Kargil Victory Day: 26th July

One need to clearly study Kargill war and understand the dynamics.In mountain warfare, the one sitting on top has the advantage over the attacking troops. Understand the mountain terrain which is elaborated as follows. The heights captured by Pakistan was steeper on Indian Side.

Rocky surface, making difficult to climb. Area constraints. Unlike conventional war in plains, in mountain conventional warfare, the area is limited for attacking troops. The release point will be in the foothills of the mountain. Action of Gravity. You throw a stone siting on top of Drass and it will become a bullet falling down. Lack of Oxygen in these heights, specifically in the mountain ranging from Kargil to Drass. More number of troops committed to capture a small portion of mountain.

Mountain warfare is one of the most difficult warfare for tacticians. India had kept ratio of attacking troops as 1:40 to bring down Pakistani soldiers. This means 40 soldiers will attack over 1 Pakistani soldier. The calculation behind this is on the basis of difficulty of terrain and expected number of troops who will reach on top making ratio 1:1. In simpler words, when you send 40 soldiers in attack, minimum one will reach the top to fight one enemy soldier.

Pakistan had never anticipated that India will recapture the heights. They had sent less number of troops to capture 125 posts. Pakistan anticipation was that like 1965, India will open western front and they will move in conventional warfare. If it would had happen, then it would had meant two nuclear power countries on war. A threat to humanity, and United Nations would had jumped in between and forced two countries for dialogues. This would had meant cease fire and as line of control is not fixed, it is flexible. Therefore, India would had lost 125 post in Kargill sector and Southern Glacier of Siachen Glacier would had gone to Pakistan.

This was a masterstroke by General Musharraf. Though, Indian Army had different plans which they executed well. The Indian Army leadership had understood the importance of staying within line of control and fighting way out to capture these posts. The icing on the cake was that Pakistan had said that Mujahids for Kashmir freedom has captured these posts which meant Indian Government could easily prevented any third party interference by quoting that it is India’s internal matter. Therefore, India never crossed international border and line of control but stayed prepared for conventional warfare while operation Vijay took place.

?Indian Army had lost rifle companies in a single night attack. A rifle company consists of 2 officers and 120 men. There are instances where Indian Army had lost a whole rifle company in single attack and more casualties were inflicted while in retrieving the bodies. India had initially kept the ratio of attack as 1:9 but when such a huge loss happened, Indian Army changed the tactics and decided to heavily outnumbered Pakistan intruders by sending 1:40 ratio of troops in attack. Kargill Ammunition dump was blown up by Pakistani Artillery thanks to media reporting of Barkha Dutt which infamously compromised the ammunition dump location. We had several aircraft and helicopter crashes in which we lost few of the finest pilots.

If you study the Kargil War carefully, then you will realise that India paid a huge price in terms of lives of soldiers to regain the territory. Freedom comes at a cost. It is practically impossible that Pakistan lost more number of lives than India because India had outnumbered them heavily and loss of life on the battlefield and later scummed to injuries in hospital on Indian side was definitely more. The young officers played a very important role in motivating the troops and leading them in attack and most them became the first one to get hit by the bullet. Pak army soldiers occupied the vacated Indian Army posts in the early 1999 when winter was still in effect. The original Pakistani plan was to take over around 10–20 posts but as they advanced, they saw many more were up for grabs. They later received reinforcements and and then captured around 140.

Error-1: Indian army failed to predict this and when later came to know of this incursion, decided to evict Pak personnel from these hills. Pakistan's plan was to bring India to a position from where they could bargain Siachen. This was the first error Pakistan made, they expected India to straight away come to talks, whereas India launched its Army and the Air Force to evict Pak personnel. The official Pakistani statement till then was that these were Mujahedeen and not Pakistani Army personnel. India however knew that these indeed were Pakistani army personnel and not Mujahedeen irregulars.

Error- 2: IAF kept targeting Pak supply lines which forced them to vacate those posts. Pakistan also assumed that the international community would side with them when they bring it to the world's notice how India had been retaliating. This was the 2nd error. RAW, India's intelligence agency intercepted several conversations of Pak Army Chief Gen Pervez Musharraf and made it available to all the embassies in Delhi. The world now came to know that these were Pakistani soldiers following orders issued by the Rawalpindi HQ. No countries now were ready to back Pakistan and supported India's stand.

Error-3: It was reported that the plan to seize the Kargill posts were made very discreetly an not even the Pak Navy & Air force chiefs and the PM Nawaz Sharif was informed of this. Thus, Pakistan could not provide support to its troops engaged in the fighting. Apart from this, since they stated that these people were Mujahedeen and not Pakistani soldiers, it now became impossible even for the Army to send any reinforcements.

Indian Masterstroke: Vajpayee govt at Delhi decided to keep the fighting localized. IAF pilots and Army soldiers were ordered not to cross the LoC in any situation. The world now lost any reason to intervene and side with Pakistan. When Nawaz Sharif went into damage control mode and flew to Washington to convince President Bill Clinton to ask India to call for a ceasefire, Clinton made it absolutely clear that neither he nor the US wants to be seen supporting anyone who has been the aggressor in this case. It was pretty clear that it was indeed Pakistani troops were fighting against the Indian forces. Clinton stated that Pakistan would have to withdraw all its troops back to its side of the Line of Control without any condition and only then can he ask India to call for a ceasefire. Thus Kargill was a victory diplomatically, strategically and militarily.

I remember reading a war diary of a unit, in which it was mentioned that an officer (I will not take name), wrote the last letter to his parents before marching for attack. In the letter he clearly mentioned addressing his mother that he and his company commander knew that they are walking straight into death with his whole company, but someone had to lead the troops in attack to inflict casualty on enemy as much as possible.

He in his letter mentioned that he will be coming back home wrapped in tri-colour and he was grateful to be born in India and wish to serve in Indian Army in the next life. The emotions in the letter shows that the leaders knew that they are walking towards death but they understood the importance of sacrifice to set the pace for next attacking troops. Rest is history, Indian Army successfully won all the heights and recaptured all the posts.No death can be better than dying for your countrymen” Jai Hind! (Long Live India)