topics: |  india | pakistan | history |

... this study’s limited scope restricts me from engaging in the meticulous
battle reconstruction, which focuses heavily on individual soldiers’
experiences, that Keegan first introduced in his book
(e.g. The Face of Battle).

The military labour market under the East India Company

In the decades following the collapse of the Mughal Empire a huge military
labor market evolved with roots in the peasantry of Hindustan and southern
India. In most cases the local zamindars recruitedmen who in turn sold their
services to the regional ruler or warlord. In Mughal times the imperial armies
recruited their troops directly from military labor markets like the
Brahmanical pilgrimage site of Baksar on the Ganges.

As the Indian powers built up their own professional infantry armies, they
relied increasingly upon this multilayered military labor market for their
recruits. Mahadji Sindhia, when recruiting for his Army of Hindustan, bypassed
the middlemen such as the zamindars and jemadars, or jobbers, who provided
these recruits. De Boigne’s ability to recruit directly from the labor markets
such as Baksar enabled him to create a professional army based upon a steady
stream of military labor relatively unaffected by the jobbers’
interference. The British also tried not to rely on the middlemen and in the
nineteenth century stopped the recruitment of Buxari (from Buxar) matchlockmen
under theirown jemadars.

However, as the East India Company gradually extended its control over
Hindustan, it dealt a severe blow to the military labor market, which up until
that time had been predominantly a seller’s market. Not only did the British
become the sole ‘‘buyer’’ of military labor, but they also denied other Indian
powers access to this market. Yaswantrao Holkar’s almost total reliance on
cavalrybased armies (mainly Maratha) in his campaigns against the British
probably occurred because he no longer had access to the Hindustani military
labor market. Similarly, Ranjit Singh’s gradual reliance on Sikhs for his
regular infantry units may have resulted from his inability to access the
Hindustani military labor market. The devastation of the military labor market
and the increasing bureaucratic centralization under the East India Company had
a considerable impact on the once-independent zamindars and taluqdars, or
district-level landlords, who in prior times had functioned as quasi kings or
petty rajahs. These individuals, who had considerable local economic and
military power, had frustrated all efforts at state centralization prior to the
consolidation of British rule. However, the ‘‘revised’’ agrarian settlement of
1835 dramatically altered their power base. Not only were their possessions
slowly whittled away, but the British stripped them of armaments and retainers
and gave them only honorary magistrate capacity to try petty cases.  As Thomas
Metcalf noted, under the British the taluqdars became landlords rather than the
quasi rulers they had once been. 

The Siachen Glacier

				p.252

When the United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan delineated the
cease-fire line between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir in 1949, it stopped its
work 40 miles short of the northern border with Kashmir. The Karakoram
Range and the rugged mountainous Siachen Glacier dominate this area. The
Siachen Glacier is 47 miles long and 1–5 miles wide, the longest glacier outside
the polar regions.  Since 1949 the region has become a source of dispute
between India and Pakistan. India claims that the language of the commission’s
document implies that a tacit extension of the boundary exists all the
way up to the Chinese border. Pakistan rejects this, noting that the 1949
delimitation agreement contained no reference to the boundary’s extension
beyond nj-9842.78 This disputed border region was never contested during
either the 1965 or the 1971 war and remained on the back burner until the
mid-1980s.
In 1983 the Indian authorities concluded that Pakistan was planning to
mount a major operation to seize the region. Indian intelligence reported
that a column of two companies supported by mortars was on the move in
September–October 1983 to occupy the passes of the Saltoro Range. Further
intelligence reports that stated that Pakistan was trying to buy large quantities
of special snow equipment from Europe for its troops confirmed Indian
fears. Pakistan had also launched a special training program for a unit called
the Burzil Force to occupy the glacier. The Indians decided to preempt the
Pakistanis with Operation Meghdoot, a heli-lift operation involving a battalion
of Kumaon infantry. On 13 April 1984 the Indian air force flew a platoon
into the Bilafond La Pass. On the 17th, following a suspension of the
operations due to a blizzard, it flew a platoon into the Sia La Pass. With this
daring move the Indians bought a week’s worth of time to consolidate their
positions before Pakistan’s Burzil Force could reach the passes. The Indians
sighted the first Pakistani troops near Bilafond La on the 24th. The next day
these Pakistani forces opened fire on the Indian positions and then withdrew
when the Indians retaliated. The Burzil Force then probed along the remaining
Saltoro Range routes into the Siachen Glacier, and the Indians opposed it.
The end result was that India now holds a dominating position over a length
of almost 50 miles on the Saltoro Range, effectively controlling the Siachen
Glacier.


