CLIFTON: Is this confrontation on the occupied heights now over? MALIK: Yes, the Pakistanis have been evicted from our areas. But the fighting continues on the Line of Control. There’s firing going on, and intermittent artillery. But it’s across the Line of Control. There are no Pakistanis inside India.
Pakistan claims there were never Pakistani troops on the heights, and says they were all Kashmiri freedom fighters. We found no evidence at all that there were any Kashmiris or any other nonregular personnel. They left a lot of bodies, and from captured Pak soldiers’ pay books, diaries, letters and official documents they carried, or unit badges they wore, they could all be identified as regulars. This operation was carried out only by Pakistani regulars, mainly from the Northern Light Infantry but with support from units like the Chitral Scouts, and Army artillery and logistics.
Would this operation have taken a long time to plan, and would it have involved the Pakistani Army high command? Or could it have been planned secretly by rogue elements in the Pakistani Secret Service, as some have suggested? I have no doubt it was planned and executed by the Pakistani Army, and the planning, as opposed to the incursion itself, would have been much in advance. These people had logistics, artillery and engineering support, so the Army had to be involved. We found no evidence that your “rogue elements” played a part.
Many of these high positions have been left undefended in the bitter winters. Are you going to have to man them all the year round now? Yes, we’re going to have to man them, and also upgrade technological surveillance. And I guess the Pakistanis will have to do it, too, because in the past there were undefended gaps on both sides of the LOC.
So peace hasn’t come to Kashmir? Not for me. We have to anticipate an increase in terrorism in Kashmir, and I can’t ignore statements that “there will be more Kargils” being made at the political level in Pakistan.
Was there an Indian intelligence failure that allowed these intruders to penetrate so far before they were detected? I would not like to comment on this, because a special committee has been formed to investigate this question. But I can say that they did surprise us.
Was there ever a point where this could have turned into a much bigger confrontation–a more generalized war beyond Kashmir? I would say no. Our operation to expel them went as expected, within the confines of that sector of the LOC, and Pakistan did not make any attempt to open any other front.
This may have been the most serious confrontation yet between acknowledged nuclear powers. Did this affect your planning or counteroffensive in any way? No, it was never an issue. Any possibility of nuclear confrontation was far, far away. Look, we’re a responsible nation, and a responsible military force. We understand the thresholds.
So even a far-off threat of nuclear confrontation didn’t inhibit you from, say, moving into Pakistan to cut off the intruders’ supply and reinforcement routes, or grabbing Pakistani territory in another sector? Right from the beginning there was a political direction, a restraint put on us that we were not to cross the LOC. But I think if the military situation had demanded it, we would have had to go before the cabinet to ask them to lift this restraint. But that situation never arose.
Your Army has not had an engagement like this since the 1971 war against Pakistan. What did this confrontation tell you about your military needs? We have to look at how we secure the borders. You have to start up in the sky and come down through electronic surveillance to the human being on the ground; it’s a whole package. It will require a substantial augmentation of what we now have.
This was a small engagement. Will it go into the military-history books as a footnote, or was it a battle that will change the way India has to think about its military structure and self-defense? This conflict highlighted many aspects we need to go into, not just our hardware requirements but policy and structure of forces. I’m sure the lessons we learned will lead us to better security preparations.
