The Mountains as a Friend and a Foe The Indian Army in Kargil War

Abstract

At the turn of the 21st Century, the world witnessed a major battle in the Greater Himalayas. In the summer of 1999, India and Pakistan fought the Kargil War. Kashmir Valley was always a contested region between the two states since 1947 and both states have been involved in conventional wars until 1971. India was neither new to mountain warfare nor was also not an expert, given its bitter experience with China in 1962. This paper will try to identify the high-altitude war tactics of the Indian army against the Pakistani Northern Light Infantry (NLI). Although India has published several accounts of its key operations in Kargil, yet most of those remain classified. Therefore utilizing existing sources like the diaries of personal experience of army men, declassified government reports and media reports are the only sources I have majorly relied on. Special focus is given how the Indian army adapted itself to high-altitude warfare for the first time as they were training and fighting simultaneously with persistence and determination to gradually make the mountainous terrains their ally against the Pakistani forces, who had already captured crucial points beyond the Line of Control (LoC) posing a direct threat to mainland Indian Kashmir. In the end, the Indian and Pakistani perspectives of the Kargil War shows how the memory and experience of Kargil War has prepared India to face asymmetrical conflicts in the near future when conventional Pakistani offensive has failed against it. India’s (asymmetrical) experience at the mountains brought serious policy changes in military, domestic and foreign spheres, where special focus has been given at the end. Asymmetrical conflicts were no longer restricted to the Kashmir Valley after 1999 as radical jihadist groups further spread their terrorist activities in India (like the 2000 Red Fort, 2001 Indian Parliament, 2008 Mumbai Attacks, and so on) causing India to combat terrorism inside out.