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Suddenly last summer

From Surprise to Reckoning

The Kargil Review Committee Report

Publishers: Sage, New Delhi

Price: Rs. 295.

ON reading the story like review report on the last year's Kargil war by the Subramaniam committee titled Surprise to Reckoning, the black humoured wit about the surprise element in relationship between Israel and Palestine, the arch rivals of the Middle East springs to mind. A scorpion wanted to cross a river, but could not swim. So he asked a frog to ferry him across on his back. ``Certainly not,'' said the frog, ``If I take you on my back, you'll sting me''. ``No I won't,'' said the scorpion, because if I do we'll both drown.'' The frog saw the logic in this, so he let the scorpion hop on. Half way across, he felt a terrible pain. The scorpion had stung him. As the two of them were sinking, the frog asked the scorpion, ``Why on earth did you do this ?'' Replied the drowning scorpion, ``Because, this is the Middle East.'' Substitute Kashmir for Middle East to map the joke to our neighbourhood.

Copious ink has been poured about the many downs and occasional ups in the relationship between India and Pakistan. Therefore, what happened last summer in Kargil may not be a defining moment in their history. Just a year prior to that the pendulum swung one way when in the summer of 1998 India exploded a nuclear device to which Pakistan retaliated by its own perhaps `Islamic' answer and six months later in the UN General Assembly the leaders of the two nations promised to talk to each other covering a broad agenda including cross border shelling, trade in energy, drugs, starting a bus service and last but not the least Kashmir, kindling hopes for peace.

Then it appeared for sometime that Nawaz Sheriff's one hand was busy demolishing the institutional pillars of democracy such as the judiciary, the presidency and the fourth estate even as he was extending the other hand in a gesture of false friendship t o the Indian Prime Minister as he arrived by the Lahore bus.

Everyone knows at strategic levels that as long as there is no progress on resolution of the Kashmir imbroglio it will remain a flash point. In the back drop of nuclear posturing by the nations, the committee is perhaps right in assessing that the Kargil intrusion was a case of `salami slicing' which evokes a strong reaction falling short of the first nuclear strike.

There is no doubt that organising 1,700 (committee's estimate as against foreign media estimates of less than 1,000) intruders -- 70 per cent constituting Pakistani Army regulars, to cross the Line Of Control near Kargil and Dras could not have been poss ible without the active planning by the Pakistan army, including provision of `radar, mortars and snowmobiles among other things'.

It was clear as crystal that this planning must have gone on when the two prime ministers were embracing each other. Why did Pakistan embark on this adventure? The most plausible theory is that Pakistan wanted international attention to be focused on Kas hmir while India wished to keep it a strictly a bilateral issue. Perhaps it also wanted its bargaining position to be improved to force India to retreat from Siachen glacier.

The report gives a breezy account of the backdrop of Indo-Pak relationship, reconstructs the Kargil scenario and tries to find reasons and suggest measures without ruffling feathers. However, at the end of it all, one gains a distinct impression that the war was avoidable.

Put differently, it is a clear indictment of defence and security planners of India. This is confirmed by the laconic remark of a former chief who commented that India, ``did not have adequate margins to sustain a proactive posture in regard to the proxy war after 1989.'' The terms of reference were, according to the committee, open ended and set in broadest terms so as not to inhibit the committee in arriving at conclusions.

As for recommendations, the government wanted necessary measures to be suggested to safeguard against such intrusions. The committee was composed of eminent people with experience in defence matters at the strategic levels. However in the context of the terms of reference of such intrusions it is a pity that it did not include people who have first hand experience in intelligence or socio-cultural and transhumance aspects of locals in Batalik, Kargil and Dras areas.

The Pakistani incursion may be described as an adventure to test the resilience of the Indian polity and army apart from bringing back Kashmir to the agenda in international fora, but in execution it was more akin to midnight marauders scaling the walls of a house when the inmates were asleep. This is not the first time such a step has been taken by Pakistan.

Yet, the committee nowhere finds fault with the smug and complacent bureaucracy both civilian and military.

Having decided to whitewash the entire sordid story the nearest terms to faultfinding are: ``entire intelligence structure is flawed; the Indian intelligence structure is flawed since there is little back up or redundancy to rectify failures and shortcom ings in intelligence collection and reporting that goes to build the threat perception by the one agency R&AW (Research & Analysis Wing) which has a virtual monopoly in this regard; Joint Intelligence Committee was not accorded the importance by either t he intelligence agencies or the government. this provides another illustration of lack of interagency co-ordination as well as lack of coordination between the Army and the agencies; and increasing the firepower and combat efficiency has suffered.

