Located to the Eastern Karakoram Range in the Great Himalayas, Siachen Glacier emerges from the northeast of the point NJ9842 where the Line of Control remnants. Approximately 76 km long and 4.8 km wide, it is the second longest glacier in the world’s non-polar regions. Sky-touching snow-capped peaks of Siachen, form a natural boundary between Central and South Asia and serve as a major source of fresh water for Pakistan and India. With the average winter snowfall of over 35 feet, here, the temperature can dip down to -60 degrees Celsius. Positioned at the confluence of Pakistan, India and China, its passes had its geographical and historical significance in the past as this region was part of the “Great Game” between Russia and Britain in the 19th century. The area, used for centuries by caravans traversing Central and South Asia, was first discovered in 1848 by Henry Strachey, who travelled up to the Nubra valley for about two kilometres. Earlier, in his trip to Bukhara from India through the city of Leh, William Moorcroft passed near its snout and first acknowledged its existence in 1821.
The seeds of the Siachen Glacier conflict were strewn in 1947 with the partition of united India, culminating in the end of the war between the forces of Pakistan and India over Jammu and Kashmir. After the ceasefire of January 1, 1949, representatives of both countries assisted by United Nations military observers, determined the Ceasefire Line (De Facto border) on the map in Karachi on July 27, 1949. Under the paragraph B-2 (d) of Karachi Agreement, the line between India and Pakistan was demarcated up to point NJ9842 (at the foothill of the Siachen Glacier) while the inaccessible terrain beyond this point was not demarcated without anticipating the future difficulties. Later, this mistake by the parties led to the emergence of a new crisis that nobody could have imagined at that time. After the war between Pakistan and India in 1971, the Ceasefire Line in Jammu and Kashmir (with some modifications) was renamed as the “Line of Control (LoC)” under the Simla Agreement on July 2, 1972, however, the status of the Siachen Glacier was kept the same as it was in 1949. According to Clause-2 of Article-4 of the Simla Agreement, “the parties cannot unilaterally change the position of the Line of Control.” In 1975, the Government of Pakistan initiated issuing permits to foreign mountaineering teams to scale the Siachen Glacier, and by 1981, 20 foreign mountaineering teams had scaled the Siachen Glacier with the permission of the Government of Pakistan. According to Indian sources, all this was part of a plan intended at demonstrating Siachen to be Pakistani territory.
But the real story begins in 1977 when a German mountaineering team under the leadership of Mr. Jaroslav Poncar (an independent cameraman and film producer, with Volker Stallbohm and Wolfgang Kohl) met with Colonel Kumar, the In-charge of the “High Altitude Warfare School” established for the Indian Army in Gulmarg, regarding their intention to scale Siachen from the Indian control side of the Jammu and Kashmir. This team had also visited the Siachen base camp in 1975 but two years later, their mission was somewhat unique. This time, they carried with them a map designed by the “American Defense Mapping Agency” that India had been unaware of it for the past two years. The German team handed this map to Colonel Kumar, which showed the undefined part (including the Siachen Glacier) from NJ 9842 to the Karakoram Pass within Pakistan’s borders. This map of the Siachen Glacier was prepared based on images taken by American planes during the China-India war when they flew over the Himalayas to supply weapons to India in 1962. It seems that by 1975, this American map had already reached Pakistan, based on which the issuance of permits to foreign mountaineering teams to scale the Siachen Glacier had commenced.
Upon seeing the map, Colonel Kumar believed it to be a cartographic error, however, he immediately informed the DG Military Operations with a message stating his desire to correct this mistake by going up to the Siachen Glacier himself. After receiving order from the higher authorities to inspect the area, Colonel Kumar, accompanied by a 79-member special team, reached Siachen in 1981. To his astonishment, he was warned by Pakistani helicopters from the air by releasing the vivid smoke. Following this incident, both countries began monitoring each other’s activities in the region. Gradually, with reports of military movements and violations of LoC, it became certain that days of peace in this region were approaching to conclude.
Here, the question arises that how did a country that received information about the Indian surgical strike on Abbottabad in 2019 five minutes later through a neighbouring country already know about the Indian expedition to Siachen in 1981 beforehand? Experts suggest that the informant might be the same entity that had designed the new map of the region to create confusion. Moreover, the rapidly changing situation in the region suggests that the designer was exchanging information with both countries to some extent at the same time. Who were the members of this German mountaineering team? Were they agents of “western war industry” aiming to convey a silent message to India that Pakistan’s control over Siachen was gaining international legal justification, requiring an immediate response from India? Or were they just mountaineers, and all of this happened by coincidence? It is difficult to establish a conclusive outlook on this matter. However, it is certain that it was that American map, given by the mountaineering team to the Indian army, which then became the cause of the highest battleground on this plant.
