New Delhi: The scroll of honour at the Siachen base camp of Indian Army reads:
"Quartered in snow, silent to remain. When the bugle calls, they shall rise and march again."
Siachen glacier, the highest battlefield in the world, is the Himalayan watershed that draws a line between Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent and that separates Pakistan from China in this region. Siachen (abode of roses) is the world's second longest non-polar glacier; it is called ‘the third pole’ by some. It is 70 km long and flows from an altitude of 5750 meters to 3620 meters above sea level.
The 70-km-long glacier lies in the eastern Karakoram Range, just east of the Saltoro ridge line. The Saltoro Ridge originates from the Sia Kangri in the Karakoram Ridge and the altitudes range from 5450 to 7720 meters (17,880 to 25,300 feet) The major passes on this ridge are Sia La at 5589 meters (18,336 feet) and Bilafond La at 5450 meters (17,880 feet), and Gyong La at 5689 meters (18,665 feet).
WHY THE FIGHT?
The roots of the conflict lie in non-demarcations on the map northward to the China boundary beyond NJ9842, which is the dead end in the India-Pakistan line of control agreement. The 1949 Karachi agreement and the 1972 Simla agreement presumed that no one would vie for control of an utterly barren and permafrost area where normal human habitations can’t survive. Prior to 1984, neither India nor Pakistan had any permanent presence in the area.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Pakistan permitted several mountaineering expeditions to climb high peaks on this glacier. This was to reinforce their claim on the area as these expeditions arrived on the glacier with a permit obtained from the Government of Pakistan.
Since 1978, the Indian Army began closely monitoring the situation and subsequently started allowing mountaineering expeditions to the glacier from its side. The most notable was the one in which Colonel N. Kumar led an Army expedition to Teram Kangri peaks as a counter-exercise.
When Pakistan gave permission to a Japanese expedition team to scale the important Rimo peak in 1984, it prompted Indians to do something drastic in order to secure the glacier. The peak, located east of Siachen, overlooks the eastern areas of the Aksai Chin. The Indian military believed that such an expedition would provide a link for the western and eastern routes — the trade route leading to Karakoram Pass and China — and eventually provide a tactical, if not strategic advantage to both Pakistan and China.
CONFLICT TAKES MILITARY TURN
The Indian Army decided to take action to stop future expeditions from the Pakistani side and eventually to prevent Pakistan from staking its claim on the glacier. Accordingly, the Indian Army brought in the troops from Northern Ladakh, from its Kumaon Regiment as well as some paramilitary forces in order to send them up the glacier. Most of the troops were sent on a training expedition to Antarctica in 1982 to get familiar with operating in glacial conditions.
At Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi, Pakistani generals too realised the strategic importance of controlling the glacial heights. They unanimously agreed on establishing firm military control over the strategic high points. But, Islamabad then committed a colossal intelligence blunder. It ordered Arctic weather gear from the same London outfitters who also supplied the Indian Army. India was alerted and ordered 300 outfits.
OPERATION MEGHDOOT
With specific intelligence of an impending Pakistani operation, India launched Operation Meghdoot (named after the divine cloud messenger in Kalidasa’s Sanskrit play) on April 13, 1984. Lieutenant General PN Hoon, the then commander of the Indian Army's Northern Command based at Udhampur in Jammu & Kashmir, led the assault. The operation pre-empted Pakistani operations by 4 days as Rawalpindi was to launch its operation on April 17, 1984.
Operation Meghdoot involved airlifting of Indian soldiers by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and dropping them on the glacial peaks. The IAF used planes such as the Il-76, An-12 and An-32 to transport stores and troops as well to airdrop supplies to high altitude airfields. Helicopters like Mi-17, Mi-8, Chetak and Cheetah carried provisions and personnel to hitherto unscaled peaks.
A total of 300 odd troops were soon up on the important peaks and passes of the glacier as Pakistan was beaten to the Saltoro Ridge high ground by about a week. The two northern passes – Sia La and Bilafond La – were quickly secured by India. When the Pakistanis hiked up to the glacier in 1984, they found that a 300-man Indian battalion was already there, dug into the highest mountaintops.
PRESENT POSITION
The Indian Army controls the heights, holding on to the tactical advantage of high ground. Pakistanis cannot get up to the glacier while Indians can’t come down. Presently, India holds the entire glacier and commands the top of all three passes.
