The writer is a freelance columnist.
On February 3, an avalanche hit an army post in a forward location at the Siachen glacier burying 10 soldiers, including a JCO. According to India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, so far 915 people have lost their lives in the last 32 years in Siachen, which comes down to about 28 lives every year. In India’s Rajya Sabha, Janata Dal (United) member K.C. Tyagi voiced concern over the death of these 10 soldiers and argued that India and Pakistan should work towards the withdrawal of troops from such areas to save lives on both sides.
However, Parrikar ruled out the withdrawal of their army from Siachen. He claimed that Pakistan would most likely occupy the strategic area if India vacated. He told the Lok Sabha that “vacating Siachen could lead to a bigger loss of lives” and reminded them about the experience in 1984 when India evicted Pakistan from the strategically critical heights after a bloody fight. But what he said is a travesty of the truth, as there was no bloody fight on Siachen. In fact, in April 1984 India airlifted troops in the region in order to pre-empt an alleged Pakistani plan to occupy the territory. Since that time, India controls the glacier at a cost of approximately $2 million a day, while soldiers are left to stare at and shoot each other across the line.
The Siachen confrontation is the world’s highest-altitude war. It is being fought at elevations exceeding 6,000 metres over a dispute on an un-demarcated border beyond a point technically known as NJ-9842, which is eminently amenable to a negotiated solution. While Siachen is indeed a military and political dispute between Pakistan and India, it is also an environmental issue that should be of grave concern for the international community: continuous military activities there have been the cause of enormous snowmelt, which has catastrophic effects on weather patterns, including causing floods in Pakistan.
The human body continuously deteriorates and with temperatures 70 degree Celsius below zero, the inhospitable climate and inclement weather have taken far more lives of soldiers stationed at Siachen than has the exchange of gunfire. After the Gyari incident where Pakistan lost 125 soldiers and officers, there was a change in the public mood on both sides of the border as people realised the fruitlessness of keeping their forces on the world’s highest battlefield. Despite favourable public opinion after the Gyari incident regarding a resolution of the Siachen issue, the Indian political leadership, however, on advice from its military, stuck to their stated positions during the Pakistan-India secretary-level talks in June 2012.
The settlement of Kashmir is the unfinished business of Partition, and India and Pakistan have had at least two wars over this dispute. After the 1971 war, a Line of Control was designated in the Simla Agreement. At the time, the Line of Control over Kashmir was drawn, the demarcation ended at Siachen, as it was understood to be Pakistan’s territory otherwise they could have continued demarcation beyond that point. In 1984, while Pakistan’s military was preoccupied on the western front ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Indian army occupied Siachen. Both countries had entered into negotiations maybe a dozen times, but to no avail.
After 9/11, India had tried to take advantage of the pre-emption paradigm adopted by the U.S., and thus more than once Indian and Pakistani forces came face to face at their common border. They did not go to war because the fear of nuclear attack makes adventurism less appealing. Facing this reality, both nuclear states should resolve the Siachen dispute politically through dialogue in order to avert disaster.
There was chance to resolve the crisis even before India and Pakistan had detonated nuclear devices, as both countries had nearly reached an agreement about Siachen in 1992. The text of the 1992 negotiating drafts has been reproduced by Indian daily The Hindu and shows just how close the two sides were to the resolution of Siachen more than two decades ago. But the deal was never inked because of the Indian military’s resistance. The Hindu reported that the “Pakistani delegation offered a proposal that met India’s demand of recording existing ground positions before withdrawal of troops from a proposed zone of disengagement. The talks that year, the sixth round both countries held on the issue, had taken place in New Delhi from November 2-6, 1992. Pakistan’s proposal of indicating in an annexure the areas the armed forces of the two sides would vacate and redeploy found immediate acceptance among Indian officials.” The Indian delegation was led by N.N. Vohra, then the defence secretary, who said: “We had finalised the text of an agreement at Hyderabad House by around 10 p.m. on the last day. Signing was set for 10 a.m. But later that night, instructions were given to me not to go ahead the next day but to conclude matters in our next round of talks in Islamabad in January 1993.”
In 2005, the two sides were once again said to be nearing an agreement to demilitarise the region, but again the Indian military prevailed over the civilian government by insisting that India would lose the strategic advantage over Pakistan and China. According to an agency report, in 2007 the-then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee while commenting on the dialogue had said that Pakistan was not willing to agree to an Indian proposal on the methodology of demilitarisation. He said both sides agreed in principle to withdraw from their positions, India wanted the troop positions delineated and authenticated in writing.
That point besides, if India and Pakistan can resolve their issues, including the core Kashmir dispute, both countries can divert substantial funds from defence to the social sector in order to improve the lives of countless millions and usher in an era of regional progress and prosperity.http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/01-Mar-2016/siachen-impasse
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