COVER STORY

The political and diplomatic background

JOHN CHERIAN

MANY experts had predicted that the conventional military superiority India had over Pakistan would be negated once Pakistan conducted nuclear tests. Last year, after both countries declared themselves nuclear powers, there were high-casualty border clas hes using heavy artillery. The exchange of fire killed a large number civilians on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. There were indications that the Pakistani side had become more confident after the nuclear tests.

Pakistan Army chief General Parvez Musharraf stated earlier this year, while on a visit to the Pakistani positions on the Siachen Glacier, that "there is zero chance of war" between the two countries. Evidently, the Pakistani side was confident that give n its nuclear prowess it could afford to accelerate its support for militancy and insurgency in Kashmir without risking a war.

Indian Army chief General V.P. Malik, speaking after his Pakistani counterpart's views on war in the subcontinent were published, did not agree. Speaking to reporters on February 10, Malik said: "Having crossed the nuclear threshold does not mean that a conventional war is out." One of the important reasons why the Pakistani side has upped the ante this time by sending heavily armed infiltrators into Kargil and other parts of Kashmir may have been the impression that a conventional war between the two c ountries, given the changed circumstances after May 1998, is out of the question.

The Pakistan cricket team toured India. Pakistan had started selling sugar and onions to India. It was seriously considering the feasibility of selling power to India. The Pakistani side, considering the sale of surplus power, was headed by a senior Army officer. All this and the historic trip made by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Lahore in February and the bonhomie between him and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif apparently lulled the Indian Government into believing that the borders bet ween the two countries would be quiet compared to previous years. Some people in the Indian Government are still giving Sharif and the Pakistani political establishment the benefit of the doubt. Defence Minister George Fernandes has said that the Sharif Government "did not have a major role" in the conspiracy to push infiltrators into Kashmir. He has instead blamed the Pakistan Army, suggesting that it acted independently of the Government.

ANU PUSHKARNA
At the all-party meeting convened on May 29 to discuss the Kargil situation, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee with members of his Cabinet.

Many people in Pakistan, however, think otherwise. Since Sharif's return to power, he has systematically gone about removing or purging officials and functionaries opposed to him in the armed forces. The current Army chief reportedly owes his position to Sharif. Fernandes' interpretation has been coincidentally echoed by analysts of the United States who are close to the United States State Department. For example, Selig Harrison, writing in The New York Times, noted that Islamic militants in Pakistan had for some time been wielding quite a strong influence on the intelligence agencies. "I don't think that Pakistani forces are under unified control," opined Harrison. Infiltrating larg e numbers of guerrillas into Kargil, according to him, could have been done without the knowledge of the Sharif Government. Another U.S. expert on South Asia, George Perkovich, however, has discounted the possibility that Sharif was unaware of the Kargil infiltration. "Sharif has consolidated his power enough and the Army chief is handpicked by him. I cannot believe that he did not know."

INDIAN officials initially said that up to 700 militants, most of them battle-hardened Mujahideen who had seen action in Afghanistan, crossed over during the early winter thaw and took up positions near the towns of Drass and Kargil overlooking the key L eh-Srinagar highway. Indian Army spokesmen have been insisting that the Pakistani Army, besides providing logistical support, has been sending its own regulars.

As large-scale fighting erupted near Drass-Kargil-Batalik, it became evident that the number of infiltrators was much larger than that suggested by earlier official Indian estimates. The infiltrators, according to Defence Ministry sources, were also well entrenched in the heights overlooking the Leh-Kargil highway at heights ranging from 15,000 to 17,000 ft. There was intelligence failure on a colossal scale on the Indian side. The Indian Army has started blaming the intelligence agencies for the blunde r.

According to informed sources, Army headquarters had told Vajpayee that it would take at least two to three months to flush out the insurgents through ground operations alone. With the general elections not far away, this scenario was not acceptable to t he Government. So, for the first time, the Government requisitioned the large-scale use of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in peace time for counter-insurgency operations. The Defence Ministry, in its statement, said that air action was taken to discourage Pa kistan from extending its operations further. "Delayed reaction would have called for a more severe action, possibly increasing the areas as well as the scope of action," it said.

The Defence Ministry also asserted that if the insurgents were not evicted, the alignment of the LoC would be altered to the advantage of Pakistan and that the Srinagar-Leh highway would be under threat if decisive action was not taken immediately. The M inistry also warned Islamabad that "appropriate action" would be taken if "there is direct or indirect" interference by the Pakistan Army or Air Force.

Questions have been raised about the rationale behind the deployment of the Indian Air Force in what is basically a high-risk venture. It is well-known that the insurgents have in their arsenal sophisticated weaponry such as the Stinger hand-held anti-ai rcraft missile, which was used with devastating effect during the Afghan war against the Russian Air Force. The Drass-Kargil-Batalik sector boasts of one of the toughest terrains in the world.

ANU PUSHKARNA
Opposition leaders, among those who attended the meeting.

Indian Defence Ministry sources asserted that they would not be provoked to escalate the conflict and would "exercise restraint". Vajpayee has already had two telephonic conversations with Sharif. The latter's offer to send his Foreign Minister, Sartaj A ziz, to New Delhi to try and defuse the tense situation was accepted by Vajpayee on May 31. Vajpayee has, however, refused to accede to Sharif's suggestion that India stop its air strikes in Kargil so that peace talks could begin urgently. Vajpayee has a lso summarily rejected a proposal by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send international observers to Kashmir. Rejecting the offer to send a special envoy to defuse the tension, Vajpayee said that India would continue its military operation s until all the intruders were flushed out.

The Indian Defence Ministry has said that it has achieved considerable success after launching "Operation Vijay" on May 25. Pakistan Army regulars and other intruders from two positions in Batalik and one position in Drass have been pushed out. But India n Army sources admit privately that removing all the well-entrenched intruders is going to take more time.

AN all-party meeting attended by 32 political parties on May 29 extended full support to the Government in its efforts to flush out the infiltrators. However, during the meeting Fernandes was severely criticised by many party leaders for his assertion th at Sharif and the ISI were not involved in the events along the LoC. Congress(I) leader Pranab Mukherjee said that Fernandes' statement was "unnecessary and uncalled for". The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demanded that the caret aker Vajpayee government should either disown or explain the Defence Minister's "irresponsible" statement. CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet asked the BJP-led government to act in a "restrained and responsible manner" on the Kargil issue " as neither the Indian nor the Pakistani people want a war at this juncture". He added that the Vajpayee government had reacted "very late" with regard to the Pakistani infiltration into Kargil.