[sacw] SACW Dispatch / Indo-Pak War on Kargil

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch
July 5, 1999
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Visit the Website of Citizens Against War in Kargil
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/Kargil/Kargilindex.html
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Contents:
# 1. It Will Soon Be Minus 50 Degrees In Kargil
# 2. The Dogs Of War
# 3. The Price Of War
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# 1. The Times of India Review, July 4, 1999

IT WILL SOON BE MINUS 50 DEGREES IN KARGIL

And its 23,000 displaced residents have nothing with which to
fight the implacable enemy of the weather. No food, no animals,
no warm clothes. RASHME SEHGAL travels to Kashmir to report
first-hand on the unwitting victims of war.

A HUDDLE OF 30 dishevelled children sits on the cold floor of an
improvised classroom overlooking the snow-capped mountains whose
slopes dip sharply into the turbulent Sindh river. They have not
textbooks, no pencils. But their teacher Ghulam Mohiuddin, from
the village of Matayan in the Kargil district, holds classes
every morning. The children repeat their multiplication tables in
an attempt to pretend things are normal.

Mohiuddin, 52, looks on sternly. He does not hesitate to thump a
child if he gets too frisky. "It would have been better if the
local administration had provided these children with text books
so that they do not lose a crucial year. But since they have not
visited us even once to find out whether we are dead or alive or
even bothered to give us essentials like rice and kerosene or
money with which to buy them, expecting them to fork out school
books is asking for the moon," he says with only a hint of sarcasm.

The village of Matayan has 400 inhabitants. On the night of May
13, the Pakistani army started shelling their settlement. The
terrified villagers, the majority of whom are Muslims, trekked
down the Zoji La pass, making their way down to the safety of the
village of Kulan, located at 8000 feet.

"We left our homes in panic. We brought nothing, not even our
warm clothes. We left behind our cooking utensils, our foodgrain
and our animals, certain that the state government and the Ladakh
Autonomous Hill Development Council would help us till we could
return home," says 50-year-old Noori.

"But we have become beggars in our own country," she laments. "We
would have starved were it not for the kindness of the local
villagers. They have fed us and allowed us to live in their
homes. We are grateful for us to live in their homes. We are
grateful for that." The people from her village nod in quiet
agreement. They have yet to come to terms with such bureaucratic
callousness.

"Most of the villagers who have migrated from Matayan are
suffering from malnutrition, gastroenteritis and scabies," says
Dr Shabir, a medical officer with the Jammu and Kashmir state
government working at a nearby dispensary. "Were it not for the
locals, things would have been worse."

If Matayan is the first village that you encounter crossing the
Zoji La pass, Pandrass, at 10,000 feet, is the second. The
villagers from there, now living in the village of Gagan Gir,
have an equally harrowing tale of state neglect.

The shelling of Pandrass began on May 6. The villagers hoped it
would end quickly, and so initially refused to leave. The Indian
army, unwilling to take chances with their safety, provided them
with transportation up to Neelgrat, from where it was a three-day
march down to Gagan Gir. The journey was a nightmare. The nights
were bitingly cold and this group of 200 doughty villagers --
many with their children -- were forced to sleep in the open.

Still they were better off than their brethren from Matayan. The
J&K Power Development Board had a number of offices lying vacant
in Gagan Gir and they were given permission to stay here. But
=46aiz Ahmed Kari, district project officer in Kargil, who was
forced to leave his home and move here with his family, complains
of the lack of other support.

"For 60 years, we have looked after the borders. In winter, the
temperature here drops to minus 50 degrees Celsius. No one can
survive this harsh terrain except us, the local people. We live
in mud houses that are completely sealed off for seven long
winter months. We live with our cattle on the same floor for the
warmth of their bodies. We stock up food like 'sattu' (roasted
barley flour) and survive on salt tea with yak milk.

"Now we have come away, leaving our homes empty. Our animals are
at the mercy of half-wild dogs. Surely the government owes us
something. A few government functionaries have visited us but
have extended no aid whatsoever. Shabir Shah is the only leader
who has been to our camp and has given Rs 500 in cash to each
family. Surely the government should realise that we need special
assistance," Kari adds.

Drass is now a ghost town, a wasteland of skeletal buildings many
blasted beyond recognition. Some have huge cracks in them, others
are split in two. But it is Kargil that has borne the brunt of
Pakistani artillery bombardment. Almost unchanged since medieval
times, except for the satellite dishes and the TV transmitter,
the villagers continue to follow the barter system to this day.

