Today, July 26, 2024, is the 25th anniversary of the end of the Kargil War.
It was early May, 1999. The heat in Delhi was blazing. All was going well between India and its western neighbour Pakistan. Months ago, two head of governments, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif had had a bus ride which boosted confidence in the peace talks.
The new tunnel road which will connect LoC with Siachen AGPL and LAC in China is being built.
The shepherds provided key intelligence in 1965 and 1999.
In the middle of May, while shepherding yaks in the remote Batalik sector, Tashi Namgyal spotted men climbing the remote terrain well-armed with fire power and ration. From their clothing he could understand that they weren’t Indian soldiers but something like raiders. Although Namgyal reported the actions, response was delayed. In August of 1965 during Pakistan’s launch of Operation Gibralter, another Indian shepherd Mohammed Din provided intelligence to the Indian army post in Gulmarg.
A chicken seller in Dras.
An Indian Army officer looks through a high optical instrument across the LoC in Kargil sector.
While peace was in order in both countries, Pakistan’s army general, Pervez Musharraf was hatching a plan which he failed to realise years ago as a Brigade Commander in Siachen. The Srinagar Leh highway was now under assault. India would be cut as Zozila and beyond was under Pakistan’s eye. NH1A was no longer a safe road, nor were the villages along Dras, Kargil, Batalik, Turtuk, and Mushko.
BRO’s infrastructure building.
An Indian patrol party led by Captain Saurabh Kalia were suddenly attacked as they went for a reconnaissance and later, eight soldiers of India army were returned mutilated, understood to be non-professional behaviour in which no armies in the world behaved then.
The war began. Pakistan called it Operation Ko-Paima (Urdu for ‘mountain climber,’ in short ‘Op KP’) while India named it Operation Vijay (meaning winner).
The village for the Hunderman which is a small population living at the edge of the LoC.
Hunderman Balti people.
As the heat in New Delhi was blazing, soldiers climbing an average 15,000 feet in the Kargil-Dras sector was fighting hypothermia, aridness and low oxygen. The Zanskar and Kargil range are barren and operations can only be taken during the night as the enemy could spot Indian soldiers. Heavy mortar plus machine gun fire would have stopped the climb.
The roads to the peaks.
Meanwhile a barrage of artillery shelling took place from both sides. NH1A was pounded while the Indian army had to travel in civilian lorries as decoy. India took out a controversial gun – the Bofors field gun. The gun had tainted the Congress government in 1988, when then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was accused in getting kickbacks for the induction of that particular field gun, and lost the elections in the name of corruption. Bofors were pulled up and they were used as cover fire and for breaking Pakistan’s supply helipad and ammunition depot behind Sando Top and Gultari.
The Bofors placed along the LoC. It saved the Indian post in the 87-day war in the summer of 1999.
The Bofors in display.
Pervez Musharraf the architect of this Operation KP planned it secretively even keeping it away from then Military Intelligence Chief Eshan ul Haq who later became the Inter-Services Intelligence DG. The accessions Musharraf gave to India are very well explained in his memoir Into The Line of Fire.
The Singho river dominates the LoC in Kargil Dras sector as a watershed area.
At the same time, he never shied away from saying that the Pakistan army consulted with “freedom fighters’ (mujahideen/terrorists) to keep the bunkers safe from Indian firing. This exposed his open support for the parallel army which he and earlier General Zia ul Haq bred.
Busy Kargil streets once hit by war.
Indian armymen trainng in their regular small arm practice in Dras.
An average of 600 were killed on the Indian side and 700 on Pakistan’s side. The war was a tight-rope walk for India as it had to mobilise national resources in a terrain that’s not only hostile for battles but also because transportation was at a risk at such an altitude. There were reports that Pakistan had stored two months ammunition only to finish it within 48 hours against India’s firepower.
The Tiger Hill.
India lost many brave hearts but only to secure the bunkers and strategic points that led it to claim Operation Vijay a success. The airforce had launched its own operation called Operation Safed Sagar or ‘white ocean.’
The tomb stone of the martyrs who lost their lives in the 1999 war, at the Dras memorial. Behind is the Toolong hill.
The strategic peaks and the troop movement along the LoC where Pakistan keeps a close watch.
Decades hence, Kashmir still simmers with ongoing tensions – despite the promise of safety in the reading down of Article 370.
These images are taken over the years, and this year especially, to show how India has regarded its border management.
Mushkow Valley where the battle was fought in extreme conditions.
Shome Basu is a photographer and journalist.