Kargil: A Debacle or A Lost Opportunity?
Monday June 02, 2008
Adnan Gill
gill_adnan@hotmail.com
Starting from the days of the Sir Creek dispute, all the way to the Kargil Conflict; you will find Indians remembering each and every armed-conflict as a glorious victory snatched out of teeth of defeat by the outnumbered brave Indian troops. Neutral observers could disagree and dispute all they want, but to Indians credit, they always remember their defeats as victories. Sadly, in a stark contrast, the self-defeating Pakistanis generously concede their victories to be defeats.
In their Official 1965 War History published by the Indian Ministry of Defense, Indian historians never acknowledged their humiliating defeats at the Sir Creek. In a slight of hand, when recording the tallies of the battle for the Sardar Post, Indians provided exact ranks and numbers of Pakistani casualties, but conveniently marked most of their own casualties as missing; not dead or POW (p. 25). However, the Pakistanis put the Indian losses around 250 dead. If one is to assume even 1/5 of Pakistani numbers to be accurate, the Indians must have suffered at least twice as many casualties as they marked as missing. Even though, Indians miserably lost on every battle front at Sir Creek front, including Jungle Post, Clump Post, Sardar Post, Chhad Bet, Sera Bat and Biar Bet, still one would be hard-pressed to find any Indian who would honorably admit their miserable defeats.
One could only wish, like Indians, Pakistanis would also take pride in their glorious victories, instead of disowning them. But then how can we blame such Pakistanis when it took only one letter from the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson for President Ayub Khan to obediently return every inch of land Pakistani soldiers won back with their sweat and blood! Pakistani historians are also to be blamed for leavening historical vacuums, which enemy filled with their exaggerated embellishments.
India first violated Pakistans sovereignty and illegally occupied its territory when they invaded and annexed the State of Junagarh and Hyderabad, and then Kashmir. Later, India set the precedence of brazenly violating the Line of Control (LOC). Between 1996 and 1999 alone, the UNMOGIP recorded around 3,500 Indian Violations of LOC. Since signing the Shimla Agreement in 1972, India not only invaded but still illegally occupies 3 sectors that used to be on the Pakistani side of the LOC; namely Siachin, Qamar and Turbat La.
In 1998, India tested its nuclear weapons. Pakistan answered by testing their own. By doing so, Indians practically neutralized their 1/6 numerical and conventional superiority over Pakistan. By publicly going nuclear, Pakistanis gained confidence to calculate, that despite low intensity conflicts in the disputed Kashmir, India will not go to full fledge war. Arguably, Pakistanis were fairly accurate with their calculation; Kargil Conflict, and 2002 border standoff vindicated their calculations.
Following the Indian lead of numerous LOC incursions, Pakistan decided to return the favor. An ingenious tactical plan was pulled out of shelves and was set in motion. The plan called for occupying strategic peaks, on the Indian side of LOC, overlooking a long stretch of the Leh-Srinagar highway (NHA). The idea was to secure and hold vantage points overlooking the highway to direct Pakistani artillery fire for the purposes of intercepting and disrupting Indian logistical supply-lines. The highway was/is the lifeline of the Indian troops illegally occupying the Siachin Glacier. A suspension of supplies for few more weeks would have made it very difficult for the Indians troops in Siachin to have sustained the next winter.
It was a brilliant tactical plan, but it was a lousy strategic plan. It was missing vital components of support from the political leadership, Foreign Office, and private TV channels for the PR purposes. The civilians alleged, the military left them out of loop till the last hour, which handicapped their performance. Supporters of military retorted, exclusion of the civilians from the planning phase was necessary to maintain absolute secrecy. While, the critics explained, Pakistani military never trusted the competence or professionalism of the civilians enough to entrust them with highest level of secrecy. The ferocity of Indian reaction, punctuated by the IAF close-support missions, must have caught the architects of the plan off guarded. Perhaps thats why the component of air-cover for the rebels was also missing from the otherwise well conceived Pakistani plan. Critics also credit the Indian authorities for managing the dissemination of information with near perfection. Their PR management was credited for shoring up domestic and international support for the Indian reaction, declaration of -- supposed -- Indian victory; most importantly, for demonizing Pakistan for what India had done in the past.
To the eternal shame of Indian intelligence, the Pakistani advance went totally undetected till May 4, 1999, when some shepherds tipped off the Indians. According to The Washington Post reporter, Pamela Constable, initially Indians claimed there were only dozen or two intruders who were to be dislodged within a week from few peaks. By the end of the conflict, Indians were literally swearing there were at least 5,000 Pakistani rebels commanding the heights. After the conflict, the Indians revised the numbers to 20,000 Indian troops (in the theater) vs. 1,500 so-called infiltrators. However, in 2002, Brig. Shaukat Qadir (Pakistani) claimed, the total number of Pakistani rebels never exceeded 1,000 from all ranks. The ratio of combatants was 20:1 in Indias favor. However, according to Global Security, at conflicts peak, Indian troop strength in Kashmir ballooned to 730,000. The buildup included a handsome deployment of Indian Air Force personnel who were supporting the operations of around 60 frontline Indian aircraft.
The nature of insurmountable odds faced by the Indians could be judged from the following stats compiled by the Global Security: The Indian Artillery fired over 250,000 shells, bombs and rockets during the Kargil conflict the Air Force carried out nearly 5,000 sorties of all types over 50-odd days of operations The aircraft [were] required to fly at about 20,000 feet [or higher, where] the air density is 30% less than at sea level. At such dizzying heights, where high winds unpredictably shift velocity every few second, fire-control algorithms simply do not work; neither do the other precision weapons. Very well masked rebel bunkers built on vertical heights were extremely difficult to detect, and notoriously difficult to score a direct hit. So one can safely postulate, the accuracy rate of Indian artillery shells and air-dropped weapons couldnt have been over 3-5%.
