By K SUBRAHMANYAM appeared in "The Times of India" on July 26, 1999

KARGIL will feature as a defining moment in the history of the subcontinent though as a military conflict it does not compare with the four wars fought by India in 1947-48, 1962, 1965 and 1971 in terms of forces involved or casualties incurred. The IPKF operations in Sri Lanka were of a larger dimension, involved more casualties and spread over a longer period. Thanks to television, the Kargil war brought the images of the bravery of our jawans, their professionalism, the national integration they represented and the majesty of our borders into living rooms all over this country.

Spin-off Benefits

The description of India as ``Aa Sethu Himachalam'' is no longer an abstract concept. The soldiers, officers and airmen from Kerala and Tamil Nadu were seen by hundreds of millions of people on the screen defending the Himalayan peaks. Never before has the country felt so emotionally united as in these past eight weeks. It is an unfortunate fact of history that elsewhere in Europe and America people got integrated as nations only though a series of wars. The Pakistanis who base their policy towards India on the assumption that Indian unity will be unsustainable over a period of time have contributed to the consolidation of this unity significantly through their Kargil aggression even as they have undermined their own.

This limited conflict recalls to one's mind that of 1965. Then too Pakistan initiated Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand Slam and sent infiltrators into Kashmir. India reacted with a counter attack in the Lahore-Sialkot sectors. The war ended in a stalemate though India could have won if it had continued it for another week or ten days since Pakistan was running out of ammunition. It resulted in the mediation in Tashkent.

There was no winner or vanquished in that war though Pakistan attempted to portray it as a great victory. But the effects on Pakistan's domestic politics were long lasting. It led to East Bengal feeling undefended and consequently to the six-point programme of Mujibur Rahman.

Since India had not set itself any objective beyond throwing the Pakistanis out of its territory, this country did not aim at a spectacular victory. Even in 1971, the fall of Dacca and the capture of 93,000 prisoners were not specifically planned for. Kargil was only a damage-limiting operation and no victory was aimed at or obtained. But it did produce a number of spin-off benefits which need to be carefully exploited. If India is not careful, these gains could be squandered as happened at Simla, with the very best of intentions.

The Kargil campaign is the first one in which a well-coordinated air-land battle on a restricted scale was fought by Indian forces. This is the first step and needs to be built on further. One hopes this will sow the seeds for integrated planning between the two services. It was no mean achievement for the Army to have concentrated approximately three divisions on the Kargil sector in a short period and launched high altitude operations with several battalions. This experience was so new and unprecedented that many generals experienced in high altitude warfare could not anticipate the rapidity with which our forces could outflank and overwhelm the well-entrenched enemy. This operation speaks well of the innovation in tactical operations by our operational commanders, the leadership qualities of our young officers who led from the front and who took casualties disproportionate to the average ratios in terms of officers to jawans in normal infantry battles. Those who predicted that the war would be prolonged into autumn and further were proved wrong.

Global Security Risk

On the diplomatic front, the G-8 nations came out against Pakistan on the Kargil issue for their own reasons -- perceived threat of Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism. China did not support Pakistan because of its concerns on Tibet and Xinjiang and the possibility of the `Mujahideen' turning up there. The Indian efforts to project Pakistani aggression in Kargil as an international terrorist and Islamic fundamentalist issue connected with ethnic cleansing in Kashmir and narcotics traffic have been feeble. No doubt, this time there has been more support for India than in 1949, 1965 and 1971. But that should not lead to a sense of complacency, and euphoria but should result in a concerted effort to project the state of Pakistan and its army, its fundamentalism, terrorism, its narcotics traffic and its crumbling economy as an international security problem.

In Simla, Indira Gandhi and her advisers fell for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's wiles and felt that he was the best bet for India. Consequently, he was not pushed hard on war crimes trials and converting the Line of Control into an international border. Now there are people who advance the same kind of arguments vis-a-vis Mr Nawaz Sharif. India has to deal with the government in power in Pakistan and, therefore, with Mr Sharif. Hostilities of the Kargil type which took a toll of 410 Indian lives should be avoided. Beyond that, India has to wage a relentless information war against Pakistan to compel that country to give up its terrorist campaign.

Total Revamp

Pakistan's denial of basic human rights in the northern areas of occupied Kashmir as brought out by the Pakistan Supreme Court, its oppression of minorities, its sponsorship of fundamentalism and international terrorism, its ethnic cleansing and its involvement in narcotics traffic have to be projected to the international community. It should be explained that Kashmir is only a symptom of fundamentalism and ethnic cleansing underlying the two- nation theory. This time, India did slightly better in the information war, thanks mainly to the efforts of the Indian print and the private sector electronic media. The government of India is still living in the pre-information war age.

Kargil proves that national security cannot be handled as a part time vocation. It requires full time attention of a National Security Adviser and a fully and adequately manned National Security Council secretariat and well-crafted procedures to ensure that there are no lapses in intelligence assessment, policy formulation and purposeful direction in matters relating to country's security. That calls for a total revamp of our national security set-up, which has to be undertaken after the elections.