archive: 'Vijay vs 'Final Revenge'
'Vijay vs 'Final Revenge'
Tavleen Singh
Afternoon Despatch & Courier
July 5, 1999
Title: 'Vijay vs 'Final Revenge'
Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: Afternoon Despatch & Courier
Date: July 5, 1999
It's now just over a month since our undeclared war began in Kargil
and, for the first time since then, there are now clear signs that,
Pakistan faces defeat both militarily and diplomatically. In Delhi
you perceive this from the quiet jubilation that has crept into the
voices of senior ministers and officials. Far obvious reasons nobody
is prepared to go on record to say anything but, if you guarantee
anonymity, people at the highest, levels are prepared to analyze for
you the reasons why they believe that Pakistan has lost both the
battle and the war.
On the military front, last week, India inched its way towards
retaking the peak they call Tiger Hill. There was a bloody battle
fought in that area on Tuesday (June 29) in which the 2nd Rajputana
Rifles excelled themselves by taking a peak at 5,750 metres which had
been in Pakistani occupation for some time. The cost was heavy and
four officers, one junior commissioned officer and eight jawans lost
their lives. But, according to my information, Pakistan lost more
than forty men.
As the veils slowly begin to lift, more and more information begins to
emerge about what Pakistan was trying to achieve through its incursion
across the Line of Control. The quagmire it now finds itself in was
apparently part of a plan that was codenamed Operation Aakhri Badla
(Operation Final Revenge) and the military objectives were to block
the Srinagar-Leh highway with the idea of eventually pushing Indian
troops out of Siachen. The wider objective was to occupy positions
that would help ingress into the Kashmir Valley and that could then be
used as negotiating points whenever talks finally begin.
This military objective was thwarted, according to my sources in
Delhi, because Pakistan had not expected India to respond quite as
aggressively as it did. When viewed from Islamabad, Delhi must have
looked in bad shape. What with our constantly squabbling politicians,
a weak government which even had the grace to fall and with the fact
that elections are always moments when political leaders lose interest
in national security in favour of more personal objectives.
When you start asking questions in Delhi's corridors of power all
kinds of information emerge that often contradicts accepted wisdom in
the media. So, although we in the press have put it about that a
major intelligence failure led to the intruders managing to get into
our territory in the first place, my investigations reveal that the
failure was more to do with military complacency than failed
intelligence. My sources were emphatic about this but added that even
if there was some initial military complacency, the situation was
quickly rectified. The first intruders are now believed to have
crossed the Line of Control in April and by the first week of May,
there was already a response from our side. By the last week of that
month, the Air Force started bombing the peaks.
Again, contrary to Pakistan's claims that the men who crossed into
Indian territory were only 'mujahideen' there is now increasing
evidence that our soldiers were fighting regular Pakistani troops. An
estimated four battalions drawn from the fourth, fifth, sixth and
seventh Northern Light Infantry regiments. So, where did the Islamic
warriors come in? Apparently, only as armed porters.
At the highest levels in Delhi now, there is optimism that Pakistan
will realize sooner rather than later that Operation Aakhri Badla has
been a disaster and that it's time to cut their losses and withdraw to
lick their wounds.
What causes the mood to be even more optimistic in Delhi is the fact
that our military successes have been backed up by some pretty
impressive diplomatic victories. When the trouble began, there was
initially some concern that Pakistan's old best friends -- China and
the United States -- would give it the international credibility that
it so desperately needed to justify its violation of the Line of
Control. But, some aggressive diplomacy on the part of the Indian
government resulted in the United States openly asking Pakistan to
desist from its activities and in China deciding to remain neutral
despite Pakistan's best efforts to get it to come out on its side.
The fact that Nawaz Sharif decided to cut his trip to Beijing short by
more than five days, last week, came as the icing on the cake. In the
words of a senior minister who requested anonymity, "Never before, in
the fifty years that the Kashmir problem has been with us, has
Pakistan been so isolated internationally as it is today"
So, where do we go from here? Will Kashmir become a subject for
discussion when the United General Assembly meets in September? Will
the fighting in Kargil end sooner rather than later? The answers can
only be vague but people I talked to expressed the hope that we could
see an end to the fighting as soon as next month. As for the United
Nations, Delhi appears to be quite confident that even if Kashmir does
get raised, the main issue will be the intrusion across the Line of
Control.
The gloom then, that has hung like a pall over Delhi for several weeks
now, is slowly beginning to lift. Ironically, considering that Mr.
Vajpayee's government now only has caretaker status, it is beginning
to look better than it ever did in its thirteen month tenure. It has
handled the worst crisis we have faced in many years with a confidence
and skill that has been quite unexpected when you consider that it
nearly fell because the price of onions went up.
It looks even better when you contrast the behaviour of its ministers
with the rantings and hysteria of senior Congress leaders. They
continue to demand a special session of the Rajya Sabha without fully
explaining what will be achieved by it. If we go by the standards of
parliamentary debate that we have seen in recent times, all that we
are likely to get out of a special session is recriminations,
cacophony and the usual pattern of walkouts. If opposition leaders
believe that the government has failed in handling the crisis in
Kargil, they need to make some specific charges. These can be made
without wasting time and money on a special session of parliament.
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