A glacier too far

Pakistan justified these incursions on the grounds that that India had done the same in Siachen. This is true.In April 1984 Indian troops preempted a Pakistani desire to occupy the Santora Ridge in the Siachen Glacier. However, the Siachen Glacier is in ‘no man’s land’ and well north of where the demarcated LoC ends. But in 1986-7 Brigadier Pervez Musharraf (now General) had tried desperately to dislodge Indian troops and failed despite several attempts to do so. And so, in 2001 as Pakistan’s Army Chief, he initiated an operation in Kargil. While Siachen remains the world’s highest battlefield, the conflict around Kargil, has now led to the “Siachenisation” of Kargil !

But having initiated “Kargil-1999”, Pakistan’s political and military leadership was divided over the extent of support that they must give to their infiltrating forces (mostly made up of soldiers from it’s Northern Light Infantry) and this led to the confusion and the poor response from the Pakistani force at Kargil. However, those who have seen or will see the graphic details of the battles in the film L.O.C Kargil will assume that it was all a one-sided affair, considering the ease with which Bollywood’s heroes bayoneted and hacked khaki-clad Pakistani soldiers in the film. In reality, the Pakistani soldier is, man on man, a tough match for our men in uniform. In the event of a confrontation they would be more than willing to give our troops a run for their money.

Also, ever since Indian troops confronted the Pakistani- led army infiltration at the fierce heights of the Line of Control around Kargil, and the media coverage of the conflict that followed, for the common man, an understanding of the military issues that has dominated Indo-Pakistan relations, has been limited to the Kargil conflict. And so what has followed is a public perception that limits the military history of Indo-Pakistan wars to simply what happened at Tiger Hill or Tololing and such military objectives in the Kargil sector.

One final point. The western guru of warfare, Clausewitz once said that “wars are an extension of politics by other means”. This was evident in the initial stages of “Kargil-1999”. India’s political leadership hadn’t a clue of what to do when Pakistan initiated the conflict, until India’s Army, with the help of the Indian Air Force at a later stage, regained the lost heights at considerable cost. But once that was done, it was the politicians who were the first to take credit for the victory, while in reality, India’s infantrymen stood silent with victory under their feet.

Mr. Dutta has completely ignored this issue, though his cameras have reportedly shot enough footage to make three or more films of the size of L.O.C Kargil. But he has disappointed his audiences, because apart from the heroics of the individuals—and there were many heroes on those jagged peaks around Kargil—the film has failed capture the larger picture that led Pakistan in the first instance to initiate the infiltration around Kargil, and which drew the Indian response that was romanticized in this film. One could draw an analogy, for instance, from Richard Attenborough’s film A Bridge Too Far. J.P. Dutta would have done well to follow that example instead of the song sequences of sobbing wives and lovers who our soldiers left behind.

The author is a defence analyst and visiting professor at Middlesex University, UK