KARGIL 10 years later

 

 

On the way to Sando Top, we espy a soldier in combat uniform. He's cleaning a Bofors howitzer. He greets us with a broad smile and a glass of warm water. We get talking. We learn that he is S. Suthakar from Kanyakumari, the only son of his parents. He says: “My mother says I must take care of my health. I'm not afraid of dying in action. I could die walking down a road in Kerala. This place is better.”

But “this place” is no territory for weak men. The stark vistas take your breath away in more ways than one. Not only is the area spectacularly beautiful, if dauntingly inhospitable, it also makes serious demands on your respiratory system. The ground is rocky, the inclines are precipitous and the air is thin. Here, every step, every breath is an effort. We feel the strain every inch of the way. It was here, ten years ago, that a bunch of young Indian Army men dug deep into their mental reserves to win a war that the nation’s defence establishment will never forget. Kargil. The word is loaded with significance for India’s military think tank. It denotes much more than just another location on the map. The bitter Indo-Pak military conflict here left hundreds dead on both sides. It was a difficult war fought in a treacherous terrain against an enemy that was far better prepared and perched. Yet, the Army did not fail the nation.

The war called for guts, grit and gumption. Columns of brave soldiers marched into the thick of the action, defying eardrum-splitting explosions, booming machine-guns and hails of bullets. They simply had to. Serious intelligence failures had allowed elements of Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry, along with Army regulars and Special Services Group men, to intrude into the Indian side of the LoC. Only a superhuman effort on the part of the Indian Army could have saved the situation. The Kargil war, fought across an area of about 130 kilometers, was a warning signal. It taught India’s defence think tank never to let its guard down. Have the lessons really been learnt? TSI undertook a tour of Drass, Kargil and Batalik to find out. We rediscovered stories of remarkable valour, of astounding commitment to duty, of amazing young men who thought nothing of laying down their lives so that India could live in peace. In the initial stages, it proved to be an unequal battle. Given the mountainous terrain and the fact that the enemy was perched on a comfortable height, the Indian Army was at a distinct disadvantage. The infiltrators were prepared for the long haul. Armed with tactical superiority and experience in mountain warfare, they had rations and arms to last them weeks.

Understandably, casualty figures were high on the Indian side, which was initially hobbled by operational miscalculations. In all 524 Indian soldiers were martyred on the heights and more than 1,363 men received crippling injuries. The enemy ranks lost 696 men, while more than 1,500 were severely wounded. As many as 63 armed Pakistani intruders were found dead on the top of Point 4875 alone.

As senior Indian Army officers who participated in the campaign explain, the Pakistani plan was well thought out. Col. YK Joshi, who led a team of soldiers from the famed 13 JAK Rifles to great deeds of heroism, says: “The intruders sat on the dominating heights of the stretch from Zoji-la to Batalik.” The strategic National Highway 1D connects this area and also serves as the lifeline to the isolated areas of Ladakh and Siachen. “From these heights, they could constantly target the road making the movement of supplies difficult,” adds Col Joshi.

India’s infantrymen were the real heroes of the Kargil campaign. In his last letter to his Sainik School Lucknow mates, Lt. Manoj Kumar Pandey, who won a posthumous Param Vir Chakra for standing up tall against the enemy at Khalubar in Batalik, said as much. “It’s really difficult to fight the enemy at this altitude. This operation has exposed me to something that cannot be quantified – leading the soldiers into the jaws of death, their fears, and their fierce loyalty. There is nobody in this world quite like the Indian Army jawan. He can do anything." Col (retd) MB Rabindranath, Vir Chakra recipient who was the Commanding Officer of 2 Rajputana Rifles, quotes his unit’s Subedar Dharamvir Singh to indicate what an Indian jawan is made of: “People remember the date of their daughter’s marriage, but to us each rock here is just as important.” Col Rabindranath led the assault on Tololing.

Had the conflict dragged on until July-end, the area would have been cut off by heavy snowfall. It would then have become easier for Pakistan to hold on to the Kargil heights. But that was not to be thanks to the likes of Captain Vikram Batra, who made it known that “yeh dil maange more”, and Lt. Pandey.

