A Soldier's Diary: Kargil the Inside Story

By Harinder Baweja

Harinder Baweja, an Editor with Hindustan Times has earned a reputation as a fearless, committed reporter through her prolonged coverage of conflict zones. Her experience of covering the Kashmir crisis gave her access to a wide range of sources, particularly among the army units that were sent to Kargil. She covered the sharp, short war for India Today magazine, using her enviable range of sources to compile a definite account of the Kargil war. She has also edited and authored chapters for 26/11 Mumbai Attacked.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roli Books
• Release date: May 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9788194110910

Book preview

KARGIL

THE INSIDE STORY

In praise of

Kargil: The Inside Story

‘[Harinder Baweja] exposes some shocking facts about India’s lack of battle preparedness. Written as a soldier’s diary, Kargil: The Inside Story is based on confidential defence documents gleaned from Indian and Pakistani troops in addition to extensive interviews with Indian Army officers and men…

‘[She] raises some difficult questions of India’s politicians and diplomats, pointing out that they should be concerned that a nuclear powered country is vulnerable to so many operational mistakes… The author does not spare India’s scientific establishment either…’

BBC

‘A terse, accessible account of one of the darkest episodes in India’s history… Written in the form of a soldier’s journal, the book grimly recounts the story of the war and the extraordinary courage of the subalterns and officers, while documenting the colossal failure of the top military leadership, its intelligence and of the equipment made available. In short, Baweja is a true professional and this is a professional’s book.’

India Today

‘This is a minor coup where [Baweja’s] book scores over others is the peek she’s had into confidential military documents and After Action Reports. She recreates with clarity the panic, confusion and initial loss of morale after the deeply unsettling intrusions, inadequate and insufficient maps, ill-prepared troops, unclear orders, and yet the ceaseless demand for quick results that inevitably made soldiers resemble lambs to slaughter. Hard and painful words, these, but familiar for the Indian military now adept at being surprised and back footed by the fog of war.’

Hindustan Times

‘This book is by the gutsy Harinder Baweja. She saw action on the snowbound mountain peaks on the Indian side of the Line of Control. She has some uncomfortable facts to reveal. Well before our prime minister was embracing his Pakistani counterpart in Lahore, Pakistani Army units were fortifying bunkers on Indian soil. For months our intelligence knew nothing about it. When the action began, our Chief of Staff was in Poland and when it heated up; our General in charge of operations was inaugurating a golf course in Srinagar.’

Khushwant Singh

(in his column ‘With Malice

Towards One and All’)

‘A very readable and disturbing book. A Soldier’s Diary provides the insider look at the war. The writer has been long associated with Kashmir and defence-related issues. She provides a unique insight into the war, having been given privileged access to After Action Reports, filed by commanding officers after every action.’

Deccan Chronicle

‘To give a degree of credibility to her account, Baweja chooses the diary format to present her version of Operation Vijay. The diary reveals how the political leadership and the top brass in the Army had been caught napping and had very little clue about the situation. Days after they sent inadequately armed troops up the barren peaks to push back the few rats that have come in.’

The Hindu

OTHER LOTUS TITLES

To

The infantry soldiers and

my father who served in the

Indian Air Force

ROLI BOOKS

This digital edition published in 2019

First published in 2019 by

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Copyright © Harinder Baweja, 2019

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Contents

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

ONE

Some rats have come in

TWO

Never can we, as a nation, pay you back for what you’ve done for us

THREE

I am proud of my son… He died facing the enemy

FOUR

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles

FIVE

If you can, please come and see where the Indian Army fought for your tomorrow

SIX

The war is over

SEVEN

Intelligence is an important factor in operations… the present set up is not designed for this

ANNEXURES

Annexure A: Extracts from the personal diary of Lt Muhammad Maaz Ullah Khan, 8 Northern Light Infantry, Pakistan Army, recovered from Point 4812.

Annexure B: Background on delineation of the Line of Control

Glossary

Index

Author’s Note

Apart from personal, eyewitness accounts, much of the information contained in this book has been obtained from official files which contain the After Action Reports (AAR) filed by units involved in the Kargil conflict. These files are confidential and were shown to the author on the strictest conditions of anonymity. Though disturbing in their content, the real facts regarding India’s total lack of preparedness, the cavalier attitude of the top brass in the Indian Army during the crucial initial stages of the conflict and the lack of intelligence, need to be brought out. Not just to ensure that those responsible for such criminal negligence are exposed, but more so, in memory of those courageous men who died defending our borders against impossible, and largely self-imposed, odds.

To protect the identity of the sources, some names have willfully been changed.

