Kargil report shows the way

Kargil report shows the way
J N Dixit

Ever since the report of the Kargil Review Committee, chaired by K.Subrahmanyam, was placed before Parliament, it has been subjected tocomments and criticism, which have been instantaneous and quick on the draw.The first point to be noted is that the committee completed its work in aremarkably short time, just about four and a half months. The other pointsof significance are that this is the first time that the governmentappointed a committee to review the causes and background of a majorsecurity crisis, consisting of outsiders, instead of resorting to a purelyin-house military inquiry. Thirdly, this is the first time that the reportof such a committee has been made public through Parliament.

Previous internal reviews of military conflicts and crisis undertaken by thegovernment about the 1962 and 1965 wars, were internal and have not beenmade public. Fourth, the report has not just confined itself to theimmediate causes of the 50-day war. It contains a comprehensive andwide-ranging analysis of the conflict-prone predicament of India andPakistan in terms of history, Pakistani motivations and India's reactions,undercurrents of policies, mindsets and how the Kashmir issue has been dealtwith by India and Pakistan. It is also the first time, perhaps, thatmulti-dimensional recommendations have been made to fine-tune ourintelligence, security and defence establishments.

Before one deals with the criticism levelled against the report, it would beworthwhile to ask: could Kargil have been avoided? The conclusions of thereport briefly state: ``Had the Indian Army sought to plug all conceivableloopholes, to frustrate every eventuality... and attempted to safeguardevery inch of (unpopulated) territory, it would have meant Siachenisation ofKargil along a wider front with correspondingly higher annual human andmaterial costs. This would have been neither military, nor politically costeffective and ... such a posture ... would have enabled Pakistan to bleedIndia.''

Indications are that the Kargil plan was originally formulated in theeighties, but activated only after General Pervez Musharraf took over thecommand of the Pakistani army and that Nawaz Sharif was fully aware of theKargil plan. While the Lahore Summit between Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif didnot lower the guard of Indian decision makers, there was a failure ofintelligence inputs in terms of timely assessments which in turn resulted inour being surprised and our delayed response. The report says that bothResearch and Analyses Wing (RAW) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) hadcommunicated information about the increased Pakistani activities in theKargil sector but these reports were not channelled to the concernedauthorities.

IB reports, perhaps, only went to the Cabinet Secretary and the HomeSecretary. They did not go to three officials most concerned with thisinformation, namely, Secretary, RAW, the Chairman, Joint IntelligenceCommittee and the Directorate General, Military Intelligence. The reportsays: ``The critical failure of intelligence was related to the absence ofany information on the induction and de-induction of battalions and the lackof accurate data on the identity of battalions in the area of Kargil during1998'' and then onwards. The Kargil intrusion was essentially limitedPakistani military exercise designed to internationalise the Kashmir issuewhich was tending to recede from the radar screen of the internationalcommunity. And strangely enough, the report refers only to one militaryofficer, Brigadier Surinder Singh, as having failed in making correctassessments and not having made relevant anticipations.

The recommendations for remedial action in the report are wide ranging withsuggestions for re-structuring institutions, improvement of procedures,re-organising arrangements for flow of intelligence and assessments and soon. Volumes containing the annexures not only have texts of testimoniesgiven and extracts of reports, etc., but also a wealth of information anddata based on extensive reading of books and documents dealing with securityissues.

Having touched upon the positive qualities of the report, it is necessary tolook at some of the inadequacies which are not the result of an oversight orlack of attention, but are the result of deliberate reticence. While thereis detailed description of the nature and content of the exchangecommunications which flowed from forward areas to the Army Headquarters andback, there is no focussed critical evaluation of the inadequacies ornegligence which characterised the functioning of our Army, preceding theKargil conflict. The report has focussed mainly on the reasons for thecomplacency in the Northern Command in the pre-Kargil period, than on thecritical shortcomings in observations, analyses and assessment at differentlevels in the command structure. There are some critical references up tothe divisional command level, but the report has been coy about criticallyevaluating the responses of the Corps Command and the Northern ArmyCommand.

There seemed to have been no mechanism to ensure effective and real timeflow of information and assessments from lower army echelons, to the ArmyHeadquarters and the Office of the Chief of the Army Staff. There are onlymarginal references to the role that the Directorate General of MilitaryIntelligence, could have played. One understands that the internalassessment report prepared by our armed forces headquarters itself was moreforthrightly and critically introspective about its functioning. This is thereport prepared by General Reddy which, for obvious reasons, would not bepublished. The rationale for not criticising the Army might be that of notaffecting the morale of our armed forces which fought so bravely andsacrificed so much to regain Kargil. One wishes that the same amount ofattention was given to the role of the armed forces as was given to theIntelligence Bureau and RAW.

This critical comment apart, one should unhesitatingly acknowledge that thereport is a painstaking, methodical, scholarly and detailed analysis of amajor military crisis that the country faced. The report is an important andsubstantive contribution in educating our national security concerns andpredicaments. The government placing it before Parliament is a welcomeinitiative in introducing transparency on this sensitive subject. One hopesthat the Kargil Review Committee report being made available to the publicwould lead to reports on previous conflicts with China and Pakistan, likeHanderson Brooks report, also being de-classified. Involving the citizen innational security debate is the strongest foundation for national defence.