news details |
|
|
| “The other Kargil war” A dangerous development | | |
The Kargil war” is a household phrase. “The other Kargil war” is not. But it deserves to be, now that the Air Chief of the day, no less, has told us how bad it was, and commonsense tells us how dangerous it can be.
A journal which specialises in military affairs, Force, carries in its latest issue a disturbing “exclusive” article by Air Chief Marshal Tipnis. He has since retired, but he was not only the head of the Air Force at that time but was also for a time the senior most military official concerned with this “other Kargil war.” He gives you a ringside seat on scenes which show how much we have allowed personality rifts and turf considerations to come in the way of principles and understandings, and how this created delays and clashes.
First, regarding the delays. It had been suspected since early in May, 1999, that Pakistan would be up to mischief in the Kargil sector, but by May 9 or so the Air Chief had leant that the Indian army “might be in some difficulty” there. Within a couple of days he had concluded that “the situation was desperate.” Yet it was May 14 before ideas began to take shape about whether the Army would need some help, and of what kind and how soon, and whether the Air Force would give it, and if so how or how soon.
The article makes it clear that one reason for the delay was that the Army Chief, Gen V.P. Malik, was away “on a foreign tour”, a fact to which there are some oblique references between the lines of the article, but a more immediate reason, as the article confirms, was that there was a perceptible lack of mutual confidence between the Air Chief and the acting Army Chief, Lt-Gen Chandrashekhar.
The Army’s request for help was read as meaning that help would be appreciated but was not indispensable, and the form of help that was sought — local fire-support for the Army by Mi-17 helicopters to evict a few ‘’intruders’’ — was seen to be inconsistent with the “prerogative (of the Air Force) to give the fire support in the manner it considered most suitable”. The reason given by the Air Chief was that “ in the conditions obtaining in the problem area helicopters would be sitting ducks”, and the terrain was “ beyond the operating envelop of the gunships”. Yet, once the decision to use them was taken, it was the same helicopters which in the same terrain gave a striking account of themselves, as the Air Chief confirms.
The Air Chief also informed Lt-Gen Chandrashekhar that “ to enable the Air Force to provide fire-support, we needed political clearance.” But “I was not successful in persuading Lt-Gen Chandrashekhar to accept the essentiality of government clearance …” says the Air Chief, and he quotes the acting Army Chief as insisting that “political go ahead was needed only in case fire-support was being provided by fighters” while such support by helicopters was an “in-house services headquarters decision.” The Air Chief proposed their jointly going to the government but, he says, the General left “without I having a clear indication whether he intended to approach the government.” He adds this was “possibly because ( the Army ) was embarrassed to have allowed the present situation to develop” and did not wish to “reveal the full gravity of the situation to MoD”, ( the Ministry of Defence.)
That much for the appreciation each of the two headquarters had of the difficulties of the other, and it does not stop there. The Air Chief writes that he wanted to know what was the understanding of the Army regarding “the enemy’s intentions” or ‘the nature of the intrusions or the identity of the intruders”, but, he adds, “ It was apparent that the Army had not applied its mind to the this aspect.” According to the Air Chief, one reason for this lacuna was the “possibly indifferent involvement from the command headquarters”, which is probably another oblique reference to the state of army headquarters because of the absence of General Malik. It is also a further confirmation of the confidence deficit between the Air Chief and the acting Army Chief. But the Air Chief also confirms it more directly when he says: “ To be honest, I did not think I had succeeded in generating any confidence in him” (that is Lt-Gen Chandrashekhar.)
But matters did not improve in this respect when General Malik did come back. The Air Chief’s article tells us three more things apart from others: one, the first anxiety General Malik expressed at a meeting of the three services chiefs was that they “needed to present a united front to the Cabinet Committee on Security”. Two, he agreed with the Air Chief’s reservations regarding the use of helicopters. Three, but when these reservations were repeated by the Air Chief, General Malik “stormed out of the meeting”, saying to the Air Chief, “ If that’s the way you want it, I will go it alone.”
Thus, from the time the Army side expressed its anxiety, its disappointment over the air side declining the fire support the Army had requested, and the Air Chief describing the situation as “desperate”, it took almost two weeks to get a politically endorsed decision regarding an action which could have been authorised (or barred ) much earlier on the basis of principles and practices which should have been put in place years earlier in the light of India’s unfortunately long experience of wars with and by the neighbours, 1947,1962, and 1971-72.The decision, as recorded in the article, was against any use of air power but no distinction was recorded, for timely guidance in future, between use of the fire-power of helicopters on the one hand and use of fighters on the other.
But as far as one understands the article, another ambiguity, of great relevance to future actions, was also left hanging in the air. The Air Chief says that after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security he “shot out” the following direction ( among others ): “Air Defence aircraft escorting strike aircraft or ‘free patrolling’ parallel to the LoC, if engaged in aerial combat with enemy aircraft, may cross in ‘hot pursuit’. But he also adds in parenthesis “( At the CCS meeting I had not specifically got this contingency authorised, it was not the right moment to do so. But I considered the ‘liberty’ an essential element for the success of the aerial defence measures. In view of the PM’s earlier ‘nod’ to the ground forces’ hot pursuit my conscience was not unduly burdened).”
This writer at any rate is left wondering, firstly, whether the whole controversy over the Army’s request for support by helicopter fire could not have been got over with the same attitudinal flexibility, and, secondly, what would happen if the same flexibility were to become habitual on both sides of the LoC.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