But wherever one goes, there is a smouldering anger at how a
diligent and stoic people, unafraid of coping with extreme
weather and negligible natural resources, have been given the
short shrift by the state government.

Some compare their plight with that of the Kashmiri pandits in
Jammu. Abdul Wahid, an agricultural officer in Kargil points out,
"When the Kashmiri pandits left the valley, look at the hue and
cry created in the press. Today every Kashmiri pandit family
forced to leave the family is receiving Rs 2,500 per month from
the government. In comparison, the only aid we have received is
five kilos of rice per family and four kilos of kerosene. How far
will that get us? The authorities know that since the banks in
Drass and Kargil shut down in early May, many of us could not
withdraw money before being moved out."

=46arooq Abdullah, the chief minister of J&K, has informed the
Centre that 23,000 in the Kargil sector have been displaced. He
has requested the Centre to provide additional funds for their
rehabilitation. Chief Secretary, J&K, Ashok Jaitley, admits that
the state's refugee problem is enormous.

"During the last decade, we supported the Kashmiri migrants. Now
23,000 people have been displaced in Kargil and 25,000 from
Jammu. They need basic amenities and financial assistance. The
state government has made provision for each individual to
receive seven kilogrammes of rice, two kgs of wheat plus Rs 300
cash assistance per person per month subject to a ceiling of Rs
1,800 per family. They will also be given 10 kg of kerosene per
family. This is costing the state almost Rs 30 million per month.
We need central assistance to provide such aid," he says.

Many of the villagers simply want to be allowed to go back to
their homes to bring back essentials. "Surely the army should
grant us permission to get some stock to help us survive," is a
common refrain.

The Kargilis face an uncertain future. The farmers fear the loss
of their animals. The children fear the loss of a year of their
education. And together, they fear the winter that will set in,
come September. Drass is the second coldest inhabited place in
the world. Matayan and Pandrass are no less uninviting. They have
learnt to fight the adversity of nature, but the indifference of
the local government? That hurts. (ENDS)
*****************************************************************
#2. Sunday Mid-Day, July 4, 1999 p 10

THE PRICE OF WAR

By Shrikant Rao

IN JUNE 1990, as summer drew to a close and the monsoon sounded a
warning note in the plains of Southern Punjab, Pakistan's armed
forces began striking aggressive postures along the border with
India. The belligerence, coming as it did after a major military
exercise, the Zarb-e-Momin, led India's military minders to
wonder if this wasn't a build-up to another Indo-Pak war.

Also contributing to such an assessment was the war rhetoric
unleashed by prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Not unlike her father
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir had publicly pledged to conduct a
1000 year war with India. Incidentally the aggro seemed to have
rubbed on to the seemingly pacifist V.P.Singh, Indian prime
minister, who replied that Pakistan wouldn't last 1000 hours.

In any case, defence experts in New Delhi were taking no chances.
According to the war games scenarios discussed by them at South
Block, the war if it did take place, could easily last six weeks
or even longer.

It was computed that a full-scale war lasting a 1000 hours, or
more specifically 41.6 days, would cost New Delhi Rs 27,000 crore
(Rs 270,000 million). This estimate was as close a figure the
army top brass could arrive at. An exact assessment was well nigh
impossible since the confrontation would have involved several
battles, large and small along the long border with Pakistan.

India's 14-day war with Pakistan which culminated in the creation
of Bangladesh, contributed majorly towards combat cost
assessment. New Delhi had officially declared that the cost of
the war was in the region of Rs 200 crore (Rs 2000 million) a week.

Ergo, in June 1990 with military prices increasing ten-fold, the
army's top brass in New Delhi suggested that any possible
conflict at the 1971 level of intensity would involve an
expenditure of Rs 2000 crore (Rs 20,000 million) per week -- and
this was only a conservative estimate.

Circa 1999. Kargil. Though the conflict is currently localised,
defence analysts claim that the military operations are expected
to cost anything between Rs 5000-10000 crore (Rs 50,000 to
100,000 million).

It's 56 days since India's defence machinery launched Operation
Vijay to dislodge the Pakistani intruders who are occupying the
strategic heights above the Srinagar-Leh highway. The 300-350 air
strikes carried out by the Indian Air Force along cost in the
region of Rs 2000 crore (Rs 20,000 million).

The cost of operations carried out by the army roughly hovers
around Rs 10-15 crores (Rs 100-150 million) per day at present.
But with the possibility of the Kargil conflict intensifying and
continuing till September (or beyond?) it is anybody's guess what
the overall expenditure will be.

