Kargil War Memorial

As I looked at the gate of the Kargil War Memorial outside of Dras, I tried to recall what details I could of the quarter century old war. The memorial had been recommended by a friend, a retired army officer. The Kargil war of 1999 is said to have been planned and executed at the behest of Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. After Pakistan’s defeat, Musharraf avoided being removed from his post as chief of staff by staging a coup against the elected government. India drove out the incursion without opening other fronts. I have summarized in three sentences material that you can read from Wikipedia by following the links above.

The war memorial turned out to be as measured as the war was. It is a dignified military memorial to dead comrades who showed exemplary courage and devotion to duty. For me it also served as a reminder of history that I had lived through. I reminded The Family that I was travelling abroad when the Indian response began in late May, almost exactly a year after Pakistan’s nuclear weapon tests. In Europe people were convinced that this would be the beginning of a nuclear war. In India, The Family told me each time we talked, that it was being seen entirely as a limited war. The memorial is true to that conviction.

As we walked up the long avenue, a young, smartly turned out, officer fell in step with us. After a few pleasantries he pointed out the locations of the main battles. They were all visible from here, and echoed the headlines of those days: Tiger Hill, Rhino Horn, Black Tooth, Gun Hill, Tololing. Tololing is right behind the tall Indian flag in the center of the photo. We parted ways as we reached the guns on display. His description finally placed our driver Tsering’s earlier cryptic remark in context: the Pakistanis had occupied the high ridge above the road, and could spy on troop movements. A wall was quickly erected to hide the road from watchers on the ridge. That’s what we’d seen before Dras town.

Several types of artillery were used in the war. But it was this gun, the Bofors 77B02, which use 155 mm shells which is said to have won the war. From this plain it could lob those shells on to the ridge, and is said to have won 80% of the war. Several people of my age stood around this display. All of us would have remembered the political scandal that resulted from the alleged kickbacks given by Bofors to ensure that the gun was chosen above others. The company was blacklisted, and the sanction removed only during this war, in order to obtain spare parts for maintenance. We oldies smiled at each other and chatted a bit. Two were bikers at the beginning of their trip through Ladakh. We talked about routes and logistics before going our ways.

We went on into the memorial hall where the military history of the campaign was given in detail, along with photographs from the time of the war. As we walked back from the exhibit I realized that on my way in I hadn’t noticed that the path was lined with busts, each with a flag over it. They were busts of the decorated soldiers from the war. Each pedestal had a brief description of the action which resulted in a decoration for the soldier. I wove from one side of the road to the other, reading each description, and collating it with what I’d read in the memorial. In the setting, with many of the sites of action visible around me, the inscriptions had a special poignancy.

The Family paused in front of the bust of Captain Vikram Batra to take a photo. She’d seen a recent movie which was based on his life. The plateau is probably at a height of 3200 meters or so, and I could not imagine running here. It would take me a long period of acclimatization to be able to run or climb at this height. To do that loaded down with equipment, and in the face of fire, would take a physical fitness which I do not have. And, more than that, it requires a mental fortitude which is quite remarkable. Even in the army it is rare enough that the PVC has been awarded only 21 times in the 75 years of the history of the republic.

There are many loose ends to this war, in spite of many books written about it. I suppose some future scholars of military history and international relations will eventually be able to pick out the threads of this conflict carefully. In the meanwhile this war memorial provides a limited but clear history of the people involved in the war.