Since the initial buildup the two sides have been engaged in a high altitude
conflict of varying intensity.
Artillery has proved to be the most effective weapon that either side has
used in this conflict. Any movement that the artillery spotters can see on
the opposing side is often brought under accurate and devastating fire. As
both sides consolidated their gains, they correspondingly improved their firepower
and spotting capabilities. In 1987, for example, Indians using night
vision goggles spotted a Pakistani resupply team moving forward in the
Gyong Sector at night to resupply camps at a height of 19,000 feet. In the
ensuing artillery strike the Indians killed seven and wounded fifteen.

Despite these constant clashes, most Indian casualties on the glacier have
come about due to natural causes.  Many soldiers succumb to high altitude
pulmonary edema, which fills the victim’s lungs with fluid.  Others are lost to
hidden crevasses, blizzards, and avalanches.  In 1991 an avalanche triggered
by the vibrations of a helicopter almost wiped out Bana Post.  Temperatures
on the high posts are extreme, and minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit is standard.
Windchill factors of up to 3,000 are common, and a recording was once made
of 4,000.  At a windchill factor of 1,400 any exposed flesh will freeze within
minutes.  With the exception of rum and kerosene, everything freezes and
has to be thawed out.  Contact with metal on exposed flesh results in the skin
being peeled off.  On an average day at least one soldier is evacuated from
the glacier.  The High AltitudeMedical Research Center treated 450 high altitude
pulmonary edema cases in three years, a world record.  In 1989 Indian
officials admitted that during the first few years of the conflict noncombat
casualties accounted for almost 80 percent of total attrition.  In the 1990s this
figure had risen to 97 percent as both sides ceased major offensive activity.

The Battle for National Highway 1A: The Kargil War

In November 1998 Pakistani Northern Light Infantry Regiment soldiers
infiltrated across the 11,483-foot-high mountain passes along the line of
control to occupy high ridges in Batalik, Kaksar, Dras, and the Mushkoh
valley. 
The intrusions would enable the Pakistanis to dominate and
control the Srinagar to Leh Highway 1A.


The Pakistanis completely surprised the Indian army. The Indians first detected
the infiltrators on 14 May 1999, when the Pakistanis ambushed routine
patrols, causing heavy casualties. In response the Indians sent in more
patrols, only to face a similar fate. Only when reconnaissance flights overflew
the area on 21 May did the Indian army realize that the Pakistani-backed
‘‘intruders’’ were some 300–400 in number entrenched on 14,000–16,000-
foot-high ridges. The chief of army staff, General Malik, on a trip to
Czechoslovakia returned to India and flew to Kargil to receive an on-the-spot
assessment.   Conceding that it had suffered a major intelligence failure,
the army began a massive troop buildup to eject the intruders, who it now
assessed were Pakistani regulars.

On 26 May IAF mi-17 gunships and MiG-21 and MiG-27 fighters launched six
sorties against the Pakistani intruders.  On the 27th the IAF lost a MiG-21
to engine failure, and the Pakistanis captured the pilot, Flight Lieutenant
Nachiketa, after he ejected. Using a surface-to-air missile, the Pakistanis
shot down a second Indian fighter, a MiG-27 attempting to locate the downed
pilot, and they shot dead its pilot, Squadron Leader Ahuja, on the
ground.  On the 28th the IAF lost an MI-17 helicopter with all of its crew.

