The well known journalist Karan Thapar recently interviewed former diplomat Shivshankar Menon about Operation Sindoor
This interview reveals the inanity and superficiality of our so called ‘educated’ class, to whom these two gentlemen belong.
The whole interview presupposes that Pakistan was behind the Pahalgam attack on 22nd April, 2025, in which 26 Hindu tourists were selectively killed.
Not once did Karan Thapar ask what is the evidence or proof that Pakistan was behind it, and not once does Shivshankar Menon go into this crucial question. Like the TV media which started blaming Pakistan within a short time after the incident, though there had been no investigation, the whole interview proceeds on the footing, and taking it for granted, that Pakistan was the culprit.
The terrorists who committed this heinous and dastardly crime disappeared into the nearby jungles soon after the incident. Who were they, Indians or Pakistanis, who supplied them with the weapons they used, was there a mastermind behind them, etc is all unknown, and will perhaps never be known, as I have explained in the article below :
I have given my own conjecture below :
The Indian government and the Indian media threw the entire blame for the incident on Pakistan, and the former launched Operation Sindoor.
In some interviews I said that this was behaving like the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carrol’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, who would say ” Off with his head ” whenever anyone was brought before her. When someone said that the person should be given a hearing, and a trial held, before cutting off his head, she replied ” Off with his head first, trial afterwards ”.
It is true that in the past Pakistan based terror groups had been behind some terrorist attacks in India, e.g. the Mumbai attacks on 26.11. 2008, in which one Pakistani Ajmal Qasab was arrested. But the specific question is about the Pahalgam attack. What is the proof that Pakistan was behind it, justifying Operation Sindoor ? Just because in the past Pakistanis were behind terrorist attacks in India does not necessarily prove that they were also behind the Pahalgam attack on 22.4.2025.
I raised this question in this panel discussion ( see from 23 minutes onwards in the video link ) :
https://www.facebook.com/justicekatju/videos/4055047868088797
But Karan Thapar and Shivshankar Menon peferred to gloss over it, behaving like the Queen of Hearts
