responding to public outrage at the seven hours taken by the country’s most admired commandos to reach the scene of last Wednesday’s attacks, Dr Singh also promised more and better-trained antiterrorism forces.

India will need them, just as Dr Singh will need new laws and tough new rhetoric if he is to persuade voters to trust him with the country’s security in elections due next May. But at the same time he must win the argument against those in Government and Opposition calling for the India-Pakistan peace process to be shelved.

Now more than ever, that process must be kept alive. To let it drift would not just delight the cult of murderous victimhood that trained the Mumbai gunmen. It would squander a rare chance of progress towards solving one of the world’s oldest and most contagious conflicts.

Last week’s attacks confirmed Kashmir as the most dangerous flashpoint in the struggle against militant Islam: Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), thought to have played a leading role in planning the attacks, was established specifically to spearhead efforts to wrest Kashmir from India. Disowned by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) after 9/11, it has since been coopted by al-Qaeda so that its regional and largely territorial goals are now overlaid by the delusional aims of global jihad. Inflaming sectarian violence within India, home to the world’s second largest Muslim minority, is one of those aims. Triggering a third war over Kashmir is another.

But India and Pakistan do not have to play into the terrorists’ hands. Indeed, they are better equipped to resist al-Qaeda and its subsidiaries than the death toll in Mumbai, and the recrimination since, suggests.

Until a series of clashes this year, Kashmir had been relatively calm and cautiously optimistic thanks to peace talks that began in 2004. This is not the West Bank any more than Delhi is Jerusalem. For all the flaws in their governance, India and Pakistan are democracies. Neither denies the other’s right to exist. Both understand that their best interests would be served by a peaceful solution in Kashmir. With sufficient forbearance on both sides, and a few courageous steps, they could still achieve one.

Pakistan’s fragile new Government has failed utterly to stop LeT and similar terrorist groups operating with impunity on its territory. There are even reports that the Government recently approved the purchase of an armoured four-wheel-drive for the LeT leader, Hafiz Muhammad Sayeed. President Zardari should pledge to arrest him forthwith. ISI obstruction might render such a pledge no more than a gesture, but it would still matter. Mr Zardari’s first step must be to show earnest of intent.

India is understandably in no mood to give ground on Kashmir. Yesterday’s resignation of Shivraj Patil, the Interior Minister who took “moral responsibility” for failing to deter the attacks, will not satisfy politicians and victims’ relatives now armed with evidence that vital warnings were ignored. But in the longer term, if Islamabad can find the resolve to take significant steps against the terrorists it harbours, Delhi must reciprocate. It must also find the maturity to accept the good offices of the incoming US administration. India has hitherto bridled at the idea that a third party could help to broker peace in Kashmir, but President-elect Obama has promised to make it his business. He is right to do so. Kashmir is now everyone’s problem.