The Siachen storyWhy Indian Army cannot withdraw from the
glacierby Maharajakrishna Rasgotra
The Tribune,
Chandigarh
The Tribune,
Chandigarh
In July 1982, under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s direction, I had
restarted the India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary’s talks which had remained
stalled for over two years. Before my departure for Islamabad the Prime
Minister’s instructions to me were typically laconic: “Talk to them about
everything they want to talk about, including Kashmir; what I want to know from
you when you come back is whether there is a grain of sincerity in him”.
President Zia-ul-Haq had been making noises about
wanting peace with India. My very first meeting in Islamabad was with President
Haq, who advised me to work out with his officials a Treaty of Peace and
Friendship, including a No-war Pact. Over the next two and a half years we did
successfully negotiate such a treaty, but at the last minute under American
advice, Pakistan backed off from signing it. But I shall not dwell on that long
story here.
On return from Pakistan, I told Prime Minister
Gandhi that while my talks with the officials had gone off well, I could not
really vouch for much sincerity on Zia-ul-Haq’s part. For I had picked up
information from other sources in Pakistan that many Kashmiris from both sides
of the LOC were being trained by ISI agents for armed jihad in Kashmir at the
end, in success or even failure, of the ongoing jihad in Afghanistan. In
another visit to Pakistan in 1983, I had heard some vague talk about the
Pakistan army’s plans to extend its reach to the Karakorram Pass and link up
Pakistan-occupied Baltistan with Chinese Occupied Aksai Chin inside J&K’s
Laddakh region. When I mentioned this to Prime Minister Gandhi she asked me to
speak about this with some people in our Defence establishment, which I did.
Our Army already had information about some such schemes being hatched in
Pakistan and was monitoring developments.
In early March 1984, I accompanied Prime Minister
Gandhi to a meeting in the Defence Ministry’s high-security Map Room. There
were no more than six or eight other persons there, including the Defence
Minister and the Chief of Army Staff. On a large map were flagged the positions
of the Pakistan army’s base – posts below the Saltoro Range, which constitutes
the Siachen glacier’s western flank, and the routes the Pakistan army’s
so-called “scientific” expeditions had been treading in the region for the last
one year or two. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s two allies – China and the US — had
been publishing maps showing the entire glaciated region up to the Karakorram
Pass as territory under Pakistan’s control. This was a blatant violation of the
Cease-Fire Line (CFL) Agreement of July 1949. Under that agreement the CFL from
point NJ 9842 onwards was to run “north to the glaciers”, which would leave the
larger part of the Siachen glacier and the region east of it in India. Perhaps,
the US and China viewed this as a sort of consolatory recompense for Pakistan’s
losses in 1971.
Particularly vexing for us was the thought that
our two difficult neighbours, already in illegal occupation of large chunks of
J&K territory, would link up to surround Central Ladakh on three sides
within our own territory. Such a juncture would give them dominance over the
Shyok Valley and easy access to KhardungLa Pass, and from that vantage point
their forces would threaten Leh, a mere half days’ march from the Pass. The
myth about Siachen, the adjoining glaciated areas and the Karakorram Pass being
of no strategic importance is a recent invention: now that the region is
secure, such myth making comes easy. Things looked very different to us when a
clear danger loomed on the horizon.
So, the Army was given the order to move in and
prevent the Pakistan army from occupying any part of the Saltoro Ridge or the
Siachen glacier. The risks were carefully weighed; the Pakistan army’s plans to
gain territory and strategic advantage in Ladakh, by stratagem or stealth, had
to be forestalled and defeated, and if that led to war, so be it. The one post
the Pakistan army had succeeded in occupying on the Saltoro Ridge was quickly
removed, and ever since no Pakistani soldier has been allowed to set foot on
the Siachen glacier: a reality which Pakistan’s army and governments have
assiduously kept away from their people.
I was asked to be at that critical meeting,
because I was to go to Islamabad a few weeks later to continue with the ongoing
treaty negotiations. Sure enough, General Zia-ul-Haq’s Chief of Staff, General
Khalid Mahmud Arif, in a private meeting with me gently chided India saying that
Siachen was Pakistan’s and what we were doing was not right! I suitably
rebutted his claim; the matter was not raised with me again, and there was not
the least hint of the ongoing negotiations being broken or stalled. General Arif
and I have remained good friends and have been engaged, poste-retirement, in the
search for India-Pakistan peace and reconciliation in a forum called the
Neemrana Initiative.
I am a firm believer in the mutual need of our
two countries for peace, friendship and cooperation. I also think that in view
of the Pakistan army’s changing perception of India, New Delhi should creatively
respond to Islamabad’s positive gestures. I think it is time for military
leaders of the two countries to meet from time to time to inform each other of
their respective security perceptions. I also think Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh should now pay his long over-due visit to Islamabad. Siachen does not
appear to me as ripe for settlement just now, but a mutually satisfactory
agreement on the Sir Creek is within easy reach. The visit should also be used
to allay Pakistan’s suspicions and fears on water-related issues.
Scrutiny of the records of discussions
surrounding the demarcation of the ceasefire line in 1949 will show that leaving
the glaciated region as a ‘No-Man’s Land’ or an ‘International Peace Park’, etc,
was never in anybody’s thoughts; for invariably always such areas become
playgrounds for adventurers, spies and trouble makers. It should also be
remembered that the entire line that divides India and Pakistan in J&K has
resulted from armed conflicts followed by ceasefires. That is what has happened
in the Siachen region also. In due course as this reality finds recognition in
Pakistan, demilitarization of the region should become possible. Meanwhile, if
requested, we could even consider allowing genuine Pakistani scientific
expeditions to the glacier.
After the recent tragedy in which Pakistan lost
150 soldiers in an avalanche, if its army wishes to withdraw from these
treacherous heights, they should feel free to do so. Prime Minister Singh can
assure them that while the prevailing public opinion in India does not permit
his government to agree to immediate withdrawal of the Indian Army from the
Saltoro Ridge, it will not step beyond its present positions.n
The writer was India’s Foreign Secretary from
1982 to 1985.
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