MS Shanker
A short video doing the rounds on social media has ignited speculation: Did Prime Minister Narendra Modi narrowly escape an assassination attempt during his recent visit to Beijing for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit? The clip links together several threads — Modi’s remarks about “safe return” from international trips, his drive with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an armoured limousine, and references to past tragedies such as the mysterious death of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent.
Modi was indeed seen riding alongside Putin in the Russian leader’s Aurus limousine, a moment widely covered in mainstream media. Both leaders later described their conversation as candid and warm, highlighting the unusual but symbolic gesture of camaraderie. The drive was presented as a mark of the personal rapport between the two leaders, not as an emergency measure.
Yet, the viral chatter insists otherwise — that the drive was necessitated by intelligence warnings of a possible CIA plot to target Modi at the SCO venue itself. According to these theories, RAW acted on last-minute inputs, forcing a change of plan. While there is no corroborated evidence in the public domain to back such claims, one cannot entirely dismiss the possibility of covert operations in the murky world of global espionage.
India’s history is not untouched by such shadows. The sudden death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent in 1966, hours after signing a peace agreement with Pakistan, remains unresolved. Officially declared a heart attack, the circumstances raised questions that have never been conclusively answered. The controversy even inspired the 2019 film The Tashkent Files, which argued that India still owes itself a truthful reckoning of that episode.
Given that precedent, it is not unreasonable for Indians to view every unusual turn in their leaders’ foreign engagements with suspicion.
Intelligence agencies worldwide play rough games, and history is replete with covert plots and state-sponsored eliminations. It would be naïve to rule out the possibility that hostile powers might one day target an Indian leader. But at the same time, caution is necessary. Social media thrives on exaggeration, and without verifiable evidence, what is being shared remains conjecture rather than fact.
If nothing else, the Beijing buzz serves as a reminder of two realities. First, India must remain vigilant in protecting its leadership, especially when the Prime Minister travels abroad. Second, citizens should balance legitimate concern with responsible scepticism — learning from history, but not becoming captive to rumour.
In the end, only transparency and vigilance can prevent future tragedies. If India has learned one lesson from Shastri’s mysterious death in Tashkent, it is that unanswered questions never fade — they resurface, sharper, in the imagination of the next generation.
Ironically, even the Opposition today is not above invoking such scenarios. On record, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi — while running his ‘vote chori’ campaign against the Election Commission and blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi — has openly urged India’s youth to hit the streets “as in Nepal.” Worse, he went so far as to say that just as Gen Z agitators lynched the former Prime Minister of Nepal and others, India’s Prime Minister too could face a similar fate within the next six months. Such reckless rhetoric is not only irresponsible but dangerous. India may be a much larger and more stable democracy than Nepal, yet its security apparatus and vigilant citizenry cannot afford complacency. Eternal watchfulness is the only safeguard against chaos.
