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| IAF in 1999 wanted to target terrorist camps | | "Please don't cross the LoC", pleaded Vajpayee | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, OCT. 14: The controversy over the Kargil operations in 1999 has acquired a new complexion, with India's former High Commissioner to Britain, Kuldip Nayar, claiming that the Indian Air Force (IAF) was not satisfied over the conduct of the military operations in Kargil. Nayar has just come out with a revelation in relation to his meeting with Vinod Putney, head of the Western Air Command and deputy to Air Chief AY Tipnis. Putney ran into Nayar "twice those days".
Kuldip Nayar has, in his write-up, stated that he and Putney had known each other sin ce 1990 when he (Nayar) was the High Commissioner in London and Putney the air attache. "Putney did not say anything when we met but unhappiness was writ large on his face", Nayar says and adds: "I imagined he felt frustrated because he or, for that matter, the Air Force, I had heard, wanted to target the training camps of terrorists across the border".
But the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had said: "Please don't cross the LoC," and repeated, "No, no crossing the LoC." Yet that was not the full story, according to Nayar. It turns out that the Air Force was sullen because the Army had not taken it into confidence on Pakistan's intrusion in Kargil area. For the first time, a newspaper article by Tipnis has revealed that the Air Force felt let down on Kargil.
Kuldip Nayar, who is a well-known writer and comentator, says that even when it checked with the Army on the intrusion, the latter gave no information except that there was "reportedly unusual artillery firing" in the Kargil area. Tipnis has alleged that when he found that the ground situation was "grave" he offered the Air Force help. "But it (the Army) was not amenable to the Air Headquarters position to seek government approval for use of Air Force offensively." The Army wanted helicopters, not the Air Force. After Tipnis refused to deploy helicopters, "believing they would be too vulnerable", Army Chief, General V.P. Malik ,said: "I will go it alone."
Nayar is quite on the mark as he says that Malik and Tipnis are two outstanding officers with the highest integrity. Their knowledge of their respective field is beyond question and they have excelled themselves in their career of 40-odd years. Both have been batch-mates at the training academy in Pune. Nayar has writen: "What struck me about the episode was not the difference between the two on the use of air force but the distance between the two main wings of the armed forces".
However, the question is bigger than the personalities. According to Nayar, it is that of coordination and equation between the Army and the Air Force. And Kuldip Nayar cannot be questioned when he says: "This is not the first time that the differences have come to the fore. They were there during every war in 1962, 1965 and 1971. In 1962, former Air Vice-Marshall A.K. Tewary tells us that the use of air force was not even considered against the Chinese because New Delhi's attention was focused on getting air umbrella from the US. The Kargil operation has only underlined the basic problem of how to harness all the three wings to achieve the best of results".
On the Indian Navy, Nayar has placed himself on record by saying: "I am sure that the Navy has its own tale of woes but it is yet too small to create a shindy. That it should have an equal say cannot be questioned. Probably, the practice of three chiefs meeting every week has been abandoned. In fact, there is a standing committee of three service chiefs. Therefore, lack of coordination among them is not understandable. They should be talking on the phone all the time. No doubt, the Army is the leader in any combat".
Disclosures by Tipnis should have evoked a healthy discussion. "It does not seem to be the case", says Kuldip Nayar. Already accusations and counter-accusations from the two sides have also been taken due cognizance by the foreign media. The full story has not been told. Somebody will have to do it. Nayar gives plus point to Putney for his right comment: "When national security is at stake it is important for us to admit our mistakes. The Air Force has done it".
The nation is not concerned about the personal ego of a particular chief or a particular service. The nation, insists Nayar, wants to be assured the armed forces would amass all information and the capability to defeat the enemy if and when there is a war. It expects the three services not to stand in ceremony but to pool their resources to fight. The Subramanian Committee which went into the acts of omission and commission in Kargil should have brought out the contradictions and lack of coordination. "Maybe, it did not want to open a Pandora's box", is the loaded observation of Kuldip Nayar.
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