Learn from Kargil

History lessons are sometimes expensive 8212; especially if they are not learnt in time. If the military and political establishment had not left a crucial 200-km stretch along the Line of Control LoC, from the Mushkoh Valley to Turtuk, bereft of the surveillance and protection it required, the present imbroglio at the border may never have happened. Yet, there was enough evidence to suggest Pakistan8217;s inordinate interest in the region, especially after the reverses it had suffered in 1984 in the Siachen Glacier area. A recent series on the history of military conflicts of this region, carried in this newspaper, clearly suggests that intelligence failure was only one of the many lapses committed.

The series makes for alarming reading. It reveals that some of the peaks now occupied by Pakistani army regulars were actually taken as far back as a decade ago and although the presence of intruders was discovered by India very little was done to dislodge them. Somewhere along the way, India seems to have allowedthe serious security situation in Siachen and the Kashmir Valley divert it from possible incursions in Kargil. Consequently, measures meant to shore up this vital stretch either got dismissed, diluted or totally forgotten. Consider the fate that visited the plan to set up an all-weather mountaineer force for northern Kashmir after the Siachen face-off. It was a great plan, ambitiously conceived. The force was to be equipped with rocket launchers to destroy bunkers and all manner of other military devices. But for some reason, it was quickly put on ice. As a compromise, it was then decided to shore up the existing military presence in the region 8212; the Himalayan Brigade. Alas, even this didn8217;t quite work. The Himalayan Brigade was soon required for counter-insurgency operations in the Valley. Today, it is back in the region it was me-ant for 8212; but several years too late.

Wrong calculations were made not just in terms of troops and ammunition. There was also a clear neglect of infrastructural requirements.The alternate Manali-Leh route should have been shored up given the fact that the Srinagar-Leh highway was vulnerable to Pakistani fire. A similar lack of foresight marked the managing of the ammunition depot at Kargil, the very same that was destroyed by Pakistani intruders this May. It was clearly in a vulnerable spot and had been attacked as late as last year. Yet nothing was done until it was sent up in flames by the intruders. About failures on the intelligence gathering front, the less said the better. It now transpires that quite a few of the posts in Kargil now occupied by Pakistani army regulars may have actually been taken with help from militants operating from the Indian side of the border. That this could have happened in one of the nation8217;s most strategically vulnerable regions is well and truly amazing, to say the least. A comprehensive post-mortem about what really went wrong at Kargil awaits a more suitable moment, after the intruders have been conclusively driven out and peace restored inthe area. But some of the lessons need to be learnt right now and corrective action taken forthwith, even as the battle rages.