About six years ago, thanks to my friend Dr (Capt) GS Dhillon of Dalhousie Public School, my colleagues at Deepalaya, a Delhi-based NGO, and I were able to visit a picturesque spot near Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh nicknamed "Mini Switzerland." Surrounded by pine trees and hills, the meadow reminded me of our personal visit to Switzerland, where we saw the Alps in all their majesty and giant cows enjoying the grass.

At Dalhousie, one of my colleagues gave me an idea that we should plan a visit to Baisaran in Pahalgam in the Kashmir Valley which had a "maxi Switzerland." It was not a request I could act upon but it remained in my mind. I have visited Kashmir four times, twice in my professional capacity and twice as a tourist. Baisaran, unfortunately, was not in my itinerary.

Once a symbol of serenity, Baisaran turned notorious when, on April 22, some terrorists reached the meadow and began shooting to death men allegedly after ascertaining their religious identity. Yet, among the 26 killed were one Kashmiri Muslim and pony-man, Syed Adil Hussain Shah and a Christian and LIC Branch Manager at Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Sushil Nathaniel.

Undoubtedly, the attack shocked everyone from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and the Northeast to the West End. What they could not reconcile themselves to was the terrorists' ability to reach Baisaran to leisurely and selectively kill the tourists. Eyewitness accounts suggest that they were not in a hurry to leave, as if they were confident that they were immune to the security system in place there.

In Kerala, there is a place called Maramon where on the banks of the Pampa, a yearly Christian convention is organised. It attracts tens of thousands of people over a week-long period. It was the 130th edition that ended in February last. It is a tradition that police are not deployed there on the river bank. However, all around the area, policemen and policewomen are posted to take care of any untoward incident.

Alas, on April 22, the security forces were not to be seen anywhere. As one lady whose husband was killed mentioned, he could have been saved if the security forces were able to provide prompt medical care. In the absence of the forces, it was the local people who rose to the occasion and provided all kinds of help. Small wonder that one lady said she lost her dear one, but she gained two Kashmiris as her brothers! It's an almost unbelievable statement.

On May 2, Karnal in Haryana witnessed a poignant event. It was the birth anniversary of the Naval officer Lt. Vinay Narwal. Many people came forward to donate blood on the occasion. Narwal and his wife Himanshi got married just a week before the terrorist attack. They were in Kashmir to enjoy their honeymoon. What she said yesterday was both memorable and commendable: "We don't want people going after Muslims and Kashmiris."

True, 26 families all across India have been devastated by the inhuman killings. No less is the suffering of the people of Kashmir. There is hardly any Kashmiri who is not directly or indirectly benefited by tourism, which is their mainstay. As government jobs are hard to come by and industries are nowhere in existence in the Valley, millions make a living by catering to the needs of the tourists.

There has never been a case of a tourist getting mugged or waylaid in Kashmir. If anyone does so, he is sure to be ostracised by fellow Kashmiris. Reports suggest that travel agents and airlines have been receiving requests for cancellation far in excess of bookings. Travel advisories issued by countries like the US have made Kashmir a no-no for tourists, at least this season.

Yet, the pity is that reports of violence, engineered by vested interests, have come in from some parts of the country. Nonetheless, it should be said with certainty that the people have, by and large, seen the attack as a terrorist one with no local involvement. Kashmiris, like anyone else, are sensible enough not to bite the hand of tourism that feeds them. It never happened in the past and will never happen in the future.

It is a little trite to say that terrorism has no religion. The Americans found out through thorough investigation that those who brought down the twin World Trade Center towers had beer and fried pork at a restaurant in New York before they dispersed to create 9/11. The pork was more appealing to them than their fundamental faith that abhors that meat (Quran 2: 173).

It took many weeks for the US to fill in the missing dots and piece together little bits of information to reconstruct how they planned and executed their sinister design. Unlike the US, our security forces, which had no clue about the attack till it happened, came out with sketches and photographs of the terrorists. The tragedy is that they have not been able to lay their hands on them.

How did they reach Baisaran all the way from Pakistan, crossing so many checkpoints and traversing hundreds of km? Whose failure was that? Initially, the government sought to blame the tourists, claiming that Baisaran was not open to them. The lie was given a decent burial when it was proved that the government itself had advertised the opening of the meadow for tourists. Many thousands had visited the Mini Switzerland by then.

It has now been more than five years since Article 370, which had been so diluted that it offered nothing special to Jammu and Kashmir, was abrogated, and the state was divided into two Union Territories. Many local leaders were put under arrest, and Internet services were stopped for several months, all in the name of controlling a possible backlash and ridding the state of the last vestiges of terrorism.

