Jaideep Saikia
(Jaideep Saikia is a conflict theorist and bestselling author. He can be reached at jdpsaikia@gmail.com)
It was in the year 1956. Lal Bahadur Shastri, who later on went on to become India’s Prime Minister, was then the Minister of Railways in the Jawaharlal Nehru ministry.
Two end-to-end train accidents took place that year, taking the lives of many people. Shastri, owing moral responsibility, offered to resign on both occasions. Whereas Nehru did not accept Shastri’s resignation after the Mahbubnagar trail accident incident, he did so after the Ariyalur train accident in Tamil Nadu, which took place just three months after the one that took place in present-day Telangana.
Accidents take place on roads, trains, and in the air. Errant flights of birds leading to hits on aircraft, stray cows, heavy downpours, and even inebriated driving have resulted in tragedies. Neither the Mahbubnagar nor the Ariyalur train accident waspremeditated. Nor was it being guided by a sinister, anti-India foreign hand.
But Lal Bahadur Shastri took moral responsibility and resigned from his position as the Minister of Railways. It took far more than mere conscience to do so. What is more, in both the above-mentioned train accidents there was no, as aforesaid, hint of Pakistani or anti-India perpetrators. There was no question of intelligence failure. Both the train accidents happened as a result of torrential rains. Acts of God.
But Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned.
Almost 70 years later, 26 innocent civilians died in Kashmir’s Baisaran meadows. They were innocent tourists, some of whom, it is reported, were on their postnuptial holiday. Kashmir was achieving a pickup, and tourism was flourishing. The elections to the Jammu & Kashmir were peaceful, and the world felt that the Valley had finally put fear and terror behind. But destiny and envious eyes had ordained otherwise. Terror struck just six months after the new government of Omar Abdullah took over the reins of office.
In 1956, tragedy had visited two places in India because nature fated it. But on 22 April 2025, the innocent people did not meet their end because of torrential rain. Their deaths were ordained in Pakistan months ago by a group of anti-India terror actors. The meadows of Baisaran had been identified, reconnoitred, and clinically mapped for the 22/4 attack by the two Asims of Pakistan (Pakistan army chief, Asim Munir, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence chief, Asim Malik). Indeed, it was Asim Munir who had orchestrated the attack on a CRPF convoy when 40 personnel of the paramilitary force were killed on 14 February 2019 in Pulwama.
The objective this time around had other motivations, including distracting attention from Pakistan’s failed state status, a possible coup d’état against Munir, and a deep conspiracy that had China and Pakistan in dual concert. But it was also propelled by a savage glee to instill insecurity among 150 crore patriotic Indians as well as to drive a wedge between well-meaning religious communities that are coexisting in peace in India.
But Pakistan succeeded in neither of its objectives. Kashmir or Kaziranga (or the elegant climes of Cherrapunji or the backwaters of Kerala) will continue to attract the rest of India. Nor can the motivation to divide Indian brethren ever win.
However, it is also true that India of 2025 (immediately after the Baisaran carnage) sought revenge against Pakistan. Indeed, the Indian armed forces (the only organisation in the country with both a sense of duty and a conscience) carried out successful surgical strikes against terrorist camps billeted inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and inside Pakistan.
The government of India made the correct moves, economically and militarily. It was also done with patience and precision. It did not act in haste but in a calibrated manner after weighing all the pros and cons. The air strikes of 7 May 2025 had to be undertaken. After all, the country had experienced great distress as a result of Pakistan’s barbaric act. The families of the victims wanted concrete visible action even if it meant India waging war against Pakistan. The operational response should ideally have been to systematically track down the terrorists who were still hiding in the immediate aftermath of the attack in the Meadows of Baisaran.
Pahalgam is quite far from the Line of Control. It was impossible that they could have gone back to Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK) so quickly. The National Intelligence Agency has identified one Sheikh Sajjad Gul as the mastermind of the Baisaran attack. According to another report, one Asif Sheikh of Tral near Pulwama and another Adil Thokar of Bijbehara of Anantnag district were part of the five-member death squad.
