Anoop Khajuria
The media coverage of the Kargil conflict has been downplayed as a war that was merely imagined by the television media. It was viewed by millions of Indians and raised their euphoric patriotic feelings. Still, at the same time, some prominent observers felt that treating news media offerings like soap does not enhance their value, and questions were raised about the creditability and candidness of the Indian media. Was it exercising its due role and responsibility towards society, people, and the country? I can say with conviction, yes, as one among those who were risking their lives on the battleground to tell the tale of valour, sacrifice, and grit of the Indian soldiers.
After 25 years of the Kargil conflict, I am proud to say that I witnessed it all through my open eyes and the lens of the camera. I was lucky to stand in an arena co-habited by reputed newspaper journalists and news agencies that were trying to gather news on ground zero with extreme difficulty and putting themselves in the face of immense danger amidst heavy artillery firing from across the LoC. There is no denying that there were few TV channels that never shied away using the theatrical element to enhance the viewership and making news look like a piece of soap. I should not go into those details but thanks to my lineage that descends from my grandfather who was a valiant soldier of the 25 Punjab Regiment that fought the Anglo-Afghan War of 1935. No one thereafter joined the army from my family but I was the one who felt the adrenaline surging in the blood that goaded me to lobby for my role as a war correspondent on Kargil theatre. Many of our star reporters, who would vie for a foreign trip, had turned turtle to tread upon a battleground. Further, a credible and detailed interview with Brajesh Mishra, the then security advisor to the PM messaging about the Kargil excursion saw me garnering favours from my seniors and subsequently, two teams landed at Srinagar from the Public Service Media.
Since I belonged to Jammu and was a Dogra, it became a great help in getting access to the vital permissions required from Badami Bagh Cantonment authorities as I befriended many Dogri-speaking soldiers from Jammu and Himachal.
Finally, we embarked on the daunting Kargil heights. It was mid-May of 1999. As we passed through Zoji-la, the landscape turned mountainous, rugged, and high. The minimum height of these dizzying elevations was 8000 feet. The climate is cold and dry. Drass is known as the coldest permanently inhabited place with winter temperatures falling to as low as -40 degrees C or colder.
It was the war theatre where Pakistani regular soldiers in the disguise of militants had occupied higher reaches crossing the LoC. The electronic and print media of the World’s largest democracy had geared itself to provide an authentic window of this nefarious incursion of the Pak Army.
It was the first well-publicized military exchange between the two neighbours after the nuclearization of South Asia. Scarcely the ink had dried from the Lahore declaration signed between Nawaz Sharif and the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 21st February 1999, when General Parvez Musharraf launched the Kargil operation on the 8th of May 1999. Now twenty-five years later we know that the Pak army had planned the invasion of the Drass-Kargil region way back in 1985, that is 14 years before the Kargil war was unleashed to cut off India’s road connection to Siachen. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto disclosed in an interview given to Third Eye Television that Parvez Mushraff had brought to her the Kargil plan when she was the Prime Minister and he was the Director General of Military Operations. She termed it as an obsolete disaster. The General wanted to hoist the Pak flag on the Jammu and Kashmir assembly and she had vetoed his plans. Now the intriguing question for the media was to find out why Pakistan indulged in this treachery immediately after the peacenik signing of the Lahore declaration.
It was in this backdrop, we were staring at the spiky heights of Kargil to look for the war scenes and we were not disappointed. All along the road, we could see 50 mm guns, Bofors Howitzer guns, and the reserve army tents camouflaged with thorny shrubs and dry vegetation. A kuchha road deviating from the National Highway from Drass towards the north connected Mushkoh Valley where one could see a larger presence of the army contingents. All along the road till Mulback in Leh district, one could see army convoys on the road. Since LOC runs parallel to the Kargil and the Sindh river, close to the Aryan villages located at a height that is snowbound in winter, the Indian army as per the SOP, vacated these heights during winter only to realize later that these heights had been captured by Pak army regulars. That militants were occupying these inaccessible elevations, we know was a hoax.
PART – 2
President Pervez Musharraf in his memoir ‘ In the Line of Fire’ released in 2006, gives details of the Kargil conflict, the roots of which can be traced to Siachen. As a backup to the understanding of the Kargil conflict it needs to be stressed that Kargil was not off operation, but the latest in the series of moves and counter moves at tactical levels by India and Pakistan along the line of control in the inaccessible, snowbound Northern areas. India would capture a location where they knew that the Pak Army’s presence was thin, and vice-versa. This is how they managed to occupy Siachen. This is how the Kashmiri freedom fighters occupied the Kargil heights that the Indian army had vacated for winter.
So, when braving four bullets from the enemy’s AK47, Satpal Singh- a sepoy from the 8 Sikh regiment of the Indian army, valiantly fought and killed Captain Karnal Sher Khan, a decorated soldier of Pakistan’s light infantry along with four others, the arrant lies of General Musharraf got exposed. Later, Pakistan posthumously awarded its highest gallantry award Nishan-e-Haider to Captain Karnal Sher Khan. Nishan-e-Haider stands equivalent to the highest Indian gallantry award, Param Vir Chakra.
I vividly remember the Mushkoh Valley where 17 Jat regiment had been camping after the battle of Point 4875. This regiment had been fighting with the Pak Army regulars of the Northern Light Infantry with utmost chivalry and phenomenal grit. The vivid images of the war are still in my mind. The Tololing, Batalik, Bajarang post, Mushkoh, Tiger Hills; Point 4875, and many other rocky cliffs were recaptured by our combating soldiers, sometimes even fighting with bare hands. The bravery and sacrifice of Jats, Sikhs, Rajputs, Gorkhas, and Dogras along with the Grenadiers and Paras made it all possible without whom the Kargil War could not have been fought back. The highly commendable role of our Artillery units pounding heavy shelling on the enemies’ strategic locations inflicted causalities that reversed the winning streak in India’s favor.
Innumerable stories of courage and sacrifice by the Indian army on the battlefront found front page spaces in print media. The Electronic media brought vivid images from battlegrounds hitherto not seen by television viewers. Pakistan faced a humiliating defeat losing 3000 soldiers of Northern Light Infantry. The facts of the Kargil War were brought out by India through the Kargil Review Committee Report, the western audience particularly its media and academics saw this as a factual report on Kargil. Pakistan did not publish any such report. However, there was an internal inquiry committee ordered by Nawaz Sharif that exposed the people responsible for the Kargil defeat resulting in the General toppled the elected Government.
Finally, I remember the Press Conference after the ceasefire was announced in July 1999 by GOC Northern Command. He stated that in the Kargil war, 524 Indian soldiers were martyred, 1363 got injured and Rs. 1984 Crore was spent on the war. Pakistan had lost 3000 officers and Jawans of Northern Light Infantry, more than the losses of the 1965 war.
This is high time that Pakistan learned the lessons and refrained from guerilla warfare tactics yet again unleashed by the Pak army regulars in the Jammu region. This India is much stronger, mightier, and united. Kashmir is no longer a bilateral issue for the Indian Government after the abrogation of Article 370. Any misadventure like Kargil now would get pulverized and backfire upon Pakistan.
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