On their own, the armies of both countries were busy in preparing for a new combat zone. In this context, India sent a special military mission to Antarctica in 1982 to acclimate its soldiers to the harsh cold conditions parallel to those of the Siachen Glacier. Meanwhile, a shop in London received orders for specific clothing for high altitude from both India and Pakistan one after the other. Soon both parties became aware of this coincidence. Was the address of the same shop given to both parties to create war hype? This requires further research, however, the situation took a new turn in 1983, when Lieutenant General Manohar Lal Chibber, the head of India’s Northern Command, successfully convinced Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi during her visit to Ladakh regarding the potential Pakistan’s occupation of Siachen and its subsequent defensive and economic impacts on India including the future status of Ladakh and Aksai Chin and the inevitability of Indian control of Siachen.
After the necessary preparations according to the weather conditions, India initiated Operation Meghdoot (code name) on April 13, 1984, deploying its first military detachment on Bilafond La early in the morning through helicopters, while more troops were landed at key positions in Siachen and Soltoro in the following four days. About a week later, Pakistan deployed its troops at the base of the Soltoro Range under Operation Ababeel (code name). However, Indian troops under Operation Meghdoot pre-empted Pakistan’s Operation Ababeel by just one week to occupy most of the strategically important heights on Soltoro and adjacent ridges to the west of Siachen.
In the Line of Fire, General Pervez Musharraf (late), penned that during his deployment in the region as a Brigadier, he had suggested to his commander to move into Siachen in March, but his proposal was rejected due to the severity of the weather, allowing India to reach the heights before us, which was our mistake. The military superiority India achieved in Siachen began to be seen as a victory across India, creating a war fervor so intense that every vehicle carrying supplies towards Siachen proudly bore the phrase “I am going to Siachen.” Meanwhile, an Indian Major posted in Siachen faced Court-martial when he sent a fake video to his superiors for the sake of promotion, which purportedly showed capturing a Pakistani post after destroying it under his command. Currently, India controls the Soltoro, Siachen, and Bilafond ranges, while Gyong La is under Pakistani control, making it impossible for the Indian army to reach the summit of K-2.
Colonel Kumar, who embarked on a mission in 1981 to correct the map of Siachen, departed this world in 2020 with his dream unfulfilled. While India regards him as a hero of Siachen, he remained a Colonel without promotion even to the rank of Brigadier. Since the onset of the conflict over Siachen, there hasn’t been any significant change in ground positions. Regardless of their respective claims over the entire Siachen region, neither India has been able to gain complete control, nor has Pakistan been able to extend its border limits according to the American map. However, by 2021, India had lost 869 soldiers, while Pakistan had lost 2500, with approximately 85% of these deaths caused by the severe weather.
According to Pakistani statistics of 2012, India was spending approximately 48 million Rupees daily for the deployment of its 8,000 soldiers in Siachen, which is three times more than what Pakistan was spending (at that time, Pakistan had deployed only three to four thousand soldiers in Siachen). A survey by the Pakistan Meteorological Department indicated that due to the conflict and human presence, not only the rare species of snow leopard and Marco Polo sheep facing threats, but also the annual temperature rise of 0.2 degrees Celsius is causing the Siachen Glacier to shrink by 110 meters yearly.
Hidden from the world’s eye, the Siachen conflict is now entering in its fifth decade, with both adversaries stuck in a stalemate. According to American scholar and South Asian affairs expert Professor Stephen Cohen, “Siachen has no military significance; it is like two bald men fighting over a comb.” Famous British historian and a former secret service officer Brigadier. E.T. Williams, opined that it would be wiser to “monitor the region with satellites rather than stationing thousands of soldiers on a piece of ice. Identically, Former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, Sardar Muhammad Abdul Qayyum Khan (late), questioned, “When Siachen falls within the territorial boundaries of Jammu and Kashmir, what’s there to fight over?” Essentially, he wanted to know whether both countries were heading towards accepting the Line of Control as the permanent border and extending it up to Siachen or something bigger than beyond this. Although, no reaction was given over his statement, yet India and Pakistan have their respective stances on the Siachen conflict in place.
