Bharat Rakshak

There is nothing strawman about it. The way it was being thrown around shows a severe underestimation of conditions facing combat troops. All that crisis is an opportunity is a load of BS unless it's your life on the line. It's a tradeoff. In actual human lives. Of casualties in one scenario vs another. This needs to be acknowledged. I object to the flippant manner in which it is brought up.

Are people so naive not to understand what is actually going on?
India is at an advantageous position. Having overcome the challenges with the passage of time and having a resurgent economy the status quo suits us fine. But beaten back pakistan is at a disadvantage militarily, and cannot afford the status quo and hence is trying to get on the negotiating table what it could not win in war.

Brothers-in-arms



One thing to note is Indian politicians have largely not opined on the issue or have they?

What a disgusting article by Bharat Karnad.

Indian Army: professional, under full democratic control, no political agenda, primary guardian of the constitution

Pakistan Army: genocidal (Bangladesh, Baluchistan), sponsor of terrorism (in India, Afghanistan and Pakistan), usurper of constitution (coups by Ayub, Zia, Musharraf), start wars on own initiative (Kargil), tortured Lt Kalia and shot Sq Ldr Ahuja in the back

Not brothers, not brothers at all, never ever.

Please spare me from your phoney respect to our military. You and those who say siachen bear no strategic value are the one who are belittling the sacrifrice our brave soldiers have made for our country. You are saying a thousand soldiers die on siachen for nothing! And not only that but you are challengic collective intelligence of our army, generals who decided to stay put for decades. Thus you are directly accusing the generals from then to now of either negligence or conciously misleding GoI and civilians, and hence responsible for the death of thousand precious soldiers. A court martial offense, dont you think?

This is actually a very good point. Pakistan's desire to demilitarise Siachen after the avalanche is nothing but an attempt to engage India in dialogue so that the Indian Army doesn't gain territory in Siachen

Nevermind the fact that the Siachen proposal was put forward by MMS a long, long time ago and the Pakistan army only woke up to it the day after the avalanche

But then you have to assume that Z would visit India to discuss issues without clearance from K. I don't think that is a fair assumption.

The above post is nothing but a gross misrepresentations of the arguments put forward.

Letter from Nithin Kumar on General Kiyani and the Siachin Glacier I have different theory. Just to clarify I am no military expert and my theory is based on what is publicly available.

The avalanche hit a very important base for the Pakistan Army. A major staging area with tons of supplies. Supplies which would very crucial for survival of PA troops on Saltoro. As I far I understand, with the base gone, it would be very difficult to sustain the troops on Saltoro. The clearup could take months. Sustaining the Saltoro position during this time, would require supplies that has to be brought from lower bases or through choppers. This increases PA expenses exponentially. And he knows that it is pointless to spend so much on area where PA is at disadvantage and for troops who are just sitting there, without firing a shot!

Secondly, with the base gone, he will not be able to defend a Indian push (not that Indian Army will be allowed to by Government of India) further down/west. By using the "peace at Siachen" PR and Indian media, he want to pre-empt any IA ops.

Setting up a alternate HQ on the same place is not possible as tons of fuel(kerosene, aviation fuel) and ammunition is buried in the snow. If the ammo explode, there will be another avalanche carrying the entire base downwards. Imagine what will happen, if the fuel ignite or leaks downstream. Hence PA has to either abandon the area or clear the area completely, which is time consuming and very expensive. Add to this expenses of supplies to forward position.

Fundamentally, PA has lost the Saltaro conflict. They dont have money left for the fight.

One thing i have always found strange since 48. From a little North of Kupwara to Kargil, India drew the LOC almost running East till NJ 9842. The PA so called irregulars could not have been physically all over the place defending every strategic ridge. Somewhere in between itself we should have run a line straight up along the mapped ridges right north, possibly even a ridge or two off Skardu. But that would have resulted in no ceding off Shaksgam valley. In hindsight maybe it's easier to say..but it always has puzzled me, why we accepted the LOC when physical battles for control were mostly in the South Eastern sectors off the valley area.

One thing i have always found strange since 48. From a little North of Kupwara to Kargil, India drew the LOC almost running East till NJ 9842. The PA so called irregulars could not have been physically all over the place defending every strategic ridge. Somewhere in between itself we should have run a line straight up along the mapped ridges right north, possibly even a ridge or two off Skardu. But that would have resulted in no ceding off Shaksgam valley. In hindsight maybe it's easier to say..but it always has puzzled me, why we accepted the LOC when physical battles for control were mostly in the South Eastern sectors off the valley area.

Please enlighten me how do you interpret role of our generals if you think that siachen bears no strategic value. And also who is accountable for death of thousand soldiers?

