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Analysis
The Kargil I
Remember
by
Proloy Bagchi
The Tenth
Anniversary of the victory in �Kargil War� somehow got soggy in
controversy. Instead of commemorating a crisp, well-fought and
spectacular victory achieved at great human costs against the Pakistani
intruders on the snowy heights of Ladakh, India�s northern-most
territory, the ruling coalition in India headed by the Indian National
Congress quite unwisely happened to politicize it. Reckoning it as a war
that was fought and won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), now
occupying the Opposition benches in the Parliament, it attempted to
downplay the Anniversary. That the (surreptitious) diabolical Pakistani
incursions through the icecaps of the Himalayan heights posed a great
threat to the nation and its integrity happened to be coolly overlooked.
But for the hype created by the Defence Forces, the media and sundry
patriotic pockets in the country the ruling party at the Centre, in a
display of un-camouflaged ingratitude to the guardians of our frontiers,
had almost succeeded in giving the Anniversary a miss. It was virtually
at the last moment that the Prime Minister seems to have decided to go
and lay a wreath at the Martyr�s Memorial at the India Gate on 26th
July, the date on which ten years ago Indian defence forces wrested back
the last of the territories occupied by the Pakistani invaders.
Those who have not been to Ladakh may not be able to fully appreciate
the significance of the Indian victory. A plateau with an average
elevation of around 10,000 ft (about 3000 meters) with most of the
surrounding mountains above the snowline, Ladakh is an arid mountainous
region of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) spanning the
Himalayan and Karakoram ranges and the Upper Indus valley. In those
rarefied heights where normal activities for a plainsman are a torture,
waging a war would seem to be an impossible proposition. Known for its
rugged beauty and quaint culture, it has now become a tourism hotspot.
I happened to
visit Ladakh more than 40 years ago when it was still a restricted area.
Outsiders were not allowed to enter without a permit. I, too, had to
obtain one even though I was in the service of the Government of India.
So, one beautiful September morning I left Srinagar, the capital of J&K,
wangling a ride with an Army Signals major in his jeep proceeding to Leh
as a part of an Army convoy, the then district headquarters of Ladakh.
With a brief halt in the green and captivating Baltal valley, which now
seems has been sacrificed at the altar of religious tourism, we labored
up the highway to the famed Zoji- la, the Pass on to which Gen Thimayya
of the Indian Army, in a brilliant tactical move, had hauled Light
Stuart Tanks to surprise the Pakistani intruders in 1948.
Once we crossed the 11575 ft high Zoji-la, the landscape underwent a
dramatic change. Gone were the green Kashmir conifers covering the sides
of the mountains and green grass over the meadows. It was now a series
of rugged, bare seemingly inhospitable mountains with an occasional
trickle of a stream in the plunging depths of the valleys, and the
highway, arcing along the contours of the rocky mountainside, climbed up
or went down in loops to cross over to interminable series of naked
mountains. We travelled sometimes metres away from the Cease Fire Line,
which post-1971 became the Line of Control (LOC), that was violated
through 1998-99 precipitating the Kargil War.
Stopping for coffee at Drass, reputed to be the second coldest inhabited
place in the world and overlooked by Pakistanis occupying the heights on
its north, we headed down the same highway that Pakistan attempted to
cut off in 1998 to disrupt the logistics of Ladakh.
On our way up we stayed only for a while in Kargil. The local Brigadier
was hosting a delegation of members of parliament to a lunch on the
banks of the Suru River that flows through the town. We, too, were made
to join in. It was a lovely setting by the side of the narrow stream in
the generous shade of low hanging trees, a rare luxury in the midst of
the surrounding dryness, coupled with the lavish Indian Army fare laid
out.
However, the severity of the conditions in which the Army had to
function became apparent a few miles away as we came upon a bridge
guarded by three soldiers, two on one side and one on the other. With no
habitation for miles around, they were by themselves for weeks without a
change of scene. With several such crucial points to guard lonesomeness
of the soldiers could only be imagined.
On our way back from Leh, as we rolled down from the heights of Fatu-la,
at around 13700 the highest pass on this highway, we skirted what looked
like a tallish hillock only to discern in the half light a huge a
settlement down below. It was the Indian Army brigade at Kargil sprawled
a few hundred feet below on a huge flat ground so unlikely in the hilly
surroundings. Looking at it from that elevation one could imagine what
medieval army encampments would have seemed like at dusk. Several thin
wisps of smoke rising up in the air, scattered blinking lights and stray
men moving around, almost ant-like, consummated the scene.
Back then Kargil was a small village, dusty, dirty and so dry that the
cracked lips made smiling a painful exercise. With around a dozen shops,
it was mostly dependent on the Army for supplies and provisions. It has
now grown out of all proportions, more so because of the �War-tourism�.
The �Kargil War�, somewhat like the Kuwaiti War, was a highly televised
war bringing it to the bedrooms across India, raising among the people a
curiosity about those rugged heights where the soldiers bravely fought,
gave their lives and yet won the �War� for them. No wonder, the benefits
of tourism, now a thriving industry, have trickled down giving the
place, I am told, a prosperous appearance. One improbable blessing of
the �War�!
It was during the day that I happened to realize that what had looked
like a tallish hillock the previous evening was a tall, well-shaped
mountain dominating the town. Known by its elevation as �13620� it had a
forbidding presence and, worse, its heights were occupied by the
Pakistanis who could watch every move of the supremely vulnerable
brigade down below. Dislodged from it during the 1965 War, it was handed
back to them as a sequel to the Tashkent Agreement. The Major, who had
won it for the country, it seems, wept like a child when he heard of the
hand-over. He had lost many of his brave men who, fearlessly facing
enemy bullets, struggled up the feature and clawing their way up inch by
inch. A strategic gain, achieved with super-human effort and endurance
and at the cost of fresh young blood, was given up on the negotiating
table! That dark sinister-looking mountain, as I saw it sitting out on
the grounds in front of the Signals Mess, has remained so deeply
imprinted on my psyche that the intervening forty-odd years have not
been able to wash it away.
The 1998 �War� along the heights from Drass to Kargil would have been,
if anything, fiercer. Having seen Kargil with the malefic �13620�
towering over it, I wonder how a government can play politics with the
sacrifices of the cream of the country�s youth. Surely, people wouldn�t
allow it, as the courage, fortitude and the spirit of sacrifice
displayed at Drass or Tiger Hill or Tololing are now the very stuff of
the nation�s military folklore. Deeply embedded in the nation�s
consciousness, efforts to dislodge them would be a futile exercise.
August 9, 2009
Image under license with Gettyimages.com
Previously published in Ground Report,
Human Times, OhMynews, Indianews etc.
Proloy Bagchi is a retired civil servant based at Bhopal. He has been
writing on topical and environmental issues for a number of years in the
local, regional and even (occasionally) in national press. He also
contributes to several national and international online citizen
journalists' sites.
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