But the Indian intelligence has not been able to track down any of the five even (at the time of writing on 17 July 2025) after almost three months. Instead, a limited war was launched against Pakistan, which, by a convincing yardstick, was fair. The terror sponsoring Pakistan had to be taught a lesson. Indeed, India achieved its objective when it destroyed nine terror camps in PoK.
However, it is unfortunate that innocent civilians were killed in Poonch and thereabouts as a result of relentless Pakistani artillery shelling and drone strikes, and there continues to be speculation about losses incurred by the Indian Air Force and the army. Indeed, some among many were of the opinion that war was not the answer to a terror attack. Instead, New Delhi should have taken a page out of Israel’s book and replicated the manner in which it tracked down the perpetrators of the Munich massacre of 1972.
Pakistan, despite the losses it has suffered, will continue to support terrorism against India. They did so in Assam (recall the ISI operatives that the Assam Police had arrested in 1999-2000!), they have done so when the Indian parliament was sought to be stormed, and they did so in Mumbai on 26/11 and in Pulwama. Almost three months ago, they perpetrated the terror in Pahalgam. In fact, the atmospherics in the Indian subcontinent have become more conducive for anti-India action. The manner in which a rogue Bangladeshi is mouthing effrontery about the Northeastseems to be indicative of a sinister agenda. China has showcased itself primarily as an observer in the drama that is being played out. But the fact that it carefully watched the “effectiveness” of its armaments in combat reveals that it played an important role behind the curtains.
The long and short of the article’s essence is that a complete overhaul of India’s top intelligence apparatus has to be undertaken. The old school failed to comprehend the larger picture by which India is being compromised time and again. The present head of internal intelligence just does not have the ability to think “out-of-the-box.” The days of traditional intelligence engineering are over. Today, a country that has been repeatedly afflicted by terror must know the imperatives of the three ocular sights. These, apart from the technologies and gambits (as in a game of chess!), are a “satellite’s point of view,” a “room’s point of view,” and an “ant’s point of view.” It is only a sophisticated combination of the three aforesaid views that would bring forth the clairvoyance and the sophistication that India needs to attain and achieve at this time in its history. There is a clear need to “ring out the old, ring in the new.” The country needs a set of fresh attire in its wardrobe of internal intelligence.
Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned because of torrential rains. How should the Government of India act. Should it take a page out of Shastri’s courageous act?
Now that the Lt. Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, has admitted to intelligence failure for the dastardly terror attack in Baisaran, the Government of India must take immediate steps to sack the person who is in charge of internal intelligence in India as well as ensure that the person is disgracefully drummed out of the government. The person must also be dismissed from service without delay. It has been a telling moment for the Government of India that the person was allowed to continue to shamelessly head an agency even after almost three months have passed since 26 innocent people lost their lives in Baisaran. The Lt. Governor’s admission leaves no room for conjecture. There must be no delay. After all, even as the conscientious trio in Modi-Shah-Rajnath took the bold step and took correct punitive action against Pakistan and the terror actors it sponsored, it would be in the fitness of things that the person responsible by way of failing to anticipate the attack is suitably punished. The person in question is as much to blame for the gruesome deaths as are the five murderers who are still at large.
Furthermore, the person who has blood on his hands must be summarily held responsible for failure to carry out his duty, and his pension should be cashiered. Indeed, even the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah has called for “fixing responsibility” for the intelligence failure.
It is unfortunate that human memory is not only short, but also that newer concerns overtake earlier failures, mishaps, and disasters. In fact, it is in the reprehensible playbook of the person who failed (and in the case of Baisaran, the failure is comparable with the same terror actors who perpetrated the murders) that the people of India try their utmost to engineer new concerns in order to distract attention from grievous past blunders. But the people of India will not be misled. Nor will they forgive.
The people of India, particularly the families of the innocent persons who were murdered in Baisaran, pause for a reply.