According to Major General (retd.) Sheru Thapliyal, former Corps Commander of northern India, “Pakistan aims to capture Siachen and then, in collaboration with China, seize control over the entire region from Ladakh to Aksai Chin, thereby gaining complete control over water reserves. India had thwarted a similar attempt by Pakistan in 1948.” However, experts argue that India’s claim appears unsubstantiated after the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. Pakistani defense analysts view the situation from another angle. General (retd.) Muhammad Aziz Khan believes that, besides controlling the water reservoirs, the real objective behind India’s occupation of Siachen is the direct access to the resource-rich Central Asian States via road by severing a part of Gilgit-Baltistan. However, some observers differ with this perspective. Dr. Zahid Anwar, the former head of the China Centre at Islamia College University Peshawar, interprets it as an Indian misperception. Firstly, India cannot afford to take such a risk in the presence of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities as she got a strong response after the alleged Balakot surgical strike and secondly, due to the increasing Chinese commercial activities through the Karakoram Highway (CPEC), Indian policymakers would not suggest any venture into a new campaign against China’s interests. The experience of the 1962 China-India war and subsequent border skirmishes tells us the real story.
Over time, the military leadership on both sides realized that complete victory in the region is merely a dream, yet the conflict continues without end. What could be the reason? According to Paul Brezmins, former Captain-Commander of Belgian Cavalry and the former observer of the United Nations group monitoring the Line of Control (UNMOGIP), “the major powers systematically create conflicts around the world to fuel their war industry and then deliberately create obstacles to their resolution from various angles.” He refers to the assassination of the UN’s special representative for Palestine, Mr. Count Folke Bernadotte, and Colonel André Serot, who were killed at a time when the solution to the Palestine issue was entering to its final stages. As soon as they left Jerusalem Airport on 17 September 1948, their car was attacked from three sides, leading to their assassination. To this day, not only have the assassins not been identified, but no solution to the Palestine issue has been found either. He further states that when conflicts are created, the elite of the involved country is also made stakeholders.
By 2012, the diplomatic efforts between the two countries had led to 13 joint sessions to find a solution, however, the fifth meeting that held in Islamabad in June 1989 was being the most significant where both countries were close to a solution. In this regard, Pakistani Secretary of Foreign Affairs Dr. Humayun Khan released a statement on 17 June 1989. It stated that after military experts identified the original positions, the armies of both countries would be redeployed to their previous positions in accordance with the 1972 Simla Agreement. Dr. Humayun Khan’s Indian counterpart, Mr. S.K. Singh also endorsed this.
Immediately after, Pakistan’s jihadist lobby began interpreting the Indian army’s redeployment as a retreat and a victory for Pakistan through the media, aiming to provoke a reaction in India. They got the success when Indian opposition parties started a negative propaganda campaign against Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was facing the country’s general elections that year. Consequently, the Indian government was forced to disassociate itself from any agreement involving troop withdrawal from Siachen. Later, during his visit to Pakistan, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi expressed that if “the Pakistani Secretary of Foreign Affairs had not mentioned redeployment in June 1989, they could have avoided this dilemma.”
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the Siachen issue continued, but the necessity for military withdrawal from Siachen was felt more acutely after the tragic incident on 7 April 2012, when 129 Pakistani soldiers and 11 civilians were buried under an avalanche in the Gyari sector. However, no significant progress was achieved until the ceasefire agreement of 2003. Over time, the conflict has become more complex. On one hand, the race for control over Siachen is now referred to as Oropolitics, implying the strategic use of mountaineering for political purposes, while on the other, the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan has further widened the gap of mistrust. The nature of the issue has evolved from territorial demarcation to a political dimension. Professor Robert Wirsing of the University of South Carolina also believes that the Kashmir issue and the Siachen conflict can no longer be viewed in isolation from each other.
Experts believe that the biggest beneficiary of the Siachen conflict is the “war industry” of the United States and the western countries. The highly expensive American-made special clothing required for reaching and staying in Siachen, and most of the weaponry used in this conflict, are being purchased from the American war industry, which dominates the global arms market. This situation has provided the United States not only with sales of weapons but also with an opportunity to test the technical capabilities of its weapons in the world’s highest battlefield, essentially turning it into a new testing ground.
