Vice Admiral Taj M Khattak(retired), former Vice Chief of Staff, Pakistan Navy has written an interesting and insightful article "Investigating Kargil" on General Musharraff's misadventure in Kargil that caused almost a nuclear confrontation between Pakistan and India ten years ago. In that piece published in the www.thenews.com.pk on July 2, he has stressed the need for investigating the Kargil fiasco when the actors who directed and organised it are alive. So true.
In June 2004 I wrote an article "Learning from Kargil" (reproduced below) on the lack of follow up action on the K Subrahmanyam Committee report that investigated Kargil war. I had raised a few issues in the article which would impact on the nation's strategic security. In particular there are three issues K Subrahmanyam Committee had raised on which I still have strong doubts about any progress at all. Now that we have a government that has set about with a little more determination than the earlier one, will it enlighten the public on the progress? Will the under-worked parliament get to tackle such gut issues rather than waste time on frivolous 'walk-outs'? The three issues are:
1. Inadequate coordination at the ground level among Army intelligence and other agencies.
2. The nuclear posture adopted by successive Prime Ministers thus put the Indian Army at a disadvantage vis-à-vis its Pakistani counterpart. While the former was in the dark about India's nuclear capability, the latter as the custodian of Pakistani nuclear weaponry was fully aware of its own capability.
3. It is necessary to evolve a long-term strategy to reduce the involvement of the Army in counterinsurgency and devise more cost-effective means of dealing with the problem.
LEARNING FROM KARGIL: A Soldier's View
By Col R. Hariharan(retd.) June 12, 2004
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers11%5Cpaper1025.html
Never learn to do anything: if you don’t learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you. – Mark Twain
A new Lok Sabha was in session; but its old cacophony had not changed. Members have shouted their slogans, showed their loyalties to their icons by jumping and thumping, collected their entitlements and that’s it. Parliament’s inaugural session has ended. Has it achieved anything? The American English word “zilch” sums it up. But among the few foils that came in handy in the sad and sordid drama of Indian politics was Kargil and who goofed it up. The newspapers say the Kargil issue was brought up as a counter to the opposition’s vociferous objection to a few criminals accused of mundane crimes like rape, kidnapping and plotting to murder and elected as M.P.s becoming ministers. It is sad to see a possible security lapse in Kargil being equated with the issue of some smart, but criminally inclined fellows getting elected and ending up as ministers with full police protection!
Everyone, including the cynical but docile public, knows from past experience how this charade will be gone through. There will be a lot of finger pointing and talks of our jawans and Army being second to none; but nothing will come out of it. After all it is five years since K Subrahmanyam Committee on Kargil presented its reports. Now, we find the Defence Minister is keen to follow up and ensure its findings are implemented. Five years is a long time for the troops serving in these troubled areas. They and their families (including me) would like to know how this issue did not figure all these years in the scheme of things of parties currently ruling the country (many of them were members of the outgoing government also!)
Its five years since hundreds like young Lt Saurabh Kalia died in the Kargil War. Many more are still dying in these frontiers unsung, unheard with only their families to mourn. As an old soldier who fought the wars in 1965, 1971 and lastly in Sri Lanka as part of the IPKF, I wonder now whether the few thousands of my comrades who died for this country (and continue to do so, on and off) for notions of patriotism, loyalty and Izzat had done so in vain. The sheer callousness of our people in power shocks me.
Take for instance the case of 22 Border Security Force jawans and their families including women and children killed by militants in a mine blast in J and K. The State Chief Minister had no time to send even a condolence message. Was it because his party was busy probing for human rights violations in the fight against armed insurgents who are waging war on lawful government? Every time a jawan salutes him will he remember him for all the good he is going to do?
There is a tendency by bureaucrats, including those of the Armed Forces, to use the Official Secrets Act as a convenient cloak to cover all inefficiency, incompetence and deficiencies in the planning and handling of vital issues of national security and defence. I think the best memorial for those who died in Kargil would be not to allow another Kargil to happen. Even if it happens, the soldiers should go to war there confidently that they would not go like their predecessors did – taken by surprise, handled by ineptness, and lastly killed by sheer lack of timely decision making. It is time the Parliament debated the issues of defence seriously on matters more urgent than the number of orderlies Army officers use.. A whole list of issues is there in K Subrahmanyam Committee’s Report that needs to be followed up (and not to score political brownie points). These points need to be accounted for to the public at large as part of good governance. Here are some (findings of the Report given in italics):
* Inadequate border surveillance: Has the surveillance been beefed up in J and K, as the Committee found the intruders avoided detection because our Winter Air Surveillance Operations (WASO) by helicopters was of negligible effect? Israel was supposed to supply special surveillance helicopters for use in this sector. As in the new dispensation Israel appears to have become a bad word in South Block, has an alternate source been found? Or are still the files are being “processed”?
* The report states that there was inadequate coordination at the ground level among Army intelligence and other agencies. Has it improved now? If so, how.
* Holding of special (glacial) clothing for extreme cold climates was inadequate. Can we now say this problem has been overcome?
* Though the new light rifle (5.56 mm INSA) has been inducted into service, most troops are yet to be equipped with light rifles. Adequate attention has not been paid to lightening the load on infantry soldiers deployed at high altitudes. In broader terms, increasing the firepower and combat efficiency of infantrymen has also suffered, as has the modernisation process as a whole. This needs to be speedily rectified. (This light rifle was introduced when I left the Army 13 years back. It’s a big joke that combat troops in high altitudes are still saddled with old rifles! I am not too optimistic things will change on this count). Can we hope for improvement?
* Nuclear weapons programme: For reasons of security, none of these Prime Ministers took anyone other than Chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission (not all), and the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister into confidence. The Chiefs of Staff, senior Cabinet Ministers and senior civil servants were kept out of the loop. The nuclear posture adopted by successive Prime Ministers thus put the Indian Army at a disadvantage vis-à-vis its Pakistani counterpart. While the former was in the dark about India's nuclear capability, the latter as the custodian of Pakistani nuclear weaponry was fully aware of its own capability. Three former Indian Chiefs of Army Staff expressed unhappiness about this asymmetric situation. Are the Service Chiefs still in the dark about their own nuclear capabilities? (I remember Johnson’s “Ignorance is bliss when it is folly to be wise” in this context). Is this major issue going to be brushed aside as “directly not pertaining to Kargil War”?
* Comprehensive manpower policy: Pakistan has ruthlessly employed terrorism in Punjab, J& K and the Northeast to involve the Indian Army in Counterinsurgency operations and neutralise its conventional superiority. Having partially achieved this objective, it has also persuaded itself that nuclear blackmail against India has succeeded on three occasions. A coherent counterstrategy to deal with Pakistan's terrorist-nuclear blackmail and the conventional threat has to be thought through. The Committee believes that a comprehensive manpower policy is required to deal with this problem. In the present international security environment, proxy war…. it is necessary to evolve a long-term strategy to reduce the involvement of the Army in counterinsurgency and devise more cost-effective means of dealing with the problem. Has any thought been given to sort out the role of Army and evolution of a long-tem strategy for counter-insurgency? Or is it going to be deferred to the next government?
I saw a report saying that each parliament member costs the exchequer Rs 22 lacs. If they deliver the goods I don’t mind that expenditure at all. After all India is shining, (though the shine has been successfully tarnished a bit now) and why shouldn’t the parliament? But if the money is to become an investment, we would like them to be really people’s representatives. We want them to sit debate and improve the situation, lest the ghosts of those dead heroes of Kargil haunt us forever.
This is my learning from Kargil.
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