Moshe Holtzberg, the two-year-old orphan of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivika Holtzberg, who died in the Mumbai attack, sobs during a memorial service at a synagogue in Mumbai on Monday. The child calmed down after he was allowed to play. The boy and the nanny who saved him will fly to Israel in a military aircraft. (AP picture)

Dec. 1: The Mumbai attacks have let loose the “dogs of war” between the political and perfume-wearing classes.

“Put a board outside your (housing) society, ‘dogs and politicians not allowed anytime’,” said a text message going around in Mumbai.

If that referred to a slain commando’s father slamming the door on the Kerala chief minister and the police sniffer dogs preceding him in Bangalore yesterday, the politician did not hold back today.

“Not a dog would have visited the residence had it not been for the officer being slain,” V.S. Achuthanandan fumed before TV cameras in earthy vernacular.

BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi seemed to have lipstick on his mind as he joined ranks with Achuthanandan. A BJP leader would have little sympathy for a die-hard Marxist, but this was class war with all politicians under attack.

The urban Indian, thrilled at the serial humiliation of bigwigs by the martyrs’ families, appears to have found an easy punching bag in the politician, accusing the class of every crime, from bungling India’s security to insensitivity towards the terror victims.

As Naqvi hit back, his target appeared to be Mumbai’s media-savvy swish set who have been descending on the streets to pour scorn on the politicians. “A few persons with lipstick and powder on their faces gather to shout slogans against politicians. This is not the nation’s voice,” Naqvi said.

The remark carried echoes of Barack Obama’s “you can put a lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig” comment during the US presidential campaign. Obama, who was using a common idiom, was seen as insulting Republican running mate Sarah Palin who had said the only difference between her and a pitbull was the lipstick.

Achuthanandan too was using a colloquial expression, but his “dog” remark is certain to ruffle a few feathers.

However, even opening their mouths has been fraught with risk for politicians, with the lipstick-and-powder brigade showing a pitbull’s aggression.

Film-maker Karan Johar has used his blog to jeer at the reading skills of leaders few of whom went to elite schools. “Certain politicians should be bashed. Poorly conducted ‘press conferences’ announcing the death and casualty toll for foreigners with the speaker unable to successfully read a list from a sheet of paper, confusing Austria for Australia and generally making us look like illiterate idiots to a global audience. It left me embarrassed and struggling to find pride in our government,” he wrote.

Some politicians may have brought it on themselves. R.R. Patil, now sacked as Maharashtra home minister, had described the attack as a minor incident.

“The CM (Vilasrao Deshmukh, now set to go) laughed through his press conference. The PM read through a written speech without a trace of emotion or involvement,” Bollywood film producer Mukesh Bhatt told The Telegraph.

“Narendra Modi came to gain mileage out of ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s death -- the very man he had abused over the Malegaon blast arrests.”

Modi was snubbed by Karkare’s wife who would neither meet him nor accept his compensation offer. Achuthanandan, though, may feel he can do nothing right: he had been roasted by the media for not attending Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s funeral, and rebuffed when he turned up at his home with another minister a day later.

The major’s father today said he had reacted so strongly because he felt the Kerala VIPs had come “under compulsion” and that his son wouldn’t have liked it. He praised Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa for attending the funeral and consoling the family.

The lipstick-and-powder class, however, was capable of self-criticism too. “We now feel unsafe in our cars with tinted windows and our buildings with multiple watchmen. We now feel what a section of the city’s lower-middle class felt on July 11, 2006, when their security was threatened (in the commuter train blasts),” Johar wrote.

“Affluent members of society now prance around panels claiming Mumbai is no longer safe. This city isn’t safe now, nor was it safe two years ago.”

And not all the text messages were harsh on politicians. One said: “Let us pray that Chidambaram succeeds in bringing down terrorism the way he has brought down share prices.”

But for all the tongue-in-cheek optimism, this sender too may have fallen into the trap of blaming politicians for everything: a global crisis, rather than Chidambaram, is being seen as the cause of the market turmoil.