Is war imminent?
Till India lost two combat jet aircraft in quick succession, one a MIG-21 the other a MIG-27, followed by a helicopter gunship, the world cared two hoots about an unknown place on the map called Kargil. The wreckage parked a few kilometres inside territory indicating clear violation of Pakistani airspace, intelligence planners in the west suddenly started to have nuclear jitters if the scrimmage escalated to full war-scale. Against the market forces, the Dow Jones Index on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) went down. The mountain ridges dominate for quite a length the only fair weather supply road to Ladakh (and more importantly Siachen), the Mujahideen occupying it have withstood powerful barrages unleashed from the ground and from the air by the Indians. According to the Indians, they had vacated these mountain posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir during the winter and a composite Mujahideen group composed of Afghan war veterans, Kashmiris, etc backed by regulars of the Pakistan Army had taken advantage of the light winter snows this year to deploy in these abandoned positions before the Indians could re-occupy them. Pakistan’s contention is that the Mujahideen are acting on their own as they have done for umpteen years but if the Indian Armed Forces violate a largely undemarcated LoC in that area or shell or attack any area on our home side, Pakistan would retaliate like it did when it shot down at least two of the three aircraft downed. To defuse the building tension Pakistan immediately proposed that Senator Sartaj Aziz visit New Delhi on June 7, 1999 for peace talks. In a conciliatory gesture Flt Lt Nachiketa was released. In a blatant diplomatic snub, India refused this peace overture through a fire and brimstone Vajpayee address to the nation. India continues to give well-attended daily military briefings to the media, both in New Delhi and Srinagar about “successes” in evicting the “intruders”. After having given the local Corps Commander one week to clear the mess, they sacked a Deputy GOC of the rank of Brigadier.
According to the initial figures given by the Indians about the size of the “invasion force” (about 500-600) and the casualties inflicted on the Mujahideen, they have been “wiped out” several times over. They have now paraded out the identity (ID) cards on three bodies as “evidence” that they belonged to the Northern Light Infantry (NLI) of the Pakistan Army. This must be a new one, if Pakistan had to send in this force as infiltrators, would they have allowed ID Cards on their persons? In the meantime other than a clear Vajpayee threat to Pakistan, a significant development has been the banning of viz (1) all news media from the entire battle front in Kashmir and (2) Pakistan TV from being seen in India. As for the second, it is really unfortunate that the so-called world’s largest democracy should curb information flow in such a crude manner and as for the first, other than hiding the truth about casualties and the real situation, it could be to prevent reporting about a military build-up with respect to a possible Indian adventure either elsewhere along the LoC in order to relieve the pressure in and around Kargil or even a massive heliborne attack behind the ridges to cut off the Mujahideen occupying them. Attacked directly the Pakistan Armed Forces will retaliate, how long will the on-going conflict be kept localised?
At this time there are exchanges of artillery and small arms all along the LoC in Kashmir. The Indians are deliberately targeting civilian villages in a callous form of “ethnic cleansing” to force the inhabitants (who are Muslims) to leave the area. Dead children, internal refugees and devastated villages are powerful evidence for the world media to absorb. Pakistan’s firepower has been focussed on Indian military locations as one cannot expect our gunners to target their own brethren living across the LoC in Indian-occupied Kashmir. To cover their military deployment and build-up the Indians have done a planned evacuation of civilians in the Kargil Sector. As regards the Mujahideen, the whole world knows about the internal revolt within Indian-occupied Kashmir since 1989, a period of repression in which almost 50,000 Kashmiris have lost their lives (India confirms only 16,000). Even 16,000 lives in 10 years would make it the most bloody conflict in the last decade in the world. Mujahideen have been entering Indian-occupied Kashmir through minefields and fire-zones at will despite restraints by Pakistan, it would require many times the present complement of 10 Corps to police the whole LoC effectively. The Mujahideen have motivation, that is why they have stood fast despite taking such heavy pounding by air and artillery from the Indians. Their determination has taken its toll, both physically and psychologically, desertions from the Indian Army, not only in the Kargil sector but along the whole LoC in Kashmir, confirms that Indian rank and file do not have the motivation or the stomach for such a fight. The news blackout now makes more sense.
For a moment let us take the predicament of both the political government and the Indian Armed Forces with respect to Kargil. Having internationalised the conflict inadvertently by losing three combat aircraft, two on the wrong side of the border, India has a severe “loss of face” problem. Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP is facing a make or break elections against a resurgent Congress under Italian born Sonia Gandhi. The local results in Goa have shown a trend of voters coming back to Congress (40%) against BJP’s 25% of the vote on the strength of the charisma of the Nehru-name. Having its core strength drawn from nationalism based on the dominance of the Hindu religion (Hindutva), the military reverses have been a severe political setback for the BJP. If India does not come out looking good from this fracas, the voters will desert them in droves in the national elections, enough to tilt the balance to Congress, who even without a majority will have enough seats to make a stronger coalition government than did the BJP. India has been flaunting its military might during the BJP tenure, with Defence Minister George Fernandes carrying a particularly big mouth. Despite the daily bombast of their press briefings, the Indian Army has been wrong-footed and in calling up air power and in losing the three combat aircraft, one of them the vaunted MIG-27, their Air Force has also suffered tremendous loss of prestige. When both the civilian and the military have been placed in an embarrassing situation, one has to logically expect some military adventure to even the “loss of face”. As regards violation of the Simla Agreement by breaching the LoC, the Indians have taken ground thrice across the LoC, not counting the Siachen incursion, what about those violations?
On September 6, 1965, India launched a full-scale invasion of Pakistan across its international borders. Ostensibly the reason was Pakistan Army’s end run to Akhnur in Kashmir, the occupation of the bridge would have closed the supply route to Indian-Occupied Kashmir. Such a set-piece attack in strength by many divisions as the Indians did on Lahore and Sialkot to relieve the pressure requires considerable amount of time for planning and logistics. The die was cast in April/May 1965 with the severe mauling of Indian forces in the Rann of Kutch, causing then Indian PM Lal Bahadur Shastri to threaten a war “at a time and place of our choosing”, unquote. Thirty four years later, almost to the day, the Indians have suffered an extensive loss of men and material but above all, of prestige, Indian PM Atal Behari Vajpayee has given the same threat. We can only wait to see whether the Indians will keep war localised to Kashmir, go for a major incursion in some sector, or even attempt a “final solution” of the “Pakistan problem” by coming across the international border at a time and place of their choosing. The imminence of war is rhetorical, it is almost inevitable. If the Armed Forces cannot hold them despite our numerical inferiority in conventional forces, will we refrain from resorting to the unconventional? Because of the Indian blunder and the Mujahideen resolve, the Nawaz Sharif government, its Foreign Office, the Army, the ISI and others have coalesced beautifully to convert essentially a tactical situation to strategic advantage. Faced with this, will India risk an all out nuclear war? Maturity demands that India accepts Pakistan’s offer for talks to restore peace in South Asia before the situation escalates out of control.
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