"Ah! My dear Watson, there we may come into those realms of conjecture where the most logical mind maybe at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine." – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Adventure of the Empty House

Now, I venture to present one of the possible conjectures that could be formed from the observed sequence of events relating to the Kargil conflict. "Before we start to investigate, let us try to realize what we do know as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental."

There is a security threat and the Jayalalithas and the Swamys seem quite aware of it. Apparently, the Defence Ministry had turned a deaf ear to the Brigadier who reportedly sounded an alarm.
An ambitious politician (Ms. J) takes a quick stab at the all-important portfolio, she voices support to an admiral who’s dismissed without a reason - if he was guilty of some heinous act, then, there should at least have been an inquiry.
A ministry that is sought, a minister who wouldn’t budge (Mr. GF) and two ex-ministers (Mr. SP and Mr. MSY) who were once in-charge of the same ministry preventing the ambitious politician’s ruthless maneuvers.
Soon the BJP-led coalition is stronger at the center and following calls to modernize the armed forces, the Govt. buys weaponry from Israel, the US and orders arms from Russia.
Much, much later, suddenly a scam breaks out – the famous Tehelka Tape implicating Mr. George Fernandes in defence deals.
Of course, there are arguments that there was nothing conclusive in the Tehelka tapes. Got to quote Sir Doyle once again, "Often it was only the smallest trace, Watson, the faintest indication, and yet it was enough to tell me that the great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest tremors of the edges of the web reminds one of the foul spider which lurks in the center."

So, could it be possible that our Netas fooled us? Was our patriotism taken for a ride? Did the war-drummers in TV news anchors and correspondents mislead us? Could it all have been a stage-managed crisis in the interest of politicians and weapon-salesmen?

Here’s one other sequence of happenings that has been bothering me for sometime now. Maybe some of you could throw more light on this.

April 1999 – Cricket match-fixing scandal comes to light – accusations fly around – Kishan Kumar, a sibling of the killed media baron Gulshan Kumar, is the first to be arrested – (His last movie had starred actress Nagma who was later found hobnobbing with the Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly – Nagma is also a frequent spectator at Sharjah matches, which the Indian Govt. has now banned the cricket team from participating) Soon, the Home ministry comes out with statements linking the match-fixing scandal with the Dawood Ibrahim company – people are happy with the chopping of a few heads and get back to the game – October 2001 - Actor Shah Rukh Khan in his affidavit in a Mumbai court alleges that Chota Shakeel, brother of the great ‘D’on himself had called him over phone to force him to act in a movie with Nagma as the heroine. (Thankfully SRK refused the offer!)

Now, could there have been an effort to achieve the defection of the Indian cricket captain? Why, if there really had been one, there is no way we may know weather they succeeded or not - at least, not now. Because, we still don’t have enough facts. Sadly, it’s easier to speculate on what might have happened than on what may.