On top of the world 
looking down on conflict 
Reviewed by Baljit Singh

The Long Road to Siachen
The Question Why
By Kunal Verma & Brig Rajiv Williams. Rupa. 
Pages 422. Rs 1500

In the final analysis, the Indians beat the Pakistanis by a mere four days`85..and so began the race, each side climbing heights higher than the other`85." Kunal Verma. "As a last resort, to accommodate the casualty (Body Bag), some limbs, I hate to mention, have to be forcibly adjusted (sic. Twisted/ Broken). Such are the realities of living and dying while serving at the world’s highest battle-field`85." Brig Rajiv Williams. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab, neither openly confronted the British nor submitted to their diktat. He, therefore, instead enlarged the north-eastern frontiers of his kingdom, absorbing the whole of Jammu and Kashmir, including what is today Pakistan Occupied Northern Territories and a large chunk of south west Tibet, bordering Ladakh, through his Dogra supplicants. The physical profile of India would thus acquire a lofty crown, topped by the Karakoram Pass in the East and Chitral in the West. And south west Tibet would continue to pay the annual revenue to the Maharajas of Kashmir, right up to the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China, in October 1948! However, by 1949, the PRC would proactively encourage Pakistan against India, leading to the present-day stalemate in the Siachen area.

With the hindsight of Pakistan-China collusive strategy along the Line of Control (LoC) and Line of Actual Control (LAC) over the past two decades, it is hard not to agree with the clich`E9 that India won the 1971 India-Pakistan war but lost the peace at Simla in 1972. Although Kunal Verma has laced his narrative with ample material from official documents, since declassified, and bits even from some not yet in the public domain, but he disappoints by the lack of first-hand accounts revealing how and why Prime Minister Indira Gandhi failed to prevail upon ZA Bhutto to convert the LoC into the de jure international boundary. And how next she failed to perceive the potential of subterfuge in leaving the LoC undemarcated beyond Pt NJ 9842 and the folly of acquiescing with the controversial assumption of Lieut Gen PS Bhagat VC "That it was not feasible for human habitation to survive beyond NJ 9842".

n In spite of the severe climate, the word `Siachen` ironically means “the place of wild roses”.  n The glacier is the highest battleground on Earth, where India and Pakistan have fought intermittently since 1984.  n Siachen is the world’s largest non-polar glacier and is sometimes referred to as the third pole.

Five years down that time-line, the area to the north of Pt NJ 9842 had become a favoured mountaineering hot-spot with the Japanese, Austrians, British, Americans, French, German, Dutch, and Italians with Pakistan Army officers in tow. The intrigues were further abetted when the Pentagon published for the American air crews the "Tactical Pilotage Chart of N Kashmir for the purpose of helping military pilots to avoid trespassing into another country’s air-space`85" The map showed a straight line from Pt 9842 to Daulat Beg Oldie (South of the Karakoram Pass), thus placing the Siachin glacier region and parts of the Nubra Valley, as POK territory. A French national trekking in the Padam valley (Kargil District) in 1982, happily parted with the Pentagon map, after he struck friendship with a kindred soul, Kunal Verma.

Stung yet again by the Pakistani perfidy, Indian planners now moved into the super-fast-forward mode and by April 13, 1984, deployed 300 Indian soldiers at heights up to 18,000 ft above sea level, controlling two of the three passes leading to the Siachen glacier. India thus restored de-facto the sanctity to the demarcation agreement of December 11, 1972, which had defined the LOC: "`85and the line running from Pt NJ 9842 north to the glaciers".

However, there was little to jubilate because the long road to Siachen would pitch Pakistan and India in military combat on this highest ever battle-field in the annals of warfare. And once you situate battles in the Siachen region, a plethora of hitherto unknown factors relating to men, materials and the physical sciences get added to the fundamental postulates of warfare. Yet unmindfully, statesmen and soldiers got sucked into this awesome vortex by the sheer pull of the regional and continental geo-strategic compulsions. And the quest to hold height higher than the adversary would end with Pakistan placing 10 soldiers on a 21,153-ft pinnacle. This would effectively interdict movements of Indian soldiers and helicopters in the region. Come what may, India must wrest the initiative which three months hence would establish a new benchmark in the will to fight and win. That operation hinged upon laying out "fixed rope" up 1800 vertical feet, undetected by night, in minus 50`BA Celsius temperature.

Each soldier’s clothing and accessories and weapons weighing up-to 32 kg would limit his movement to less than 100 M in one hour.

After two aborted attempts over one week, it was in the third attempt on June 27, 1987, that Naib Subedar Bana Singh with four Jawans of 8 Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry eliminated the "Quaid Post", and hoisted the Indian Tri-color at 1400 hrs (2pm) to the dancing of his foursome! The world would henceforth know it as Bana Post and the JCO would deservedly be awarded the PVC. In due course, the Battalion would earn two Mahavir Chakras, four Vir Chakras and eight Sena Medals but about 70 of its men would live with multiple injuries and several on crutches for the rest of their lives.

Three months later, Pakistan tasked 1 and 3 Commando Battalions under Brig Pervez Musharraf (later President) to recapture the Quaid Post. Despite three determined assaults and the loss of 300 commandos, Indian soldiers did not yield an inch. The frozen battle-field, the first-hand accounts of the capture of Bana Top and the failed counter-attacks of Pakistan, all exude the spirit: "How can a man die better than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers and the Temples of his Gods!"

All together, the book is a gripping and intricately woven amalgam of intrigues in state-craft during the Raj and the classic and new postulates of warfare at Siachen, the only of its kind. I will place this book in the un-putdownable class. On reaching page 417, most readers may well be tempted to return to page 01, if not for the second reading, but surely for the visual pleasure of more than 250 world-class photographs, almost all shot by Kunal Verma, looking down from up above through the cockpits of MiG 29, Mirage 2000 and helicopters, to showcase a unique perspective of rock, snow, deep chasms, ice, soldiers, glaciated miles wide autobahns, razor-sharp ridges and chiselled summits of extraordinary beauty.

And lastly, among the significant documents reproduced in the book is The Instrument of Accession of the J&K State to India, signed by Maharaja Hari Singh on October 26, 1947 and by Lord Mountbatten, the Governor-General of India, on October 27, 1947.

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