The region is dominated by high mountains, which are barren and are under the cover of snow for more than half the year. TSI visited the heights of Sando Top and Tololing, besides stopping by at Post 43, where the body of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja was handed over to India. In Drass, acclimatisation, we discover, is always a huge challenge. The air is rarefied and freezing. The dryness in the atmosphere causes a throbbing headache. This is exactly what happened when the initial Army operations were planned here. The battalions, brought in from different parts of the country, were literally left gasping for air.

Tiger Hill, Bajrang Post, Tololing stretch and Point 4875, which saw fierce action during the war, are all in the vicinity of Sando Top. While Tiger Hill is snow-clad and looks forbidding, the view of Tololing is unhindered – it is an open stretch. It is easy to see why Pakistani snipers had a field day. It was suicidal for the Indian soldiers – they had no protection from enemy fire – when they made their way over loose boulders with their heavy ammunition. But nothing could stop them, not even the high casualties. Lt. Gen Mohinder Puri, who as major general was the GOC of the division that was assigned the mission to eject the enemy from Kargil, believes the initial casualties could have been much lower had India been better prepared for the operation. Once Pakistan’s hand was clear in the Kargil incursion, Indian soldiers should have moved past the LoC, he argues. “My belief is that we should have moved ahead as this would have saved the lives of many, and the operation would have not lasted as long as it did – over two months – as we would have cut off the logistical lines right at the outset,” says General Puri.

On our tough trek across Tololing, an officer, Major AS Rawat, who is here to complete his acclimatisation process, gives us company. A true pro, he takes no chances – his conversation with the other soldier accompanying us hinges entirely on the military posts and climatic conditions he would have to contend with. Halfway through the trek, he suggests that we should conserve our breath for the remainder of the climb to the top. His concern isn’t misplaced. The snow under our feet gets thicker and more slippery, and progress becomes alarmingly precarious. “Just imagine how tough it would have been to carry out our operations here in the dark of the night without revealing our movement to the enemy perched above us,” Major Rawat says. We shudder at the thought.

Experts had already told me that initially India had suffered reverses due to lack of proper high altitude gear and acclimatisation drills. Worse, the communication sets that the Indians were equipped with revealed their positions very easily to the enemy. Indeed, Pakistanis often penetrated India’s frequencies and delivered threats to our soldiers. The scenario has undergone a sea change since then. Today, Indian soldiers have better clothing and communication equipment. But to reach the top, we still have to walk along treacherous ridges. We are exhausted by the time we get there, but the welcome is so warm we cannot help but conceal our fatigue. The soldiers greet us, and then bring two containers full of snow. They are placed on a stove: the idea is to rustle up a warm soup. But the altitude has begun to take its toll on my body. The soup is inviting, but rising acidity in my system has robbed me of my appetite. So out come that ubiquitous panacea for all digestive ills – a Digene tablet.

I gulp down some soup before stepping out into the open again. One of the soldiers apprises me of the environs and even shows me the positions the enemy had held during the war. Everything appears quiet and serene, but I wonder what Col Rabindranath’s thoughts would have been when he surveyed the area after recapturing the stretch. Dead soldiers, many of them his own men, would have been strewn all around. As if on cue, the colonel says: “There was so much going on I had no time to think. I was losing my men, yet I couldn't afford to slow down. I had to clear the place and move on.”

He definitely moved on and captured the crucial peak on June 13, but he could not forget the words of Subedar Bhanwar who had said, “Come and have tea with me on Tololing tomorrow.” Col. Rabindranath did go and have tea on the peak the next morning, but Subedar Bhanwar was no more. He had fallen to enemy bullets.

On the way back, we see students of the Army-run Sadbhavna School playing cricket. A boy, Mohd Ibrahim is bowling and a girl, Tabassum, is taking strike. I walk up to the girl. She tells me she aspires to be a journalist. She then introduces me to her classmates, including Ibrahim. His ambition, he reveals, is to be a doctor. The spirit of Suthakar imbues most of these students. They want to do something with their lives and, if necessary, travel to any corner of the country to chase their dreams. Thanks to a tour sponsored by the Army, these boys and girls have seen different parts of the nation and are aware of what India really is. They deserve the right to live their dreams – in the shadow of sustained peace. In order to make that possible, India would have to leave the memories of Kargil behind and move on into a future where no inimical force can ever catch it on the wrong foot in the manner that Pakistan did in 1999’s summer of discontent.