Kargil War

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Location

Before 1947, Kargil was a part of Gilgit-Baltistan. Now it is a town in the Indian controled Kashmir. Kargil lies on the line of control facing the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Kargil is the only Muslim majority district in the Ladakh subdivision. Kargil is nestled in the Himalayas giving it a cool temperate climate. Summers are cool with frigid nights while winters are long and cold with temperatures often dropping to -40°C. A national highway connecting Srinagar to Leh, cuts through Kargil.

Squatting by insurgents

In late May 1999, Islamic guerrillas covertly backed by Pakistan and regular Pakistani troops from the elite Special Services Group and the mountain warfare specific Northern Light Infantry squatted on vantage heights in the Indian controlled region. This led to mobilisation of Indian troops in Operation Vijay to forcibly evict them. The Indian Air Force used laser guided bombs to annihilate the well entrenched positions of the terrorists. The Indian army fought and won valiant victories against considerable odds retaking most of the heights.

Pakistan received widespread world condemnation for the failure to patrol its borders and allow insurgents into operate in its soil. Few nations bought the Pakistani attempt at plausible deniality by linking the incursion to insurgents. As veteran analysts noted, the battle was being fought at heights where only seasoned troops could survive, poorly equipped rag tag terrorists would neither have the ability nor the wherewithal to seize land and defend it. As the Indian attack picked up momentum and the Indian Air Force expanded its air strikes, the Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif flew to meet US president Bill Clinton on July 4, to earn support from one of its oldest allies. However Clinton rebuked Sharief, asking him to use his contacts to reign in the militants and withdraw its soldiers from Indian territory. Faced with growing international pressure, Sharief managed to pull back the few surviving soldiers and insurgents from Indian territory. 527 Indian army soldiers were killed. Nawaz Sharif later noted that 2500 Pakistani soldiers had been killed in the conflict, more than in any prior Indo Pak war.

Fallout

India

The fallout of the war saw the Indian stock market rising by over 1500 points. The next Indian budget included a massive defensive hike. Indians nationwide united and army enlistment swelled. Celebrities pitched in visiting injured service personnel. From then onwards till February 2000, the Indian economy was bullish. On 8 June, India and Pakistan clashed in the Cricket World Cup. Though traditional rivals, this match was marked with an increased hostility, with many seeing it was a war between the two nations. India comfortably won the match. The Indian military then severed all ties with Pakistan, and increased it defence preparedness. Since the Kargil conflict, Indian defence preparedness has increased manifold as the Government began spending more on state of the art equipment.

Pakistan

Faced with the possibility of international isolation, the Pakistani economy tumbled and Pakistan was shunned as a global hotbed for terrorism. In October 1999, General Pervez Musharraf staged a bloodless coup d'etat ousting PM Nawaz Sharief. According to Benazir Bhutto, a formar prime minister of Pakistan, Kargil war was Pakistan's biggest blunder. For nearly three months the Kargil conflict threatened South Asia with the prospect of the first nuclear war since Hiroshima. More than 3000 Pakistani soldiers, belonging to the Northern Light Infantry or NLI, were killed and more than 300 dead bodies buried on the terrains of Kargil, when Pakistan Army denied accepting to them. [1]

External links

• Kargil Conflict (GlobalSecurity)
• Limited Conflict Under the Nuclear Umbrella (RAND Corp.)
• War in Kargil (Center for Contemporary Conflict) PDF download
• Pakistan's Northern Areas dilemma (BBC)
• Northern Areas Development Gateway
• Pakistan's Northern Areas
• Northern Pakistan's Karakoram & Hindukush Mountains
• The Mountain Areas Conservancy Project
• Gilgit Map