The attack has given the lie to all the boastful claims. When the Mumbai attack happened during the UPA regime in 2008, Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned forthwith. The then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, came out to address a press conference to express solidarity with all those whose dear ones were killed. He was protected only by an umbrella in that rainy season. His body language suggested how moved he was.

Far from that, Home Minister Amit Shah, who has master-controlled Kashmir all these years, remains in place, and Narendra Modi considered it more important to go to Bihar to address election rallies than to visit Kashmir to make a resolute declaration that the people of India would remain united and nullify the terrorist games. On the contrary, he exhorted people in Bihar to give a fitting reply to Pakistan through the ballot.

I wish Modi and Shah had ordered a thorough investigation to find out who those people were, how they came to India, from where they obtained the guns, and how they reached Baisaran. Such details would have been far more convincing than the sketches of the terrorists made and circulated. As I write this, they are hiding somewhere unless the security forces have arrested them by now.

Intelligence failure is nothing new. My readers would remember that the Kargil "war" happened because our intelligence people had no clue that during the winter, Pakistan had captured an area larger than Delhi. To reclaim it, India had to pay a heavy price.

The Pulwama attack took place on the heavily guarded Srinagar-Jammu highway about 20 km from Srinagar. A car carrying between 300 and 350 kg of explosives struck a convoy of about 70 vehicles that was carrying about 2,500 troops to the Kashmir Valley. Few people know what truly happened there.

I would have loved to read the autobiography of General Manoj Mukund Naravane, who took over as Army Chief in the same year the Pulwama attack occurred. Titled Four Stars of Destiny, it would have revealed some details about the attack and why the Army was not able to "teach" Pakistan a lesson despite the Modi government giving the Army a "free hand." Alas, the book was withdrawn before it was published.

However great an army is, it comes under the government, and it is the government alone that can decide what it should do. In the instant case, the government should set the objective and leave it to the armed forces to take action in fulfilment of the objective. Otherwise, some may consider it a ploy to shirk responsibility.

If Pakistan is proven to be behind the Baisaran attack, though it did not parachute the terrorists, it needs to be taught a lesson. An impression has gained ground that a military conflict is imminent. Suspending the Treaty for Sharing River Water and scaling down diplomatic relations is one thing, and waging war is quite another.

Just a few days ago - April 30 - was the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. The most shameful incident in American history was the American Ambassador in Vietnam flying away from the roof of his embassy in a helicopter. Despite all its wealth and sophisticated weaponry, the US could not stand up to the North Vietnamese, whose guerrilla tactics were beyond the American imagination.

In 2023, I visited the erstwhile American Embassy and the war museums in Hanoi, now Ho Chi Minh City, to understand how the Vietnamese defeated not just America but France earlier and China later. I also visited a workshop where tourist curios were made by Vietnamese who had lost their limbs in the war.

How rightly did Pope Francis write in his autobiography titled 'Hope' that war never solves any problems; it only creates widows and orphans. The futility of war was evident to me the day I reached the Vietnamese capital, as it was that day that the then American President Joe Biden visited the capital. American and Vietnamese flags with portraits of Biden were visible on the main thoroughfares of the city.

What the Pope said is true about all wars, be it in Gaza or Ukraine. They don't solve any problems. A few days ago was the 80th anniversary of the suicide of Adolf Hitler, who thought he could rule Europe, if not the world, relying on his war machinery.

Despite such evidence, some people have been itching for a war with Pakistan. They are most visible on social media. As I read their sanguinary exhortations for war, I remember a senior journalist whose expertise is in defence saying that South Indians were the most jingoistic compared to North Indians as they had never experienced a modern war.

In fact, the champions of India's nuclear weapons were mostly from the South or from a three-letter organisation whose chief cannot move without Z-plus security. As a law-abiding citizen, I will support whatever final decision the government takes, but I cannot be oblivious to the great risks involved in waging a war with Pakistan.

We may call it a failed state or an epicentre of terrorism, but the fact that it is a nuclear power cannot be overlooked except by those who threaten children attending a Vacation Bible School or disrupt the Good Friday service in a small church. Nuclear weapons do not discriminate between people on the basis of their religion.

A war with Pakistan would be suicidal, particularly when India is not assured of any support even from its neighbours, let alone the US, whose leader said that India and Pakistan have been threatening each other for the last "1500" years and it was up to them to sort out their differences.

That peace, not war, is the ultimate objective of diplomacy cannot be overemphasised. Alas, in India, to quote the Dalit rap singer from Kerala, Vedan, it is the one who raises the sword who is the national hero, while the one who voices his protest is the national enemy.