Acknowledgements

For my generation of journalists, Kargil was the first taste of war. Covering it was exciting, full of adventure and very frightening. At all times, the adrenalin kept running. Till the time I finally returned to Delhi and realized I had come back with a lot of emotional baggage. My mind kept travelling back to that evening in July when I stood by the side of a mountain in Drass. Tense soldiers paced up and down, waiting for the stretchers to arrive. Seventeen disfigured bodies were brought down from the heights in two hours.

What was happening in the mountains? What kind of battles did the infantry soldiers have to wage in the deceptively serene snow-capped heights? What went through their minds at 18,000 feet?

We were covering the war from the road heads. Only the officers and jawans could answer the questions. I went back to Kargil in October and spent days and nights talking to them. The answers are as disturbing as the questions. They lived through it; I was only listening to their tales. It was then that I decided to write this book like a soldier would. The book is not a sequence of events nor the last word on the war. It is the story of the infantry battalions who bore the brunt. My deepest gratitude to all those who gave time freely and shared their experiences. I cannot name them but they know who they are.

This book was first published in 2000 by the India Today group, where I then worked. A special thank you to Dilip Bobb, who patiently laboured through my manuscript, and gave it final shape. Many thanks too, to Aroon Purie, for encouraging me to be a danger junkie and to Ashok Chopra, for taking the risk of launching his publishing imprint with my book.

Many thanks to everyone at Roli Books and my friend and publisher Pramod Kapoor for republishing this book and keeping the inside story of Kargil alive.

Finally, my mother, who always encourages, and all my friends, who goad and guide.

Foreword

The Bravery of Capt Vikram Batra, PVC

Col Yogesh Kumar Joshi was ecstatic upon receiving the victory message from Capt Vikram Batra and Capt Sanjeev Jamwal. He started moving towards the peak because, before going for the assault both the young officers had promised to have their morning cup of tea at Point 5140 together. A wave of joy had spread across the brigade and the army headquarters in New Delhi. It was a historical achievement for the Indian Army as well as for India.

The chief of the army, Gen V.P. Malik, personally telephoned Vikram for their battalion’s remarkable feat. This was a decisive victory for the 13 Jammu and Kashmir (JAK) Rifles. Col Joshi’s eyes were moist as he said, ‘Not a single soldier died in the operation. The victory of peak 5140 would make a textbook on mountain warfare for the manner in which the operation was carried out. A peak at 17,000 feet was literally snatched from the jaws of a powerful enemy... This is God’s grace and the perfect execution of an operation by the youngsters who are the heart, mind and soul of the army.’

According to various reports, it was one of India’s toughest campaigns in mountain warfare. To reach Point 5140, eight humps had to be crossed. The Pakistanis had deployed machine guns on these peaks and also received artillery support from PoK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir). However, our valiant fighters achieved the impossible. Photographs of Vikram and his battalion mounting the captured Pakistani gun at the base camp were splashed across the country’s newspapers.

Due to his exemplary feat, Vikram was awarded with many titles. He came to be fondly called the ‘Tiger of Drass’, the ‘Lion of Kargil’, the ‘Kargil Hero’, and so on. His bravery, zeal and determination had set a standard for everyone in the troop fighting the battle.

After the victory at Point 5140, an enthusiastic Vikram called us on the morning of 20 June 1999. I received his call and he excitedly said, ‘Daddy, I have captured my peak.’ This was his first call after joining the war field.

The satellite phone line was not clear and his words were muffled. He reassured me that he was fine and that he had achieved success in his task. His mother blessed him and encouraged him to continue performing his duty and to never look back. And look back he did not.

Becoming a National Hero

Post the victory at Point 5140, Vikram became a national hero. For four days, he was on TV, recalling his saga of bravery and telling journalists how he led his men to victory. The newspapers carried pictures of weapons seized from the intruders by Vikram and his men.

Vikram became the toast of the media, appearing in a number of interviews. In one of those interviews, he told the reporters that, while capturing Point 5140, they were just 50 metres away from the target, when right in front of them was a patch of snow. The enemy started firing illumination rounds. Vikram and his troops had to lie down there pretending to be dead as the enemy used machine guns and rockets.

Barkha Dutt, a senior journalist covering the Kargil War, interviewed Vikram after the victory over Point 5140. She asked Vikram how he felt after his victory, to which he famously replied, ‘Yeh dil maange more,’ which was his victory signal and which he had said to his commanding officer, Col Joshi, after victory over Point 5140 with a big smile. He was brimming with confidence; a pleasant smile on his face and high energy levels indicated a sense of pride.

With the capture of Point 5140, the course of battle was turned towards further victories, and the morale of our army was boosted. Vikram’s name was also recommended for the Maha Vir Chakra award, the second-highest military decoration of the country. But he had no full stop here.

Bravery at Point 4875

After the capture of Point 5140, the troops (led by Vikram and Capt Jamwal) had to station there for a few days, as there were chances of a counter-attack by