On the ground, direct assaults against the well-entrenched Pakistanis resulted
in heavy Indian casualties, prompting the army’s additional director
general of military operations, Maj. Gen. J. J. Singh, to state a change in
army tactics.  Henceforth, the army planned to ‘‘hold them [the Pakistanis]
from the front and isolate them from the rear (the Pakistani side of the loc)
and then roll up their positions one by one.’’96 The operation, now named
Vijay (victory), led to a gradual troop buildup. By the first week of June almost
25,000 additional troops had been massed to evict the intruders. 

On 10 and 11 June the Desert Scorpions Paracommando Unit advanced on Point
5203, a commanding position along the Yardol Ridge in the Batalik subsector.
The seventy-five paracommandos took ten days to encircle the Pakistani
bunkers on the peak and then seized it in a surprise assault on the night of
23 June with support from the Ladakh Scouts, which thwarted a Pakistani
attempt to cut off the Siachen sector.98 The Indians repulsed Pakistani
counterattacks after a major battle resulting in fifteen dead on the Indian
side and twenty-three dead on the Pakistani side. Earlier, on 31 May,
thirty soldiers of the Ladakh Scouts, under the leadership of Maj. Sonam
Wangchuk, captured a vital mountain ridge in the Chorbat La subsector near
Batalik, giving the Indian army a foothold for future operations and cutting
off a major infiltration route for the Pakistanis.

On 13 June the army achieved its first major success when troops from the
Second Rajputana Rifles captured Tololing Peak, which dominates the Dras
sector. A massive artillery strike involving all the guns in the Dras sector,
including the formidable Bofors fh-77b 155 mm guns, preceded the
attack. 

The next day, the Second Rajputana and Ninth Grenadiers captured Point 4590,
the nearest point that overlooked National Highway 1A. The forces suffered
seventeen killed and forty injured in the process, the highest casualty
numbers incurred in a single battle. Pakistani positions remained strong in
the Kaksar, Mushkoh valley, Batalik, Chorbat La, and Turtok areas. On 28 June
companies from the Maratha Light Infantry and Dogra Regiment seized Point
4700. A few days later Point 5100 (the Knoll, Three Pimples, and Lone
Hill) fell. These advances in the Dras subsector paved the way for an assault
on the imposing Tiger Hill, which dominates the area. 

Based on the documents found on the bodies of the Pakistani fighters, the
Indian army determined that troops from Pakistan’s Second, Third, Fourth,
Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Twelfth Northern Light Infantry Regiments took
part in the operation.  Naik Inayat Ali, a soldier of the Fifth Northern
Light Infantry captured on the Batalik heights on 2 July, verified
this. Inayat Ali stated that relentless Indian air and artillery fire wiped
out his unit of 200 men.

As the Indian army operations gathered momentum, the IAF conducted
day and night air assaults on Pakistani positions, with the most successful
wiping out a Pakistani supply base in Muntho Dalo southwest of Kaksar. A
subsequent army sweep of the area recovered the bodies of thirteen dead
Pakistanis.

On 4 July the Indian army gained its most significant victory when it
captured the imposing 16,500-foot-high Tiger Hill in Dras with a loss of only
five killed and ten wounded. Preparation for the attack began as early as 24
June, with IAF strikes on the Pakistani positions with laserguided bombs.
The Eighteenth Grenadiers cleared the position after an eleven-hour operation
that was preceded by an intense artillery strike involving some 140
guns.

On 11 July 1999 the Pakistani foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, announced that
the Indian and Pakistani directors general of military operations had agreed
on a sector-by-sector cease-fire to end the hostilities along National Highway
1A. Pakistan would withdraw the intruding forces.114 Operation Vijay
cost the Indian army 333 dead (including 25 officers), 520 wounded, and 15
missing in action, including 2 officers.115  Pakistani casualties remained unclear
(the Indian army estimated them at 679 dead, including 30 officers),
and the Pakistani army continued to insist that the intruders were mujahedeen,
or freedom fighters.116 However, the Indian army claimed to have identified
the bodies of thirty Pakistani officers, including a brigadier (Nusrat Sial of
the Sixty-second Pakistani Infantry Brigade), and thirty-eight soldiers. 

