The Inanity of the So-called ‘Educated’ People

By Justice Markandey Katju
Former Judge of Indian Supreme Court
Mumbai, India

The well-known journalist Karan Thapar recently interviewed former diplomat Shivshankar Menon about Operation Sindoor:
🔗   Watch the interview

This interview reveals the inanity and superficiality of our so-called educated class, to which these two gentlemen belong.

The entire discussion 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 the obvious question: What is the evidence or proof that Pakistan was behind it? Not once does Shivshankar Menon raise or address this crucial issue. Like much of the TV media, which started blaming Pakistan almost immediately after the incident — without any investigation — the entire interview proceeds on the assumption, taken entirely 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 weapons? Was there a mastermind behind them? All of this remains unknown, and may never be known, as I have explained in the article below:
🔗   Catching the Culprits of the Pahalgam Attack

I have also shared my own conjecture here:
🔗   Understanding the Pahalgam Killings

Nevertheless, the Indian government and media threw the entire blame for the incident on Pakistan, and the former launched Operation Sindoor.

In some of my interviews, I likened this reaction to that of the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, who would shout “Off with his head!” whenever anyone was brought before her. When someone suggested the person should be given a hearing and a fair trial, she replied:

“Off with his head first, trial afterwards.”

It is true that in the past, Pakistan-based terror groups were responsible for some terrorist attacks in India — e.g., the Mumbai attacks on 26/11/2008, where a Pakistani, Ajmal Kasab, was arrested.
But the specific question here is about the Pahalgam attack. What proof is there that Pakistan was behind it — justifying Operation Sindoor?

Just because Pakistan was behind some past attacks in India does not automatically prove it was responsible for the Pahalgam attack on 22.4.2025.

I raised this question in the following panel discussion (see from 23 minutes onwards):
🔗   Watch the panel discussion

But Karan Thapar and Shivshankar Menon preferred to gloss over it — behaving like the Queen of Hearts.

(Markandey Katju is an Indian jurist and former judge of the Supreme Court of India who served as chairman of the Press Council of India from 2011 to 2014)