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| The Kargil War: A feud for thought | | |
Shankar Roychowdhury
July 26 is Kargil Vijay Divas, the time every year when national memory needs to be jogged into awakening about a not-all-that-distant past but one almost totally extinct in public consciousness. A front-page newspaper photograph captured the moment — two Sikh pipers playing against the forbidding mass of Tiger Hill looming through the clouds, in remembrance of its recapture by Grenadiers and Sikhs of the Indian Army on July 5, 1999, an incredible feat of extreme mountaineering under enemy fire.
What has come to be known as the Kargil War took place at Kargil from May 1 to July 26, 1999, a border war between India and Pakistan and the fourth in the series of such confrontations since the First Kashmir War of 1947-48. It was also India’s first televised war, whose extensive visual reportage created a tsunami in the national psyche a mere decade or so ago. But much water has flowed down the Suru and Dras rivers since then, perhaps diluting if not washing away its memory altogether. So now, a decade later, maybe it is once again time to remember Kargil 1999, to ruminate and retrospect on it in the broader context of events today.
For Pakistan, the Kargil War of 1999 was driven by the personal obsession of one man, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, then recently installed as Chief of the Pakistan Army, to hit back at India for the defeats and ignominies of the Pakistan Army in Bangladesh in 1971, Siachen in 1984 and again in 1987, the latter under his personal command as brigadier (the Indian Army would have sacked him for his performance). The Pakistan Army is a highly Islamisised military, where the "Quranic Concept of War" (As christened by Brig. S.K. Malik in his book by the same name), which emphasises terror as the ultimate objective of war against unbelievers, is part of official military doctrine. Translated into Indo-Pak terms, the Quranic concept of war accords theological approval to the use of terrorism and hence, for the Pakistani military establishment, there are really no contradictions or dilemmas in sponsoring quasi-state jihadi terror against India. Hatred of India is a deep-seated, deep-rooted article of faith, carefully and deliberately nurtured over the years, a flame handed down through the ranks for generations.
The Pakistan Army regards itself as the guardian of the country’s territorial frontiers (as does the Indian Army in respect of India), but perceives an additional divine calling towards the preservation of Pakistan’s ideological Islamic frontiers which brought the country into existence, and perhaps makes the Pakistan Army unique. Defeat is bitter for any Army, but for the Pakistan Army, which holds the Ghaznavi, Ghori and Abdali conquerors of Hindustan as its historical heritage; defeat by India is intolerable, without any room for compromise, accommodation, or forgive-and-forget.
The late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto spoke of a thousand-year war, and Pakistan Army is prepared to wait for its "badla" for as long as it takes, because the wars with India are a blood feud which will be over only when they are finally over. Do we in India even comprehend the depth and intensity of such hatred? The Pakistani military psyche is something India can do nothing about, but must factor into its assessments of Pakistani reactions, whether on Kashmir, nuclear weapons, or any other, especially those which the Pakistan Army considers its own parish. On its part, India has nothing even remotely comparable. No Indian leader, political or military, has ever called for levelling the score with China after the Indian debacles at Sela in 1962, or displayed any aggressive obsession with recovering territories lost in India’s wars since Independence. India’s soft power political leadership stresses the "pappi-jhappi" (hugs and kisses) approach with Pakistan. Good, but the problem remains — how to hug a snarling Doberman?
The Kargil War of 1999 not only has a stand-alone dimension as a border war, it is also part of Pakistan’s proxy war against India ongoing since 1989. The war did not really end with Kargil Vijay Divas on July 26 that year. The Pakistani effort might have been defeated militarily, but it switched back with little effort into its primary "long war" mode of terrorism and insurgency as the basic operational methodologies, manifested in a series of high-profile bombings throughout the Indian hinterland combined with street-level intifada in the Kashmir Valley. Economic warfare by flooding the Indian system with very high-grade counterfeit currency printed in Pakistan is a new dimension with which the Indian authorities are struggling to cope. We may rest reasonably assured that major cyber attacks are also planned in the near future.
The fidayeen attack in Mumbai nearly a decade later on November 26, 2008 has genetic connections with Kargil 1999. Both are part of Pakistan’s long-term strategy of "death by a thousand cuts" and share many common features though in totally different environments. Both bear the stamp of professional military planning, with a supreme emphasis on surprise and offensive action, cold-bloodedly initiated during a time of ostensible peace to achieve maximum impact in the manner of Pearl Harbour, and ruthlessly executed without regard to casualties, military or civilian.
"The devil carries his own luck" is an old saying applicable to aggressive military planning, though the Pakistani planners of both the Mumbai attacks and the Kargil War might justifiably retort that "fortune favours the brave". Kargil 1999 is conservatively estimated to have been between four to even six months in planning and preparation, Mumbai 26/11 even longer, perhaps up to a year. Is a follow-on to Mumbai 26/11 already in the works, waiting merely for the correct time and place? A decade after Kargil 1999, India is under enemy attack as almost never before from land, sea, and possibly cyberspace. We have no alternative but to remain alert at all times and to keep our guard up.
Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury (Retd) is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former Member of Parliament
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