CROSS BORDER TERRORISM - KARGIL

The Kargil War, 1999 

India’s conduct of nuclear tests (Second tests after 1974 at Pokhran) on May 11, 1998 and declaring itself a nuclear weapon state proved to be a turning point in India’s relations with the west and its neighbours China, Japan and Pakistan. The immediate fall out of Pokhran II was imposition of sanctions on India by the West and Japan on one hand and the conduct of nuclear tests by Pakistan a few months later as a knee-jerk reaction, on the other.

After Pokhran II, Pakistan carried out its own nuclear tests and there was much sabre-rattling on both sides. In early 1999, when the atmosphere appeared more congenial, Vajpayee initiated the ‘bus diplomacy’ (riding the first bus service between India and Pakistan), aimed at making a major breakthrough in improving relations with Pakistan. However, as later events revealed, from long before the much-hyped bus ride to Lahore, soldiers of the Pakistan Army and Pakistan-backed Mujahedeen or religious militants and mercenaries, were busy infiltration into Indian Territory. In fact, by May when the whole crisis blew up it was discovered that Pakistani armed forces had intruded deep across the line of control in Kashmir and had occupied key strategic peaks in the Kargil area. India had to mount a massive and extremely difficult counter-offensive from a disadvantageous military position, which was extremely costly particularly in terms of human lives, in order to evict the intruders. Pictures of body-bags of hundreds of Indian soldiers and officers killed in the Kargil operations began to appear regularly in the Indian newspapers in a manner not witnessed before.

The international reaction to the Kargil crisis was, almost unanimous, in favor of India. Even the US, Britain and China – long time allies of Pakistan – put pressure on Pakistan to withdraw from Indian Territory. Pakistan’s claim that it had no regular army men on the Indian side of the border but only provided moral support to militants was not taken seriously by anybody.

Since the Kargil war, the Indo-Pak relations have seen many ups and downs. Despite the efforts made by leaders and governments of both sides in diffusing tensions in order to normalize ties through composite dialogue and several confidence-building measures, the two countries still face the most intractable problems in their relations – conflict over Kashmir, support for separatists and cross-border terrorism by Pakistan and nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. 

The attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 by the separatists-terrorists heightened the tension and created a war-like situation between the two countries. The growing acts of terrorism perpetrated by the separatist-terrorist outfits backed by the Pakistan army and intelligence service ISI, like the attack on Akshardham temple, the bomb blasts in Mumbai local trains and the more recent terror attack on Mumbai (November 26, 2008) as well as the attack on Uri in 2016 have again derailed the peace-process and vitiated the relations between India and Pakistan.