While the report bemoans the inactivity and neglect of the JIC(Joint Intelligence Committee), it is not clear what prevented the Cabinet Secretary from activating the JIC. The episode of the Director IB's (Intelligence Bureau) note dated 2/6/98 with impo rtant inputs sent to the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Cabinet Secretary, Home Secretary and DG Military Operations and did not reach the Chief of R&AW, JIC and DGMI(Director General Military Intelligence) is a definite act of nonfeasance on the part of those who received the information although the committee blames the Director IB for failing to address his communication to the right persons! The fact that there have been five different defence secretaries in the last five years speaks volumes about the importance attached to the Ministry itself.

The political bosses are to be guided by experienced professionals from the civil and military service. However the administrative systems for appointments at the highest levels increasingly discount the need for any relevant training or experience. The committee laments that there has been lack of contact between R&AW,IB,BSF (Border Security Force) and Army Intelligence while the members very well know how the government is organised into various functional silos with each department behaving as though its own existence is all that matters.

It is a pity, despite the Chairman being a defence policy expert with a modern outlook, the report has devoted less than two pages on defence equipment, technology and production even as elsewhere the list of Pakistani inventory of weapons provided would indicate that their equipment was superior. Surely, prophylactics such as Intelligence through satellite imagery, reconnaissance by pilotless planes (costing a mere $15m compared to advanced jet fighters at $100m) and surveillance by modern helicopters with thermal imaging among other things would have stopped the enemy in his track.

Particularly, this seems a grave omission in this age when new technologies are transforming the nature of war and India is particularly blessed with abundant supply of knowledge workers. In the event of war erupting it was essential that the soldiers sh ould have been provided the right kind of high altitude equipment, light weapons, global positioning systems, high speed radar network to compute the origins of enemy fire and passive vision devices.

As one reads the report there is an uneasy feeling that these were either not available or inadequate. And if so, it would not be perhaps wrong to point the needle of suspicion in matters of accountability towards the DRDO, more than anyone else.

Those in the Services know that the DRDO has fed the country with promises, promises and promises. It has been announcing frequently the successful development and test flight of `Lakshya' RPV (Remotely Piloted Vehicles) for the last eight years. Yet the re were none to help us in Kargil. The army also did not have radar to detect enemy artillery positions as they were still waiting for the DRDO to develop it indigenously.

There is no other comparable organisation in the government or elsewhere which even while its performance has been consistently below par with respect to its own promises, has been able to luxuriate in the indulgence shown by the parliamentarians, the me dia and the public. It has eight large establishments devoted partially or fully to armament research and development. Except for notching successes in the area of missile development there has not been any known major break through, particularly for the foot soldier.

It is sad that even after fifteen years of effort, the DRDO is yet to convince the Indian Cavalry that it can have a modern Main Battle Tank from the Indian stables. The committee is right in finding that the entire defence acquisition process has been a llowed to drift. It is mainly due to lack of leaders with vision in the military and civil and revolving doors in the executive suites in the south Block.

One great opportunity to recommend a thorough overhaul of defence research, development and production has been lost again. The equipment we need now will be imported urgently and while these institutions go back to sleep.

The committee has made some far reaching and apparently sensible recommendations in respect of the reduction of colour service of the defence personnel. However, the civilian employees of the central government have been handled with kid gloves with gene rous pay benefits and raised retirement age. If nothing is done to rein them in to deliver better performance, it will be evidently a travesty of fair play to tamper with the service conditions of the armed forces.

The chapters on `Defence Expenditure and the Public Dimension' relating to the media and its role and civil military relationship give some useful insights into the various processes though not necessarily contribute to the core of the findings and recom mendations.

To sum up, those who want trenchant analysis and persuasive argument may be disappointed with this book which is a sanitised version of the report shorn of its annexures and appendices. Over two hundred fifty pages of short, descriptive sentences provide a readable document yet rather unsatisfying.

It reveals the exquisite penmanship of the professional journalists studiously avoiding officialese. Many readers will ask why things happened, not just how. The report skirts the main issue of accountability proving once again that ours is a soft state.

For posterity it is necessary to know where the failure occurred most. The report provides no direct answer although it is clear that slackening oversight and increasingly blunted sensitivity of the bosses in Delhi spiraled a vicious cycle of relaxation of vigil at the field levels.

The committee appears to congratulate itself that it was not constrained in being critical of the JIC and NSCS as though they are disembodied. Through the narrative only the 15 Corps has come out in flying colours by their swift and decisive response in this unfortunate conflict in which we lost 474 officers and men. Is there any justice in the others who are directly or vicariously responsible for the lapses are not even told to stand up scrutiny?

R. Sundaram

The reviewer is former Member, Ordnance Board.