Certainly, previous wars pale in comparison with the ongoing one.
In 1948, for instance, it took three months for Indian troops to
drive away Pakistani infiltrators from the Drass-Kargil region
but the operation cost just a couple of crores. "There can be no
compromise when it comes to security of the country. Kargil may
not be war in the regular sense but the battle is definitely
high-cost," says defence analyst Brahma Chellaney.

What is significant, indeed revealing, is that Kargil is expected
to be one up on Siachen, the world's highest, coldest and most-
expensive-to-maintain battlefield.

Since April 13, 1984, Indian and Pakistani troops have engaged
with one other, eyeball to eyeball, for control of the 76-km long
glacier. At Rs 3 crore (Rs 30 million) per day, the Indian Army's
expenditure on Operation Meghdoot, another term for maintaining
control over the icy heights, over 5557 days amounts to a
whopping Rs 16,601 crore (Rs 166010 million).

Most of this amount is spend on air sorties, IAF helicopters and
aircraft. At least four to six helicopters are deployed on daily
to drop ammunition, and food supplies to the 108 posts at
Siachen. The cost of being airborne for one hour: Rs 26,000. For
the IL-76 and AN-32 aircraft which have to fly to the base
closest to the glacier the cost works out to Rs 45,000 every hour.

What the IAF ferries also ends up costing a bomb. For instance, a
packet of Frooti, normally available for Rs 10, reaches Siachen
at a cost of Rs 85; a litre of kerosene works out to Rs 138.
Besides this, high altitude clothing for the jawans, imported
from Austria and Switzerland, costs Rs 50,000 per head while snow
taxis used to cart the supplies to places where helicopters
cannot reach, cost a couple of lakhs each.

But the damages, monumental as they are, are not merely
financial. The conflict has resulted in 2500 soldiers losing
their lives, and 10,000 others being incapacitated more due to
harsh terrain, adverse climatic conditions -- which lead to frost
bite, hypoxia, whiteouts and severe mental stress -- than actual
military engagement. The Pakistanis, meanwhile, are said to have
spent only a quarter of India's Siachen bill.

The irony is that the powers that be in both countries do not
seem to realise the futility of the military exercise. In 1989,
just when there was a possibility of an accord being reached on
Siachen, Rajiv Gandhi is said to have backed out. The reason, as
an acolyte would later point out, was that photographs of Indian
troops withdrawing from Siachen would not look good for the
government in an election year.

Ten years later things don't appear any different with elections
round the corner. Further, with New Delhi understandably
hardening its resolve to remove the intruders from Kargil the
defence costs are naturally expected to soar. The fact that the
Kargil conflict is spread over a larger area and involves a large
number of troops -- an infantry and artillery brigade are
currently in action while another is being held in reserve --
means that it is well on its way to displace Siachen from the top
of India's defence expenditure ladder.

Air Commodore (Retd) Jasjit Singh of the Institute for Defence
Studies & Analysis in New Delhi is led to say, "Throwing the
enemy out is our top priority. Cost-benefit analysis can wait."

Can India sustain this war without being crippled economically?

Experts say that a foreign exchange reserve of $33.5 billion, a
larger and diverse economy and a defence budget in excess of $10
billion, which is thrice the size of Pakistan's, can keep it
going militarily. An external debt of $32 billion, forex reserves
to the extent of a mere $2 billion and excessive dependence on
external aid will lead to Pakistan's economy going awry. Lt Gen V
R Raghavan, former head of military operations, is gung ho about
India being able to survive the cost of war. "Even if our defence
spending is doubled to run a protracted campaign in Kargil, India
can still absorb the expense."

Such confidence notwithstanding, it is sad for the people of the
two countries that the heat of battle has dulled the cold fact
that war is both costly and wasteful.

Can anything be done to reverse the tragedy of war? (ENDS)

*****************************************************************
# 3. The Times of India, July 4, 1999 p 12

THE DOGS OF WAR

Contrarian View / S Venkitaramanan

THERE IS a strange hysteria going around. An attempt is being
made to whip up mass support for extending the shooting war to a
war without limits. People are being lulled into a feeling that
we have nothing to lose by such an enlargement.

=46inance minister Yashwant Sinha, who should know better, has said
that the guns that boom in Kargil will not affect the growth of
the economy. He should get himself down from his dizzy heights.
He must realise that war has to be paid for. Why not read Keynes
on, "How to pay for the war?"

