The Quality Of Courage

Ever since the Kargil conflict began, I have been asking myself, 'What can we, far from those desolate heights, do to honour those who gave their lives so that we may live in security?' Four thoughts came repeatedly to mind. The first is never to forget what they did on the battlefield. The second is to tell their families precisely what their sons, their fathers, their husbands fought and gave their lives to protect. The third is to make sure, to the best of one's ability, that such sacrifices are not called for in the future. Last, to become a nation that is worthy of their sacrifice.

Spokesmen for the Pakistani army and mujahideen outfits are doing their best to minimise the Indian army's achievements. But we shouldn't fall prey to their insinuations. What the Indian infantry achieved in Kargil is unparalleled in the history of war. When it started, Pakistani soldiers and irregulars had already occupied all the ridges. These are not the gentle, tree- and shrub-covered ridges that visitors to Shimla or Darjeeling are familiar with. They are the jagged end of the granite-and-basalt Tibetan plateau some of the oldest, hardest rock in the world. These ridges have razor-sharp edges, and not a single bush or tree to hide behind. The rock face on the south is often a sheer cliff. The more accessible slopes have a 70 degree inclination. The ridges are so narrow that no more than two or three men can face the enemy at one time. In such circumstances, even a 10-to-one superiority in men means nothing, for it can be neutralised by a single machine gun. The Pakistani army and mujahideen knew this. They were therefore certain that, having established themselves on the heights, they were undefeatable. Privately, most Indian generals feared they were right. Hence the pressure they mounted to be allowed to widen the war and hit Pakistan at places of their choosing.

The glory began there. When the government refused to let it do so till it had exhausted all diplomatic options, the army didn't cringe or hold back. If going up the ridges were suicide, the soldiers would go up the rock faces. It is necessary to understand the quality of courage this required. The jawan who went on these missions knew that there could be only two outcomes victory or death. The terrain ruled out the third alternative, withdrawal. For, once battle had been joined, the element of surprise was lost. If he tried to retreat, he would have to feel his way back down the rock face, with a triumphant enemy shooting down at him. It is with this knowledge that thousands of young men went out in the dead of night, sheltered where they could on the lower slopes during the next day, and resumed the climb in the early hours of the next morning to catch the enemy by surprise at dawn. When the jawan went into battle, he'd probably not slept for two days and had climbed a 4,000-foot sheer rock face. All the while he had lived with the dread knowledge that death awaited him on the climb, but when it was over, death would be waiting at the top also. The world has become a stranger to this quality of courage.

Our first duty is to make sure, to the best of our ability, that we never ask our soldiers to fight a war in which we ask so much of him. His courage and that of the lieutenants, captains, majors and lieutenant colonels who led him has shown the weakness at higher levels of command and the failure of defence planning and procurement that has developed over the 30 years of 'peace'. The extraordinary set of oversights that allowed the Pakistanis to occupy our bunkers on our ridges are already the subject of a hot debate. I don't wish to add to it, except to say that the anger over this is far keener in the army than among us drawing room commentators.

What we need to set right is the creeping demoralisation in the armed forces and the gradual erosion of the chain of command. Two things have been responsible growing financial strangulation and the relentless effort of the bureaucracy in the defence ministry to expand its turf in the name of 'civilian supremacy'. The first has led to a 70 per cent cut in ordnance, spares and supplies for the army and smaller but still considerable cuts for the other forces. As for the latter, since the late '70s, the defence ministry has taken more and more of the decisions that should have been left to the services. By far the most important of these has been the procurement of weapons systems. Today, between the ias and the drdo, the army has virtually lost its autonomy in deciding what weapons it will fight with, even within the existing financial constraints. And yet it is the armed forces that must live or die by them.

As a result, the army fought the Kargil war with weapons of the '60s. To pander to political populism, government after government kept Bofors, which made the guns that made the difference between defeat and victory, on a blacklist for 12 long years. The corps commander, Northern Command, Gen Krishnapal, kept asking for electronic movement sensors and the latest radio and telephone interception equipment but got just three-fifths of his already modest request. So, whether in Kargil or in Kupwara, the army remains locked into visual modes of surveillance even as the mujahideen slip into India in increasing numbers. As for smart weapons that could have saved scores of lives on the ridges, the air force had to use them sparingly since, for a decade the electronics wizards have been designing missiles for nuclear war when they would have done better to devote their capabilities to the simpler task of developing TV and laser guidance systems for conventional bombs.

Only if the Kargil war ends by increasing the allocations for defence, and restores the primacy of the armed forces in operational matters and weapons procurement, will we be able to tell the families of the bereaved that their sons, fathers and husbands did not die in vain.