Pakistan formerly controlled Gyong La that overlooks the Gyong and Nubra River valleys and India's access to Leh district. However, the Pakistanis still control the glacial valley just five km southwest of Gyong La and thus access to the Leh district. The battle zone comprised an inverted triangle resting on point NJ9842 with Sia Kangri / Indira Col and the Karakoram Pass as the two other points of the triangle.
In his memoirs, former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf writes that Pakistan lost almost 2,300 square km of territory that it claimed. TIME magazine states that the Indian advance captured nearly 2,600 square km of territory claimed by Pakistan.
Estimates of the troop deployments vary. One estimate suggested that both sides deploy about 3,000 soldiers each, while another reports that a total of some 10,000 troops are deployed on each side of the Line of Actual Control. According to a third estimate, Pakistan maintains three battalions on the glacier while India has seven battalions defending Siachen.
The Pakistanis can resupply most of their posts by road and pack mule. At their forward positions, some as high as 21,000 feet, Indians rely on helicopters. India has constructed the highest helipad in the world at Sonam (20,997 feet). India relies mainly on its indigenous HAL-Dhruv helicopters for supplies and evacuation.
FIGHTING AFTER 1984
Since 1984 Pakistan has launched several attempts to dislodge the Indian troops but with little success. The most well known was in 1987, when an attack was masterminded by General Musharraf heading a newly raised elite SSG commando unit raised with help from the United States Special Operations Forces. A special garrison with 8,000 troops was built at Khapalu.
The immediate aim was to capture Bilafond La and the Pakistani forces had some initial success. But after bitter fighting that included hand to hand combat, the Pakistanis were thrown back and the positions remained the same.
The only Param Vir Chakra – India's highest gallantry award – to be awarded for combat in the Siachen area went to Naib Subedar Bana Singh (retired as Subedar Major/Honorary Captain), who in a daring daylight raid assaulted and captured a Pakistani post, Quaid, atop a 22,000 foot (6,700 m) peak, now named Bana Post, after climbing a 457 m (1500 feet) ice cliff face. The feat of Singh and his fellow combatants of the 8 J&K Light Infantry is etched in the annals of Alpine warfare as one without parallels.
Further attempts to reclaim positions were launched by Pakistan in 1990, 1995, 1996 and even in early 1999, just prior to the Lahore Summit. The 1995 attack by Pakistan SSG was significant as it resulted in 40 casualties for Pakistani troops without any changes in the positions. An Indian IAF MI-17 helicopter was shot down in 1996.
In 2003, Pakistan declared a unilateral ceasefire at Siachen. India said that it would "respond positively" to the ceasefire announcement. New Delhi had also proposed a ceasefire along the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in Siachen. The truce was reached on November 23, 2003, by the Director-General of Military Operations of India, Lt General BS Takhar and his Pakistani counterpart Major General Mohd Yousuf.
WHAT IS AGPL?
The line between where Indian and Pakistani troops are presently holding onto their respective posts is referred to as the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL).
On June 12, 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the glacier calling for a peaceful resolution of the dispute. In the previous year, the then President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, became the first head of state to visit the area. Before that, Benazir Bhutto when she was the Prime Minister of Pakistan, had gone to visit the lower ground under Pakistani control.
HUMAN AND FINANCIAL COST
Over the years, the Indian Army has developed enormous skill at surviving and fighting at super high altitudes. In the 1980s, frostbites, high altitude sickness and treacherous crevasses used to claim hundreds of lives. By the end of the last decade, the numbers came down to 20-22 per year. During the last eight years, there has not been even one death. Today, barely 10-12 soldiers have to be evacuated annually.
It costs India nearly $1 million a day to maintain, service and supply its men in Siachen.
SIACHEN TALKS
India and Pakistan has held several round of talks to resolve the Siachen dispute, the latest session ending on May 31, 2011. They have yielded no result till date.
Pakistan insists on unconditional demilitarisation of the entire Siachen Glacier and a throwback to the pre-1984 days. India insists on authentication of the AGPL which will act as a diplomatic-political deterrent to any Pakistani plan of taking over the strategic high points.
THE REALITY
While critics and detractors in India have repeatedly pointed the fingers at the Indian Army for sabotaging the talks by putting pressure on the government, their logic is belied by India’s Kargil experience.
Withdrawal of Indian troops without authenticating the AGPL can prove to be a monumental mistake as retaking the strategic high points will be nearly impossible for the Indian troops without sacrificing the lives of thousands.
Pakistani control of Siachen will also mean that Pakistan can link up Pak-occupied Kashmir with China right above India’s nose. Oropolitics here is dictated by strategic concerns.
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