Just as there is no free lunch, there is no costless war. Planes
have to keep flying, ammunition has to be bought, and soldiers
fed, clothed and armed. Wars are paid for not only in rupees, but
in dollars, pounds and euros, besides the heavy cost in precious
human lives -- lost because of the sins of guilty men who slept
at their posts while the intruders came.

True, this is no time to find faults. But we should not yield to
the temptation of stilling the voices of dissent. In a fit of
asinine self-righteousness, India had refrained from buying
shells and accessories for the 155 mm guns from Bofors, which was
shunned -- a reaction typical of the sanctimonious humbug, which
Mr V.P.Singh and his party represented. Let us recall how he and
his minions, trying to target late Mr Rajiv Gandhi, had
needlessly grounded the Airbus planes for nearly a year as being
risk-prone. So too, the generals of the Indian Army have been
denied the necessary shells and transport vehicles for the Bofors
guns. The saints had come marching in and almost silenced the guns.

Now, we have had to eat humble pie and deal with the very Bofors,
which we had pilloried. Even the defence ministry now reluctantly
concedes that the much-abused Bofors gun is doing a good job. It
was political immaturity which was responsible for the policy of
starving the army of shells just because we did not like the face
of the supplier. A recent comment in a foreign journal said that
India is expecting its soldiers to make up with brain and brawn
for what they lack in shells and support. While we all share the
world's admiration and applause for the bravery of our men, we
cannot but be ashamed of the cupidity of our top political brass,
which let down our defences. We are now paying through the nose.
Mr Sinha cannot escape the heavy bills that follow.

The finance minister will have no alternative but to rework his
budget sums. It is foolish to think that somehow the army will
find the wherewithal to continue to fight in the inhospitable
hills and glaciers without more funds.

There cannot be both more guns and more growth. At the moment,
unless a miracle happens, Mr Sinha will have to cut down the
budgets of other departments to refurbish defence. He may feel
reluctant to raise taxes just now. But in my view, such
reluctance is misplaced. It is, indeed, essential and advisable
that he imposes a defence surcharge on taxes, a minimum necessary
responsible by North Block to the crisis. Given the dangers we
face, the public will not resent such an impost.

The question is whether Pakistan will be able to escalate the
conflict and how we respond. Will the current clouds of war
gather strength? The answer to this does not lie in false and
facile comparisons of relative strengths. True, Pakistan has less
forex reserves ($1 billion against our $30 billion), lower GDP
and a smaller defence strength. Weakness has never made an
aggressor shy.

In my view, both countries will stand to lose if the war
escalates. Particularly today, when both nations have nuclear
arsenals, it is dangerous to allow tensions to rise further. It
has, therefore, been suggested rightly by voices of sanity such
as Mr C.Subramaniam that at this time we should not hesitate to
welcome international mediation. I believe that this is a
sensible approach. Mr. C.S. should know. He had himself played an
invaluable, but little publicised, role in 1965, interacting with
U.Thant, who helped mediate between India and Pakistan.

It is argued that this is a purely Indo-Pak dispute and should
not be internationalised -- which is what mediation may involve.
Whether we like it or not, internationalisation has already taken
place. We are already in touch with the US President, who has
sent his generals to talk to both countries. If this is not
mediation, what is? In my view, the government of India at its
highest level should not hesitate to proactively seek
international mediation.

After all, around the world, it is peace-makers from outside the
domain of conflict who have been able to successfully bring
warring parties to the table. It was so in the case of Israel
versus the Arab world, so it was as recently as in the Serbia
versus NATO engagement.

There should be no sense of hurt of national ego in agreeing to
mediation. Even an international peace-keeping force led by
countries like Sweden or Norway to monitor the LoC (line of
control) between India and Pakistan should be a possible
compromise. Peace is more valuable than avoiding hurt egos. It
may be too late to retrieve the situation if either national
presses the nuclear button now.

Both India and Pakistan have much to lose by continuing the
conflict. We have millions of poor people -- more than half the
world's poor live here. It is these poor men and women, not the
rich, who will supply cannon-fodder in a continuing
conflagration. Above all, our own hard-won economic, political
and social gains over the last five decades in terms of economic
growth and alleviation of poverty, limited though they may be,
are in danger of being sacrificed at the altar of the merchants
of death.

Let us not throw away the chances of achieving permanent peace,
just because we consider mediation to be an intrusion in our
affairs. There are times in the lives of nations when such an
intrusion may be unavoidable. The present is one such. Let not
false national pride aid the dogs of war. (ENDS)
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