FLARE-UP ALONG LoC

                                    Pakistan’s nefarious designs

by Harwant Singh

BORDER skirmishes and firings on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir are routine occurrences. Of late, the exchange of artillery fire, including that from heavy artillery, has become a common feature of the activity there. Infiltration by insurgents from across the border has been going on for over a decade. The Indian Army has, by and large, contained the situation within manageable levels. However, the currently developing situation in the Turtik-Batalic-Kargil-Dras sector is not an ordinary or routine occurrence and has all the portents of escalating into something more serious.
 
From the military point of view, the most unfortunate feature of the foreign-inspired trouble in J and K has been that the initiative has always been with Pakistan’s ISI and the infiltrators. They have been constantly shifting their place of infiltration and area of operations to suit their plans, and at the same time force the Indian Army to always remain in a reactive mode. Or what Field Marshal Montgomery was so fond of saying, “Make them dance to your tune.” Consequently, insurgent activity has been shifting from the Kashmir valley to Doda, back to the valley, into the Kargil sector, onto the Poonch-Rajouri sectors and then back to the Kargil-Dras areas with the Indian troops always reacting to these developments or merely carrying out fire-fighting operations. Both at the strategic and tactical levels, a commander who is always reacting to the enemy moves not only places himself at a great disadvantage but is also destined to end up in failure.

The Deosai mountain range, stretching all the way from Gilgit and the Hunza valley, joins the Zanskar range at Kargil. The terrain in the Kargil sector is higher, more rugged and precipitous than the Hindu-Kush mountains, and equally devoid of cover. The LoC in the area of Dras-Kargil runs more or less parallel to the Srinagar-Leh road and along the more difficult heights. Per force there are large gaps among Indian posts, and the infiltration in small groups is comparatively easy. In winter, many defended posts and observation points are vacated due to heavy snow and inadequate logistic support back-up. Therefore, should the opponent decide to move in and occupy some of these vacated positions during this period, his presence would be known only when our own troops move forward to reoccupy these on the melting of the snow. The uninitiated may opine that why should there be gaps for the insurgents to sneak in or, in other words, the border not sealed or posts vacated during winter. Well there is a saying that mountains eat up troops, and to this can be added that high mountains simply gobble them up. For a post of 10 men at 15000-18000 feet another 30 to 40 are required to sustain them logistically. To evacuate one casualty from such a post, a relay team of nearly 16 men would be required. In winter, this problem would multiply.
 
But the more relevant feature at this juncture of the on-going operations is that once a position is occupied along the crest line by the aggressor retaking it poses serious problems. Dislodging the defender is difficult due to the lack of cover and the fact that the option is invariably restricted to the availability of a single approach. Moreover, the attacker’s artillery fire is less effective against the posts along the crest or those slightly below it on the reverse slope. These are important issues which must determine our reactions and influence the choice of options. Any attempt to try to retake such positions directly would be foolhardy and very costly in terms of casualties. Though the above is elementary and fairly well known to need repetition, Pakistan has been relearning this basic lesson at great cost on the Saltaro range in the Siachen glacier area the recourse to an indirect approach or wresting the initiative by striking in an area of own choosing is always the better option.
 
The more disturbing aspect of the present development appears to be the active and direct and large-scale involvement of the Pakistan army and that the infiltrators are apparently seasoned Taliban and retired military personnel. This type of development in J and K has been on the cards all along and noted in these columns more than once. If the authorities have allowed themselves to be influenced by the assumption that future operations would relate to only fighting low-level insurgency or the Prime Minister’s short but ride to Lahore, or that the declaration named after that town has ushered in an era of peace, better understanding and goodwill between the two countries, they have only themselves to blame.
 
There was a news item in the national Press that the Indian Army was going in for heavy reduction in its strength, and money thus saved would be used for modernisation. The force structuring is determined by a number of factors; to note a few, current commitments, force levels of potential adversaries and its anticipated accretions, long-term national security perspective, etc. The force level is not an issue over which a government should try to bargain. Government policies and national security issues cannot be reduced to the level of dealings at a shopkeeper’s premises. For years we had to resist this approach of the government to which the present hierarchy appears to have succumbed. While on the one hand, no modernisation of any magnitude is possible with this kind of saving, on the other, the Kargil-Dras type of incursions will get repeated elsewhere and our overall conventional deterrence will be further debilitated. The Army’s current commitments are manpower-intensive.
 
There was perhaps some pulling out of troops from the Dras sector and other places for eventual thinning out in J and K. While the developments in the Dras-Kargil sector catching us off guard can be attributed to a major failure of intelligence, the other disturbing developments have been the shift in the perception of our security policy in J and K and visualisation of the nature of future operations for the Indian Army.
 
The fact that the IAF has gone into action clearly demonstrates the Indian resolve to meet the challenge squarely and in unequivocal terms. At this point of time there is no information regarding the nature of targets struck by our planes. The use of the IAF where a large tract of Indian territory has been surreptitiously occupied by Pakistan, and when there are attempts to redraw the LoC in this area, is legitimate, notwithstanding the ramifications. But the prior announcement of the possible use of the Air Force could have resulted in the deployment of shoulder-fired SAMs (surface-to-air-missiles — Stringer variety) similar to those used in the Afghan war against the Russian air force. How effective these strike have been will be known only after some time. However, air strikes on small and scattered groups of men hiding among boulders on high mountain ridges are of doubtful efficacy and, therefore, may not be the best option. At some stage logistic support bases may have to be struck and the supply lines interdicted. Pakistan has been taxing India’s patience and forbearance, and the present incursion may be to check how far it can go in its nefarious designs in J and K. The challenge posed by Pakistan has to be met boldly, and the initiative must be wrested. It should be made clear that if it does not pull out from these positions, we retain the option to strike elsewhere, both on the ground and in the air, at a place of our own choosing.
 
The very purpose of the National Security Council (NSC) is to draw up long-term national security perspective and, besides a whole range of other issues, have contingency planning against all possible developments, and evolve a conflict management mechanism. If the NSC has not done any work in this field, then our response in the evolving situation will be an ad-hoc one and jerky, with the loss of control and events developing a dynamism of their own or as presaged by the opponent. Of late, the Indian defence planners have remained over-focused on the nuclear dimension of national security, and relegated the more pertinent and relevant conventional conflict contingency or its deterrent potential. Confused thinking and perceptions of influence of nuclear deterrence in the India-Pakistan context per se on the one hand and the nature of future security demands on the Army on the other seem to cloud the thinking of the top hierarchy.
 
General Sundarji, speaking of the India’s defence policy related to J and K, once remarked that it hinges on two factors. One, distinct superiority in our conventional capability and the other that any intervention in J and K by Pakistan would invite unacceptable punishment elsewhere. Appearing in a TV news programme related to the Kargil-Dras developments, the National Security Adviser appeared overawed by the nuclear dimension and the exaggerated fear of the prospect of internationalisation of the Kashmir issue, and pledged to think hard to grapple with the ongoing problem. Weak signals expose us to a whole range of blackmail.
 
(The author, a retired Lieut-General, was a Deputy Chief of Army Staff)




The Tribune May 29, 1999