Army in Siachen must stay put

Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (retd)

SIACHEN GLACIER is known variously as the ‘highest battlefield in the world’, ‘third pole’, ‘largest non-polar glacier’ and a supremely ambiguous cartographical description as ‘thence north to the glaciers’ (on official maps that thought it too desolate and unforgiving a region for physical inhabitation, to worry about proper demarcation beyond the coordinate NJ9842) — a historical curse of the incomplete task of defining boundary lines along the Indo-Pak borders. Today, it has evolved into a perennial flashpoint of potential military muscle-flexing and diplomatic saber-rattling. The recent horrific avalanche tragedy that swallowed 10 soldiers (one was subsequently and miraculously rescued), reiterated its infamy as the most inhospitable environment to be deployed under, with the unpredictable supremacy of nature’s fury, that accounts for higher fatalities than actual enemy-combat. 

Such tragedies inevitably resurrect the talk about demilitarising the glacier and the draining ‘cost’ of retaining it. To start with, it’s important to appreciate the evolution of the dispute, the historical conduct of the stakeholders in Siachen, prevailing ground situation and the potential stakes involved, and only then, juxtaposing the element of ‘cost’ to retain the current status of militarisation.

The fractious Indo-Pak border relations of cloak-and-dagger moves got a surreptitious entry into the glacier in the 50s and 60s, which was hitherto unoccupied and barren, by Pakistan issuing ‘permits’ for international mountaineering expeditions, thereby sneakily establishing its ‘claim’ on the region — giving birth to a new form of strategic doctrine called ‘Oropolitics’, the abuse of mountaineering towards political purposes. 

In the 70s, India resorted to calling the bluff and counter the territorial allusions with its own mountaineering expeditions to establish its rightful territorial credentials and claims,  but this was still shadow boxing at best, with no permanent deployment to ‘hold’ the territory from a military angle. 

Traditionally, Pakistan has always dabbled in ‘low-investment-high-impact’ tactics of covert military activism. Immediately after Independence, the tribal influx of Afridi raiders into the Kashmir valley, with the tacit support from the Pakistani military, laid the pattern for all subsequent adventurism. Pakistan's creative bent of similar tactics manifested again in 1965 via Operation Gibraltar, extreme policing brutality in 1971 to hold on to Bangladesh, recent Kargil misadventures and the multitude of support history to various internal insurgencies in India are reflective of the infamous Zia-ul-Haq’s ‘bleed through a thousand cuts’ philosophy. In almost all cases, Pakistan has initially feigned ignorance about the genesis of the contentious issues, or when exposed, attributed the same to ‘non-state’ actors — either way, consistently displaying malintent or duplicitous behaviour that does not augur well for any bilateral discussions that are to be based on mutual trust and respect of the terms of agreement. In an unparalleled and unprecedented act of strategic generosity, it officially handed over 5,180 km of territory in Aksai Chin to China in 1963 — thus drawing China permanently into the hyphenated Indo-Pak dispute and ensuring a strategic pivot to buttress its own counter claims. Thus now, the northern part of J&K theatre has a trilateral dimension.

Even though Pakistan has a relatively easier access leading up to the glacier, the Indian Army holds the strategically vantage high-points to dominate it. This was achieved through a textbook military operation (Operation Meghdoot) by the Indian defence forces in 1984 to preempt the Pakistani move of capturing the glacier militarily, and then rebuffing the Pakistani counter-assaults in 1987 and 1989 (Brig Pervez Musharraf was personally involved in the ill-fated first assault that would have scared his mind to the geo-political reality, only to reopen the wounds in Kargil in 1999, as the chief of Pakistan army). This ground reality in Siachen explains the Pakistani amiability and willingness to discuss demilitarisation of the glacier to neutralise its obvious disadvantage on ground. Kargil is also a grim reminder in terms of the subsequent ‘costs’ of regaining a position once-held, though taken over by the enemy, clandestinely. Such a scenario is plausible given the pattern of military moves in the region.

Importantly, the biggest ‘cost’ element is human life and the loss of limbs owing to the surreal environmental conditions of -50 degrees that test the spirit, instinct and existence of a soldier. No one understands the vagaries of nature better than a field soldier, but he does not act on individual volition, he is trained to execute the state’s order. It is imperative that no efforts should be spared to ensure the best quality equipment, infrastructural support to sustain operational efficacy and familial/monetary compensation to soldiers to endure such hardship. The glaring inequities on this front affronts the soldier’s sensibilities. 

It is more probable that the ‘cost’ being alluded to pertains to the bandied figure of Rs 5 crore spent on sustaining Siachen deployment, every day. While this is a serious amount, but, when contextualised to the ‘cost’ of retaining territorial integrity, it becomes immaterial. The oft-quoted status of land irrelevance by way of ‘not a blade of grass grows’, is the sort of alluvial appreciation not indulged by the defence forces in deciding if the said tract of national land is worth defending, irrespective of the ultimate price paid by the soldiers in doing so, the quality or fertility of soil be damned. Given the trilateral border disputes across J&K, and with China on Arunachal, creative pragmatism of demilitarising Indian lands is loaded with dangerous import as the same logic can be extended to other contentious areas as well. Besides, the critical issue of national integrity, the civil, administrative and political decision-making should also incorporate the notional future ‘cost’ from the repercussions of intentional or unintentional military withdrawals. The cost of rectifying or reclaiming lost ground is almost always prohibitively ‘expensive’. 

The soldiers need to be adequately enabled, empowered and meaningfully respected beyond platitudes. Soldiers who are physically present have never raised an excuse to surrender the hard-fought and well-earned positions on the glacier. The Pakistanis also suffered a similar avalanche-related incident in Gyari region in 2012, killing 140 persons. This is the sad truth of a soldier’s life. Militarily, despite the immense challenges, Siachen affords us the strategic, diplomatic and psychological advantage that could well reverse with the creative suggestions to demilitarise it, given the history, geo-politics and the stated intent of all the stakeholders in the region.

 — The writer is a former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry