April 22 marked one year since the terrorist attack at Pahalgam that killed 25 tourists and one local pony rider in 2025. It triggered “Operation Sindoor” – a four-day kinetic conflict between India and Pakistan from 7-10 May that ended in a ceasefire whose origins are mired in controversy, and handed Donald Trump a platform from which to repeatedly claim credit. A year on, several questions remain unanswered.The most fundamental: have we learned anything?Reports at the time indicated that the gunmen crossed the Line of Control from approximately 200 km away and withdrew to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir after the attack. How intelligence agencies failed to detect their movement – electronic or otherwise – is a question that has received no satisfactory answer. The failure recalls Pulwama, where 350 kg of explosive was smuggled in without triggering any alert, and the human bomber – already on the radar of investigative agencies – was not monitored. Add to this the failure to act on the purchase of satellite imagery of the Pahalgam area by a firm linked to a person of Pakistani origin, acquired from a US company in the period before the attack, and a damning pattern takes shape. Uri, Pathankot, Kaluchak – the list of intelligence lapses is long.That no lessons were learnt from Pahalgam was made apparent by the car bomb which exploded near the Red Fort in November 2025. Intelligence agencies again failed to detect the purchase and storage of large quantities of ammonium nitrate by radicalised youth, despite the material being restricted. A reported statement by Maulana Masood Azhar of the Jaish warning of a major attack went unconnected to the threat that materialised. Only the fortunate discovery of subversive posters in Srinagar, and the subsequent investigation and arrests, prevented what could have been a far larger catastrophe. A dozen lives were still lost.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.The intelligence failure at the Red Fort also highlights a broader societal complacency. The bomber reportedly sat in his vehicle for several hours in a parking lot close to the site of the blast. No police beat officer, no parking attendant, no member of the public raised an alarm. Security consciousness in this country remains dangerously low.The establishment shares the blame. The deployment of over 2.5 lakh troops to conduct elections in West Bengal and other states has meant significant withdrawals from border areas and internal security duties – including from Manipur, where the security situation remains volatile. Withdrawal from borders is reported at over 50% in some areas, creating openings for infiltration and border criminals. Security cannot be a lower priority than electoral management.There is also the recurring ugliness that follows each attack: the demonisation of Kashmiris and Muslims at large. After both Pulwama and Pahalgam, Kashmiri students at institutions across the country were harassed and assaulted. After the Red Fort bombing, the targeting grew uglier still. The Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College in Katra was stripped of its recognition shortly after Hindu groups protested against the admission of Muslim students who had earned their seats through NEET. The labelling of an entire community as “white-collar terrorists” on the basis of religion or regional origin is not security consciousness; it is communal bigotry.The media, too, has a case to answer. Outlets that deliberately give such attacks a communal colouring – knowing the history of communal violence in this country – bear responsibility for the social fallout that follows. That this continues to happen, attack after attack, is a failure of professional standards and editorial judgment alike.One year after Pahalgam, India remains vulnerable in ways that have not been honestly accounted for. The intelligence apparatus needs to overhaul the way it gathers, shares, and acts on information. The political establishment needs to treat security as a permanent priority, not a variable adjusted to electoral calendars. And the public conversation needs to resist, rather than amplify, the communal reflex.Between two nuclear-armed neighbours, a single intelligence failure can be catastrophic. We have had several. The questions that Pahalgam raised are still waiting for answers.Sanjiv Krishan Sood was additional director general of the BSF.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.