War, Coups & Terror by Brian Cloughley

Author:Brian Cloughley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783460915
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

There was no need for this sort of pietistic stuff (although there may have been chuckles about‘our military aggression’) and Washington considered its tone inappropriate. (A US diplomat in Washington informed me at the time that India’s attitude of jubilation was ‘unfortunate’.) It was regarded unfavourably by the invaders, and a spokesman for the United Jihad Council wasted his breath by stating that ‘A withdrawal from Kargil would be detrimental to the freedom struggle for Kashmir and . . . the mujahideen will fight to their last breath to free their motherland from Indian forces of aggression’.42

India was entitled to be satisfied that the intruders had been withdrawn, but political point-scoring was difficult to resist. The BJP and its allies were determined to be seen as the winning team and the perceptive Dinesh Kumar wrote that ‘They are bound to hold celebrations like they did after the May 1998 Pokhran explosions, and would, in keeping with the nature of politics in the country, even seek to capitalize on the “victory” keeping the forthcoming elections in mind.’43 The interim government did indeed claim that the Kargil ‘war’ had been ‘won’ by the all-seeing BJP coalition, and on at least one occasion placed enormous photographs of the service chiefs and an Agni missile on an election platform. The mood of belligerence was fostered in many quarters, and although in Pakistan there was a fair amount of war-talk, there were fears, too, that India might go the extra mile – not towards talks, but towards conflict. The army chief made speeches emphasizing that the country was prepared to defend itself, but the mood in the army seemed to vary from outright bellicosity to fairly strong criticism of the Sharif government for getting the nation into a difficult position.

The government in Islamabad tried to put as brave a face on the debacle as it could, but the mood within Pakistan was largely of confusion. The army was shaken, and young officers, especially, felt betrayed. There was some plain speaking when the Chief of the Army Staff toured military bases, and morale was badly affected in some units. The entire episode seemed so unnecessary and harmful to Pakistan’s already shaky image abroad that explanation appeared at best superfluous and at worst mere political ground-shifting. Mr Sharif’s national broadcast on 12 July was worth giving,44 however, even if it was shaky on the aim of the invasion. He acknowledged that there was ‘no secret that the threat of a big war with India is looming, by the way things have deteriorated between India and Pakistan’, which he could hardly deny, but then he said that ‘I think the basic purpose of the mujahideen occupation of Kargil was to attract world attention to the Kashmir issue . . . They have fully succeeded in that objective and they have also practically proved our stand that the Kashmir issue is a nuclear flashpoint.’ Of course, no Pakistani troops occupied Kargil but the question must be put as to

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