In order to reach Siachen, Pakistan opted to procure specially designed 10-kg heavy snow boots from Canada at a lower cost instead of the USA in 1985, which turned out to be ineffective as many soldiers suffered severely from frostbite, leading to the reconsideration of purchasing from the USA. The decision to test and purchase weaponry typically rests with the head of the relevant institution, who often find opportunities for “invisible support.” Allegations of irregularities in defense deals have been levied against former Indian Army Chief General V.K. Singh, while former Chief of the Pakistani Navy, Admiral Mansurul Haq, was involved in a scandal over the procurement of submarines from France, receiving a hefty commission and later securing release against a nominal amount. This, along with the overseas assets and lavish lifestyles of some of his counterparts (post-retirement), presents a significant challenge for the current Army Chief to curb such practices.
The mindset of keeping the “status quo” on Siachen conflict is similar on both sides of the Radcliffe Line. General Hamid Gul (late), a former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), led the group that believed Pakistan should never withdraw from Siachen because the costs for India there are significantly higher. On the other hand, a statement by former Indian Army Chief General Bikram Singh also emerged, indicating that “the army will not come down from strategically important positions in Siachen, though the final decision rests with the government.” This approach and direction by the military establishment indirectly serve as structural support to the western war industry. However, history teaches us that war always leads to the economic devastation of developing countries while energizing the war industry of developed and powerful nations. Equally, powerful countries keep facilitator states economically weak to maintain their dependence. This is what “Dependency Theory” suggests.
It is understandable that the western war industry engages in the trade of arms, but for a state with a weak economy like Pakistan to engage in expensive military ventures like the Kargil operation and maintain the “status quo” in Siachen, only to take loans from the IMF and other international financial institutions, is perplexing. This is the stage where our domestic and foreign policies are compromised. Joining the American alliance led to Afghanistan becoming a battleground twice, which directly impacted our national security, economy, politics, and culture. Before the Afghan jihad, our society was unfamiliar with drugs, Kalashnikov, sectarianism, and jihadist culture. Although the USA has left the region, yet we are still receiving the bodies of our soldiers stationed at the border and might continue to be part of proxy wars against ISIS, TTP, and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for decades, which will directly affect our economy.
Here, the question arises that who exactly makes these critical and sensitive decisions regarding war and peace in Pakistan? According to Lieutenant General (retd) Talat Masood, from the beginning, Pakistan has perceived threats from both India and Afghanistan, therefore, the military has retained the authority to formulate policies for these countries. However, these policies, aimed at short-term goals, often become ineffective over time, leading to new problems. We must have to change our policies, especially to play a significant role in regional peace. This is way to set the country on the path of development. According to Professor Dr. Yunas Samad from the University of Bradford, an expert on South Asian affairs, “Regional peace and national development can only be pursued when states set relations with each other on mutual interests rather than over supporting militant groups.” It would be better that all decisions related to domestic and foreign policy matters to be made within the Parliament, which is the country’s sovereign institution and supreme policy-making forum. Politicians have the capability to make decisions according to the time and situation, which are also sustainable. We have seen that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (late) refused the military’s request to capture Srinagar, stating that in the presence of the Line of Control, such an endeavour would bring nothing but international disgrace to Pakistan.
We have also perceived that following the Lahore Declaration of 1999 between India and Pakistan, the government of Nawaz Sharif was circumvented, and the conflict of Kargil was initiated under the pretext of contesting the Indian occupation of Siachen, leading Pakistan to face economic losses as well as international humiliation and isolation. Even if Pakistan had managed to gain control over Kargil, it would have been compelled to withdraw due to the clear demarcation of the Line of Control (LoC) and the existence of a “gentleman’s agreement” on Kargil. This situation cannot be directly compared to Siachen, where the absence of any clearly demarcation of LoC means that international laws do not directly apply to military movements in any direction.
Nevertheless, the establishment of peace in the world is against the interests of the “war industry,” which has roots so deep that investigations into such military ventures are virtually impossible in countries with weak political structures like Pakistan. However, history shows that war is not a solution to the issue but a problem in itself. This is evidenced by the fact that despite the leading Great Britain to victory in World War II, Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill’s ruling party faced a devastating defeat in the 1945 general elections, as a majority of the public believed that Churchill had unnecessarily dragged the country into war.
(Note: This article has been specially written on the completion of forty years of the Siachen Glacier conflict. Readers have the right to disagree with the opinions expressed herein. You may approach via email. dfrehman65@gmail.com)