The scale of the Pakistani army’s involvement in the conflict became clearer
on 14 August, when President Rafiq Tarar announced the Operational Awards for
‘‘conspicuous courage and supreme sacrifice made for the honor of Pakistan.’’
The list included ninety-seven men, including thirty-nine officers, and
seventy of the awards were posthumous. Most soldiers came from the Northern
Light Infantry, but officers and men from the Punjab Regiment, Frontier Force
Rifles, Baluch Regiment, Sindh Regiment, and various support arms were also
involved.

Intelligence failure

The political repercussions for the Indian army, however, have yet to be
determined.  In August 1999 the government announced the formation of a
committee of inquiry to probe into the military handling of the Kargil crisis.
120 However, the controversy over the failure to react to the early
intelligence and signs of Pakistani intrusions has spilled over into the
press. The two main protagonists are Maj. Gen. V. S. Budhwar, commander of the
Lehbased Third Infantry Division, and his subordinate, Brig. Surinder Singh,
commander of the 121st Infantry Brigade in Kargil. Surinder Singh, who had
initially commanded operations, was removed on 6 June. The brigadier, claiming
he was a scapegoat for inaction on the part of Major General Budhwar, released
to the press a communication sent by him to Third Division headquarters on 1
September 1998 outlining substantial infiltration activity in the region.

Major General Budhwar responded with his own press interview, rejecting the
brigadier’s claims and stating that ‘‘Singh was removed for his inept
conduct.’’122  Although the number of press interviews and judicial filings
carried out by aggrieved armed forces officers increased dramatically in the
1990s, the Budhwar-Singh imbroglio is unprecedented.  For the first time,
senior army officers publicly aired their grievances, revealing details of
military activities soon after a military confrontation. The ‘‘press war’’
reveals, among other issues, a serious lapse in communication within the
military chain of command. It also reflects the growing ability of a bolder and
more enterprising Indian newsmedia and the new communication technologies in
breaking down the hitherto unassailable walls of secrecy surrounding military
high command in India.

Praveen Swami (Frontline): intelligence reported by Surinder Singh

September 1998, Brigadier Surinder Singh's apprehensions had sharpened. Letter
132/GSI/Pak/China, sent to 3 Infantry Division's headquarters on September 1 by
Major H.C. Dwivedi, outlined insurgent movements on the Pakistan side of the
LoC. "Int(ellig ence) sources have revealed that 500 Afghani militants have
been conc(entrating) at Gurikot (map reference) NG 7959 for induction to (our)
own side," it read. The likely routes of infiltration, the letter continued
with a precision that is in retrospect chilling, were the Kil nullah, Safaid
nullah and Kaobal Gali into the Mushkoh Valley and on to Pindras and Drass. A
copy of an Intelligence and Field Security Unit letter, number 1/1 016 dated
August 30, 1998, was attached to Major Dwivedi's letter (bear ing out earlier
reports in Frontline on the availability of such information with Military
Intelligence). "Pakistan," the letter concluded, "is likely to intensify
art(iller)y duels and train L(o)C firing to ensure (their) induction."

Could Brigadier Surinder Singh's warnings have prevented the Pakistani
incursion? Several senior officials have sought to underplay the significance
of the Brigadier's letters, arguing that his reports pointed only to
infiltration, not a full-scale attack.  [...]  Nonetheless, had his warnings
been heeded, Pakistan's aggression would most probably have been detected
early, and Indian soldiers would have been better prepared to deal with the
early incursions. However, Brigadier Surinder Singh was widely termed alarmist
by his seniors, and his warnings became a recurring topic of cocktail party
humour.
		- http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1619/16190430.htm

Army response to media articles by Surinder Singh

% The Ghost of Kargil: Myth and Reality: A First Person Account
Sheru Thapliyal [thapli@sify.com]
http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=details&m_id=433&u_id=26