If that was the reason for India’s inflexibility on Siachen, a solution could still have been found. But India’s real considerations, as articulated by several official and unofficial spokesmen of the Indian establishment, are quite different.First, in the opinion of many Indian defence analysts, Siachen is a great strategic prize because of its location at the Pakistan-India-China tri-junction. India’s control of the Saltoro Ridge, in this view, prevents Pakistan and China from joining up through the Karakoram Pass at Xaidulla (Shahidullah) on the Kashgar-Xigatse road, the main Chinese route between Xinjiang and Tibet that runs through Aksai Chin. Such a linkup between Pakistan and China, in the imagination of India’s armchair strategists, could threaten India’s control of Ladakh. Besides, the possession of the Saltoro Fidge also gives India strategic high ground over Gilgit-Baltistan. Vikram Sood, a former RAW chief, writes that the “China factor” was not so evident in 1984 when India seized Siachen, but it is much more important now in view of the larger Chinese footprint in the area and China’s “strategic interest” in Gilgit-Baltistan. In this connection, Sood points to the widening of the Karakoram Highway and reported plans of a rail link with Pakistan and an oil and gas pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang.Second, India’s possession of Siachen strengthens India’s hand in any eventual Kashmir settlement with Pakistan based on the status quo, in keeping with the maxim that “possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Siachen should therefore be the “last issue on the table, not the first.”Third, Indira Col, in the northern-most part of the Saltoro Ridge, directly overlooks the Shaksgam valley “that was illegally ceded by Pakistan to China” in the 1963 border agreement. India’s control of this ridge, in the words of one Indian expert, enables India to “legitimately and effectively dispute the illegal Chinese presence there.”
Most of these arguments are far-fetched and some are quite fanciful, but together they constitute a formidable obstacle to a settlement. Kanwal Sibal, a former foreign secretary, asked rhetorically in a recent article: “Why withdraw...and lose available defence depth?” Evidently, the concept of “strategic depth” is not a Pakistani monopoly. Sood also warns that India should “not repeat the strategic mistakes of the past, like halting our advance at Uri in 1948 or not capturing Skardu; or giving up Haji Pir in 1966; or returning 93,000 troops and territory in 1972.”
The next round of talks on the Siachen issue will be held in June in Islamabad. The positions of the two sides remain far apart and little progress can be expected. As the army chief has pointed out, the Indian position has hardened. In addition to the “authentication” of troop positions on the ground, India is now also demanding a “demarcation” of the Line of Control in the Siachen sector. The Indian aim evidently is to get a legitimisation of its occupation of Siachen in violation of the Simla Agreement. While formally denying that there had been any hardening of the Indian stand, Indian defence minister A K Antony has in fact not only confirmed the substance of Kayani’s remarks but gone beyond that. In a statement in the Indian parliament last Tuesday, Antony declared that the two sides had to agree first on “authentication” of the respective troop positions along the Saltoro Ridge, then on the “delineation” of these positions on the map and finally on the “demarcation” of the agreed border on the ground. This, Antony said, was India’s long-standing national position, not government position. Given this stand, no movement is expected in the next round of talks. As The Financial Times of London wrote, hopes of new thinking in India on Siachen seem as remote as the prospects of pulling anyone out alive from Gayari. Pakistani analysts who speak of Siachen being a low-hanging fruit need to wake up. In negotiations with India, there is no such thing.
The question for our policymakers is: What is to be done? The answer is not difficult. First, we need to realise that unilateral concessions such as those Pakistan has made on trade with India and of the type that Nawaz has been pushing for on Siachen and the visa regime will get us nowhere. Diplomacy is about give-and-take in a way that satisfies all parties. Our leaders need to learn this elementary lesson. Even at this stage, it is not too late to review our decision to grant MFN status to India without reciprocity on the part of Delhi. Getting freedom for Khalil Chishti is not enough. The least we should demand as a precondition for opening our market to Indian goods is that India first dismantle its non-tariff barriers against Pakistan. Second, we should raise in international forums the issue of the environmental damage being caused by the Indian deployment in Siachen. It is a serious threat to the glaciers which feed the Indus River, Pakistan’s lifeline. Pakistan has to bear the environmental and health consequences of the human and military waste that the Indian deployment produces. Every single drop of water from the Siachen glacier eventually flows into Pakistan. As an upper riparian, albeit through illegal occupation, India is under international obligation not to pollute the water flowing downstream. India’s recent experimentation with geothermal energy in the area adds a new and extremely serious dimension to this problem. To make our case effectively, we should collect data to measure the damage that India is causing and to quantify India’s financial liability for making it good.

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The dangers Indian soldiers face on Siachen mirror those mountaineers encounter when tackling Everest. At 20,000 feet, the oxygen level is about half that at sea level. The air is so cold that bare skin can bind to steel within seconds. Yawning crevasses make trekking from post to post treacherous. In avalanche-prone areas, soldiers limit hiking to nighttime, never in the morning or afternoon, when sunlight loosens massive walls of snow packed higher on the slopes.

Altitude sickness is an ever-present peril. A lack of oxygen can cause fluid to leak from capillaries and build up either in the brain (cerebral edema) or in the lungs (pulmonary edema). Both are life-threatening.

