[nukkad] [Fwd: Significance of Kargil...]

[Ninad Chhaya <ninad@bom4.vsnl.net.in>]

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Vaibhav Dandavate wrote:
> 
> Dear Friends,
> Have you noticed how many interesting things have been taking place off late?
> Some infiltrators sneaked into this side of the LoC (Line of Control) and took position at the top of a hill in the second coldest inhabited part of the World. All these years such people have tried to enter the plains of Srinagar Valley and not to climb to the top of a hill in this apparently insignificant place in  Kashmir called Drass-Kargil.
> The Indian army believes that the Kargil infiltration would have taken at least 6 months to prepare. It requires  prior planning, high altitude acclimatization of the troops, special equipment, ground reconnaissance, training of participants etc. The entire  process must have started before January'99.
> Now let's look at what does it mean to occupy Kargil area for Pakistan.  Kargil is a place on the Srinagar-Leh highway. This highway is the only supply route for Indian troops in Ladakh who protect the Akshai Chin border with China. On the other hand, the place is very close to Skardu, the base for Pakistani operations in Siachen.
> Just by blocking this road the Indian hold on Ladakh can be weakened which gives advantage to China; and Pakistani hold can be increased by improving the supply line for Siachen. Thus the overall LoC can be changed.
> The obvious question which arises at this juncture is what do they gain by occupying this rugged and difficult region on the Himalayas. There is a highway between Pakistan's Northern Area and China's Kashgar, known as the Karakoram Highway. This highway is extremely strategic from two angles.
> Firstly, it can withstand blockade even during intense warfare.
> Secondly, in the language of Pakistan's Lt. Gen. Sardar F S Lodi - "Our all weather land route to China via Karakoram Highway is the modern version of the old  Silk Route, which is the considerable economic and strategic significance to the two countries and also the Central Asian States (who are all Islamic  states) to the north."
> If it dominates western gateways to China, Pakistan will be in a position to exert influence over the entire Trans-Asian Axis.
> Unfortunately this main portal to China passes through J&K. This geo-politico-economical issue is the route cause of our entire Kashmir problem (not just of this latest Kargil crisis). But this issue could not be solved earlier since Pakistan and China were not in good terms during the cold war period. Problems in Kashmir started in 1990 when cold war was getting over.
> Things took some more years before China and Pakistan came to a position of joining hands. In these years what did Pakistan do? They changed the Kashmir struggle from being a freedom movement into a drive for Kashmir's unification with Pakistan.
> If anything serious had to be done it had to be done by Pakistan. But Pakistan used to be militarily very weak compared to India. After the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US stopped arms supply to Pakistan. That means Pakistan had to find out another partner to arm itself against India. Because of this  common interest in Kashmir this source became China itself.
> China supplied Pakistan with nuclear bomb design and fuel; tritium gas for fission bombs; M-11 missile components; technology to enrich uranium; helped build the  Hatf missile (known as Ghauri); built the 300MW nuclear reactor at Chasma; a secret 70MW plutonium reactor at Khusab; a missile factory in Rawalpindi and several other things.
> These were not of immediate concern to India since Indian capability was far superior. Things became extremely dangerous  when last year Pakistan successfully test-fired Ghauri missile. It made every strategic site within India vulnerable. Only answer to this was to create a strong deterrent for India. That gave the reason for nuclear tests last year.  Everybody also knows the immediate reaction from Pakistan.
> So, the situation turned into both sides having strong deterrents. This means now because of Kashmir both countries will never go into an all out war. That is time has come when a war can be fought with India over Kashmir without Lahore and Delhi getting destroyed. So, a war in Kashmir will remain contained in that region only. All what was left at this point was to set the stage for the invasion.
> The preparations:
> 1.      You cannot use Ghauri (long range) in Kashmir. You need a medium range Shaheen which was test fired in April'99.
> 2.      Since April 6 China re-deployed its medium and long range missiles against India.
> 3.      As a red herring Lahore declaration was already signed by Vajpayee and Sharief.
> 4.      On April 7 The Tribune wrote - "Sources disclosed, the Chinese leadership was also wanting to concentrate only on one political party in India, which it felt could be in power very soon'.
> 5.      Admiral Bhagwat issue was raised in the same month of April to its peak.
> 6.      Government loses ground on the floor of Lok Sabha. Coincidentally this happens to be the same Government which tried to raise the awareness level of the common mass to the fact that not Pakistan but China is our main security threat.
> 7.      And obviously all this time the would-be infiltrators were taking preparation somewhere.
> 
> After this it was just a question of when the ice starts melting on those mountains. It happened to be the beginning of May. That is exactly when the infiltration happened. After two weeks IAF started their operation to flush them out.
> Don't you think we got to be serious about our understanding of our own politics?
> 
> Vaibhav Dandavate
> Ph: 8291454 -- Ext.: 236
> Email: dvaibhav@geodc.patni.com

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