Daily Times

It is a well-known fact that more soldiers have been lost to the elements in Siachen than enemy fire. Located at a height of 6,000 metres, the glacier turned into a theatre of war between India and Pakistan in 1984when India, taking advantage of the incompletely demarcated boundary in the eastern Karakoram Range, wrested control of the heights of the strategically located glacier from Pakistan. Pakistan responded by sending its troops to take control of the adjoining Saltoro Ridge. Thus battle was joined on the world’s highest battlefield where the oxygen is so thin that deployed soldiers fall victim to pulmonary oedema and, in winters, the temperatures can dip to -50 C, resulting in frostbite and equipment being rendered dysfunctional. Troops have to keep firing their weapons to keep them in shape. The costs of maintaining a military presence are so high that the two sides have repeatedly been urged by interested groups to resolve the conflict and withdraw their forces from Siachen.

The 12th round of defence secretary-level talks on Siachen concluded on Monday in New Delhi without yielding any breakthrough. Both India and Pakistan stuck to their respective positions, with India demanding authentication of the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) and Pakistan insisting on maintaining the pre-1984 dispositions. This signifies the height of mistrust, which is compelling the two neighbours to continue their misadventure in pursuit of some nebulous future strategic objectives and ambitions rather than looking at the ground realities today. India fears the expanded influence of China in the strategic northern regions of Pakistan if, at some point, the Karakoram Highway becomes the conduit for trade en route to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea for China’s western hinterland. Occupation, India thinks, will yield strategic advantage and it will be in a position to disrupt this route whenever it pleases. Pakistan, on the other hand, fears, and not without reason, given India’s 1984 aggression, that once it authenticates the AGPL, India would insist that it is the boundary and may use it as the accepted de facto situation on the ground against Pakistan at any point in the future. However, 21st century imperatives lay emphasis on economic power and development of human resources, not military superiority. The two countries must respond to these imperatives and grow out of the hangover of their past. They must resolve the Siachen conflict and withdraw their forces from this futile war of attrition. *