Nothing is easy on Siachen. The lack of oxygen makes cooking impractical, so soldiers mostly live on canned lentils. With no hot water, troops bath once a month in summer, and never in winter.
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Ever since General Kayani, the Pakistan army chief, made a statement seeking peaceful co-existence with India and pushed for the demilitarisation of the Siachen conflict zone, the commentary that has been published on the subject in India has been mostly negative. Some of the views are ultra jingoistic and deserve to be discarded as there is no scope for jingoism in international negotiations. Other opposition to demilitarisation is primarily on two major issues: firstly, that the Pakistan Army cannot be trusted to honour the demilitarisation agreement; and, secondly, that China and Pakistan will gang up and join hands at Siachen and threaten Ladakh from the north.

Apparently, the finer nuances of the demilitarisation process have not been clearly understood. The demilitarisation agreement between India and Pakistan will be a legally binding international agreement. It will lay down a step by step process to turn the Siachen conflict zone into a demilitarised zone (DMZ). The first step will be authentication of present deployment positions. This will be followed by disengagement from the AGPL and, finally, the movement of troops, guns and war-like stores to previously agreed positions. The step by step demilitarisation process will be mutually agreed by the two DGMOs and approved by the political authorities.

The demilitarisation agreement will be without prejudice to either country’s stated position on the extension of the Line of Control (LoC) beyond NJ9842. This reference on military maps is the point up to which the Cease Fire Line was jointly demarcated under the Karachi Agreement of 1949 and the Shimla Agreement of 1972. In fact, a Joint Commission will be appointed to negotiate the extension of the LoC beyond NJ9842. This commission will begin its work simultaneously with the commencement of the process of demilitarisation. However, agreement on the extension of the LoC beyond NJ9842 cannot be a prelude to the commencement of demilitarisation, as some analysts are suggesting. Such a condition, if imposed by India, will make demilitarisation of the Siachen conflict zone a non-starter and both sides will be forced to continue to maintain their present deployments with all the attendant costs.

As part of demilitarisation, the disengagement and redeployment of all military forces to agreed positions will be verified independently by national technical means (satellites, air photos and electronic surveillance) as well as physically through joint helicopter sorties. Subsequent monitoring of the DMZ will also be similarly undertaken. No military activity will be permitted in the DMZ. In addition to mutually agreed physical monitoring being conducted jointly with laid down periodicity, both sides will have the right to conduct surprise inspections of suspected military movements. A joint monitoring centre will be established.

As both verification and monitoring will be transparent joint activities, it will be ensured that the process of demilitarisation is completed to the mutual satisfaction of both India and Pakistan. The demilitarisation agreement will contain a clause permitting both sides to take any action that is deemed appropriate, including the use of military means, in case the agreement is violated by the other side. Unauthorised military movement will not go unchallenged. The intruding personnel will be targeted by helicopter gunships and the fighter-ground attack aircraft of the Indian Air Force, as also by armed drones. In case any bunker that is vacated by Indian troops is occupied by the Pakistanis, it will be destroyed by using precision strike munitions. Under these circumstances, even if the Pakistan army has intentions of attempting to occupy vacated Indian bunkers, it will not succeed in doing so.

Small enemy patrols intruding surreptitiously into the DMZ will not be able to survive beyond a few days in the high altitude wilderness. They will need sustained helicopter support for ammunition, rations and fuel for warming. Supply helicopters will be easily detected and shot down. Large-scale intrusions of platoon to company size will be neutralised by air-to-ground strikes by the IAF with quick reaction reserves – that will be maintained in a high state of operational readiness in Ladakh – being employed for ‘mopping up’ operations. Hence, it will be militarily impossible for Pakistan to ‘hand over’ portions of the DMZ to China or to gang up with that country to jointly threaten Ladakh. Those who are imagining such linkages are seeing phantoms and vastly overstating the threat.

The demilitarisation of the Siachen conflict zone will not only act as a huge military-to-military confidence building measure, it will also test the Pakistan army’s sincerity and will be an opportunity for that army to prove that it has actually had a change of heart at the strategic level in wanting peace with India. It is a low risk option to test whether the Pakistan army can be trusted and India must not lose the opportunity to do so. However, India must draw up a demilitarisation agreement that takes care of all political and military apprehensions and make it clear to the Pakistan leadership that no military violation will be tolerated.

It would have collapsed a long time ago if it isn't for the perceived utility of the Pukis to the West and the Chinese.

Unauthorised military movement will not go unchallenged. The intruding personnel will be targeted by helicopter gunships and the fighter-ground attack aircraft of the Indian Air Force, as also by armed drones.

In case any bunker that is vacated by Indian troops is occupied by the Pakistanis, it will be destroyed by using precision strike munitions.

Under these circumstances, even if the Pakistan army has intentions of attempting to occupy vacated Indian bunkers, it will not succeed in doing so.