Far from mobilising for an attack, the Indian Army was actually short of troops in the Kargil-Drass sector. In his bizarre alternate version of history, the General sees the Indian Army massing on the border for an attack across Kargil since 1998-George Fernandes' frequent morale-boosting visits to Siachen are seen as shrill precursors to rallying troops for the impending offensive-and the General worries India could use attacks by "Mujahideen" on Siachen (at over 18,000 feet!) as a pretext for its offensive. It is now an established fact that the 1999 Kargil War was an ill-conceived, ill-timed misadventure by Pakistan that saw it suffer a humiliating defeat.
#Warped reality dalhi Patch#
"Goebbels was not a patch on Musharraf," says Kargil Review Committee Chairman K Subrahmanyam. "I never saw him reading or writing anything." When the redoubtable General writes, it seems, he never lets facts come in the way of a good story. "I must say I was quite amused by his style of working," Musharraf sniggers about Nawaz Sharif, his boss whom he would subsequently depose in a coup. It's a myth that Pakistan army suffered huge casualties.ĬEASEFIRE: Sharif agreed to a ceasefire when the army was in no danger of being dislodged from Kargil. MUJAHIDEEN: Army moved to support militants who had occupied the heights. Troops visited by defence minister George Fernandes.ĭEFENSIVE MOVE: Pakistan's Kargil operation was purely defensive and in response to India's moves. IMPENDING ATTACK: India preparing to attack since 1998. The Kargil operations were a landmark in the history of the Pakistan Army-five battalions compelled India to deploy more than four divisions.” It remains a mystery why he was in such a hurry. I told the PM that India could not launch an all-out offensive as we had the strategic advantage, yet he went off to the US and decided on a ceasefire. After the ingresses, the Indians were able to clear only a few outposts in three of the five areas. The army briefed prime minister Sharif about the maneuvers. By the end of April 1999, unoccupied gaps along 120 kilometres of the LoC had been secured, it did not violate any agreement.
“India appeared on the verge of an attack across the LoC and we planned a defensive manoeuvre in the northern area to prevent it. Once again the General found himself, well, in the line of fire. Rarely does a President of a nation use a state visit to launch his book or even pen his reminiscences of recent history with such stunning candour coupled with a blatant disregard for the established reality.įor India, whether it was his warped version of the Kargil War, his illusions about the failed Agra peace talks, his disparaging remarks about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or even his absurd insinuations that the country's nuclear establishment was using the same clandestine network as that of Pakistan's rogue scientist A.Q. I have actually liberated the media." Unperturbed by the response in the room, the General held forth on how under him Pakistan had emerged from wilderness and was on the path to be a world-beater-more ways than one, as some in the room remarked in sotto vocce.īy the end of the week, there was little doubt that the former commando had taken the world by storm with his audacity. I tread on a path which no leader had previously dared to go. To much tittering among the 600-strong audience, Musharraf launched his book tour by claiming, "Ladies and gentlemen, I've done something quite unprecedented in the history of Pakistan. Clad in a smart brown suit, the bespectacled General with streaks of gray on either temple, was a picture of certitude-hardly the caricature of a man whose credibility both internationally and domestically is at its lowest ebb ever. The spirit of that adage from one of America's greatest leaders held true when Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf launched his autobiography in New York on September 25.
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