Kargil war ushered in sweeping military reforms

Twenty-five years after the Indian Army rewrote the rules of mountain warfare and beat astonishing odds to eject a treacherous foe from the dizzying heights occupied by it in the Kargil sector a few months after the signing of the Lahore peace declaration, the focus is back on how the military has transformed since the turn of the century, weeded out its vulnerabilities, and sharpened its readiness to deter its adversaries. Hard lessons were learnt from the war and the events that led to it, and there’s no question of a repeat of a Kargil-like misadventure by Pakistan, military affairs experts said, pointing to the overhaul of India’s intelligence set-up, far-reaching military reforms, sharpened focus on the modernisation of the armed forces, and vastly improved border management. The Kargil war, though limited in geography and scale, had a significant impact on India’s strategic thinking, and it forced the country’s leadership to take a holistic look at the national security architecture, said former Northern Army commander Lieutenant General DS Hooda. The limited war, India’s fifth, was fought in the summer of 1999 along a 170km mountain frontier, stretching from Mashkoh Valley to Turtuk in the Kargil sector, after thousands of Pakistani intruders exploited gaps in Indian defences and sneaked across the Line of Control to capture several commanding heights, with some of them offering a sweeping view of the strategic Srinagar-Leh highway. After the PM-headed Cabinet Commitee on Security authorised the use of air power on the Indian side of LoC on May 25, IAF launched a deadly wave of airstrikes on positions held by the Pakistan army, including the administrative and logistics base at Muntho Dhalo in the Batalik sector and a battalion headquarters atop Tiger Hill, dealing a crippling blow to the enemy’s war effort and somewhat easing the Indian Army’s advance.