While I have great regard for Praveen Swami as a writer, he has obviously
been fed doctored versions by both Brig Surinder Singh and Col Oberoi. I
therefore thought of bringing to his and others notice, what really
transpired. I, as a Brigadier was Military Assistant to Gen Malik in 1997-98
and therefore had accompanied him to Kargil on 29 August 1998. We flew from
Srinagar to Kargil in a helicopter and landed at Kargil around 9 AM. At the
helipad, the Chief was received by Lt Gen Krishan Pal GOC 15 Corps, Maj Gen
VS Budhwar, GOC 3 Infantry Division and Brig Surinder Singh. Apart from me,
Brigadier (later Lieutenant General) MC Bhandari from Military Operations
Directorate also accompanied the Chief. Gen Malik was thereafter briefed by
Brigadier Surinder Singh in the Operations Room of 121 Infantry Brigade. It
was a routine briefing with no mention of the possibility of any infiltration
or intrusion. Kargil had been a dormant sector for over fifteen years and
nothing out of the ordinary was expected there. After the briefing, a copy
was handed over to Brig Bhandari for Military Operations Directorate Records.

After the briefing, Brigadier Surinder Singh took the Chief and his entourage
around Kargil Garrison. When Chief saw the ammunition dump, he remarked that it
was wrongly sited as it was in direct line of fire from Pakistani positions
across the Shingo river. In fact it was under their visual observation. The
Chief gave directions that it must be shifted at the earliest. It was not done
by Brigadier Surinder Singh and it was blown up by Pakistani artillery during
the Kargil War.

Kargil was a failure of all intelligence agencies – military, RAW and IB and
field intelligence units of the Army deployed in Kargil Sector. Unfortunately
no one was held accountable nor taken to task. It was also a failure of
commander and staff and commanding officers of 121 Infantry Brigade who had
become lax due to the long dormancy of this Sector. If inter-battalion
patrolling of large gaps in the defences had been properly carried out,
intrusions would have been detected while they were still in progress and
necessary action taken to choke them off.



In operational terms, the Kargil conflict has reinforced and perhaps even
refocused the army’s traditional expertise in positional warfare with an emphasis
on artillery and infantry formations. In September 1999 press reports
noted that the Indian army would establish a new corps, the Fourteenth, comprising
the Third Infantry Division based in Leh and the Eighth Mountain
Division based in Nimu. In addition to managing the 87 miles of the line of
control in the Kargil sector and the disputed Siachen Glacier, the corps is
also responsible for security along the disputed border with China. The new
corps takes considerable pressure off the Fifteenth Corps based in Srinagar,
which previously oversaw the entire Kashmir operational area. To make up
for the permanent redeployment of the Eighth Mountain Division, the army
raised a newinfantry division to take the division’s place in Sharifabad, Kashmir,
where it had been heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations.

Equally significant has been the army’s reappraisal of its artillery doctrines.
Prior to the Kargil conflict, the army placed great emphasis on the acquisition
of tracked self-propelled 155 mm howitzers for its mechanized formations.
In the aftermath of the Kargil War the army’s Field Artillery Rationalization
Plan called for the replacement of the fourteen different calibers it uses currently
with 155 mm/52 caliber weapons. Furthermore, the army is now more
interested in wheeled 155 mm self-propelled guns, which have better strategic
mobility and offer highly mobile shoot-and-move capability.

Kashmir continues to present the Indian armed forces with differing and
challenging conventional and unconventional war scenarios, and as this book
goes to press it is undoubtedly the most dangerous flashpoint for war in the
subcontinent.

Contents

Introduction xi

1. Warfare in Prehistoric and Classical India 3
2. Warfare in Medieval India 23

3. The Marathas at Panipat 51
4. Colonial Warfare in Bengal and Mysore 67
5. Fauj-e-Hind, the Army of Hindustan 89
6. The Anglo-SikhWars and Pax Britannica 103

7. The Army of the Raj 127
8. The Indian Army during the Second World War 145

9. Kashmir and the McMahon Line 159
10. The Second Indo-PakistanWar 182
11. The Third Indo-PakistanWar 197

12. Insurgencies, Interventions, and High Altitude Warfare 231

13. The Evolution of a Regional Military Power 267