The fact remains that the Kargil Heights were on the Pakistan side of the ceasefire line since 1949 and so was the Siachin glacier
until Indian forces moved there.
The Kargil Heights not only commanded the confluence of the supply line from Srinagar and Leh but, more importantly, provided access to Baltistan in the north, which India claims as their ‘atoot ang’.
As late as Aug 9, 1998, Defence Minister Fernandes reiterated: “The part of Kashmir under the control of Pakistan will have to be reclaimed”. He talked of finishing the ‘unfinished business’ of 1971.
The Indian occupation of the Kargil Heights was cause for worry.
In 1982 the Indians sneaked into Siachin (NW of Kargil). The world kept blatantly silent. Siachin adjoins the Chinese border, even they said nothing.
But in May 1999 when our forces moved into the Kargil Heights exactly like the Indians had done in Siachin, there was an
uproar.
It was a brilliant, well-planned move. Logistical support; and strategic depth was provided from the ridges in the north to the well-dug in positions on inaccessible high ground.
There is much ado about who was actually fighting. Call them ‘Pakistan-supported forces’ or ‘Kashmiri guerillas’, what’s in a name! They were fighting to take back what was theirs.
The Indians threw in four divisions of their elite troops with full air support but could not dislodge the Pakistanis.
They tried and tried for nearly two months, longer than any India/Pakistan war. Action on our international border was out of question, a nuclear deterrent was now well in place.
Hundreds of bodies were arriving at Indian homes. Exhaustion was setting in. A plea for ceasefire was imminent. Mr Bajpai tried the last trick in his bag. He sent an SOS to the always ready to help: president Clinton.
Nawaz Sharif was summoned to Washington. Even if he was kept in the dark about Kargil earlier, he was definitely advised this time by his generals to accept a ceasefire but under no condition concede to a pullback. That was the strategy. ‘Finders keepers’ was the prevailing law.
In Washington at the Blair House Nawaz Sharif and president Clinton were the only two persons present, other than Bruce Ridal who was taking notes. Our prime minister was no match for president Clinton. He was browbeaten and threatened.
Eventually he acquiesced.
Alas! A war that we had won hands down on the battlefield was lost on the table in Washington.
Later in March 2000, while addressing the Indian Parliament, Mr Clinton asserted: “It was not India but the US which intervened and forced Pakistan to withdraw from Kargil “.
While the Indian government and the media supported their armed forces to the hilt, our prime minister was telling the world: “I didn’t do it, it was my army chief’.
CAPT S. Afaq Rizvi
Karachi
This post appeared in Dawn: http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/05/kargil-another-view.html