Few reporters captured the enormity of incursion and the frustrating predicaments of the Indian troops. On May 18, the Times of India reported, Painting a grim picture, the sources said the Pakistani intruders had come 6 km inside the LoC in Mushkoh Valley and the Drass sub-sector, 2 km in Kaksar and up to 7 km in the Batalik sub-sector. The Pakistanis, they said, were holding strategic peaks which gave them a dominating view of the areas around.
About a week before the conflict ended, when the Indian media was splashing feel-good images of their brave commandos planting Indian flags on peak after peak; in Batalik sector, all the Indians were able to do was reoccupy 1 piddly ridge. Pamela Constable (The Washington Post) reported, Singh and other military officials here admit their progress has been excruciatingly slow. About 15 miles northeast of here in the area of Batalik, for example, Singh acknowledged, only one of four occupied ridges has been cleared of the enemy after weeks of fighting and shelling. Then she went over the helplessness and embarrassment Indians had to face, It is evident from the military buildup in this region that India is determined to flush out the infiltrators and make up for the embarrassment of allowing them to sneak in undetected and keep one of the world`s largest military establishments at bay for weeks.
It was quite evident that Indians were over their heads and nowhere close to a victory. Contrary to what the Indian propaganda machine was showing to the world, on emergency bases, their government was silently importing 3,500 caskets for their fallen men. In reality, Indians were nowhere even close to dislodging more than handful so-called intruders. Ms. Constable also caught their farces, The rebels penetrated nearly four miles inside Indian-held territory there and still control several ridges beyond [Drass]. She further reported, Indian Military officials said more Pakistani troops are still lodged in the ridges. They said their positions are so high and fortified that two or three fighters can fend off literally hundreds of Indian troops trying to scale the ridges below and surround them. Indian warplanes periodically strafe the ridges, but officials said most are so steep and narrow that air attacks have only a limited effect.
Impotency of IAF missions was also quite evident . They lost 1 helicopter and 2 IAF aircraft were shot down on the Pakistani side of LOC. One of their pilots was killed in action and the other was captured by the Pakistani troops. Latter on, he was released by the Pakistani in a goodwill gesture. The Hindustan Times quoted Indian military commanders voicing their frustrations, "Every time they hear our aircraft approach they retreat into the caves No amount of shelling or rockets can prove effective in such a situation."
Apparently, not only the Indians were buying the scripted Indian propaganda, so were some of the Pakistanis. Nawaz Sharifs July 4, panicky rush to Washington dumbfounded many Pakistanis. Clearly, Mr. Sharif was incognizant of the immense advantage the Pakistanis enjoyed in the theater. Instead of trusting his military advisors, when Indians bluffed he folded. In short, Indian bluff of expanding the conflict unnerved Mr. Sharif. When the time came to show spine, he begged Washington to save him. He sold Pakistans advantage and honor for President Clintons word that he will take "personal interest" in the Kashmir dispute. On July 11, the Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said, in response to Nawaz Sharifs appeal, certain groups of Islamic militants have started to withdraw their forces from the mountains. And just like that, the ultimate sacrifices of many rebel volunteers were wasted.
Any statesman worth his salt would have immediately walked out on Mr. Clinton after telling him: Pakistani blood is not so cheap, it deserves at least status-quo in Kargil and Drass. Had Mr. Sharif mustered little courage and waited another few weeks, snows would have returned to the area and India would have been forced to cease military operations. The status-quo would have left the Indian troops sitting in Siachin without any supplies to survive through the next winter.
But unfortunately, Mr. Sharif decided to snatch the victory out of hands of brave warriors, like Capt. Karnal Sher Khan and Hav. Lalak Jan. He sold their blood cheaper than his nerves. Had he showed some spine, today Siachin issue would have been solved and India would have shown higher appreciation for the Pakistani stance on the disputed Kashmir. Most importantly, today most of Pakistanis would have prided themselves for the supreme sacrifices of their brothers.
Even Indian media was smarter than the defeatist Pakistani critics to have seen through Indian establishments lies. Arthur Max, New Delhi bureau chief of Associated Press questioned, "How is it possible that casualties on the Pakistani side were higher -- as India claims -- when they had all the advantage of higher ground? He appropriately reasoned, The Indians should have suffered higher casualties than the Pakistanis."
The self-doubting Pakistanis also do not understand that victors never switch their winning commanders in the middle of action; but the Indians did. According to the Hindustan Times, Brigadier Surendra Singh, brigade commander of 121 Independent Brigade, and Colonel Ajit Nair, deputy brigade commander, were transferred out of Kargil.
Eminent Indian columnist, Praful Bidwai berated Indian media for their unethical conduct throughout the conflict. He wrote, "The Indian media was on test as to how fairly it would report and interpret. But overall, it failed miserably," He further added, "The general style of reports was: 50 Pakistanis killed and 11 gallant Indian soldiers laid down their lives. So our boys became dedicated soldiers and Pakistanis barbarians; our leaders are mature politicians and theirs prisoners of dark forces. It is upto the government to say all that. Why should the media?"
The reality proved, despite giving their best, except for reoccupying a handful of peaks in the immediate surroundings of Kargil and Drass, the Indians miserably failed in evicting the rebels. Regrettably, even now some self-loathing Pakistanis take Indian propaganda as a word of bible.
Victories are there to be owned. All we have to do is, have little pride in ourselves first, and the victories will standout like the rising sun.
Pakistan News Service - PakTribune
