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2 India takes glacier tussle to new
heights By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - The world's highest and
coldest battlefield, the Siachen Glacier, will
soon figure on the list of dream destinations of
trekkers. The glacier, which until a few years ago
resounded with the rattle of gunfire, is being
thrown open to trekkers. But even as the first
expedition of Indian civilians prepares to set
off, there is trouble brewing. Pakistan has raised
objections to India opening the disputed glacier.
A team of 20 Indians - mainly civilians -
is expected to set off for
the
Siachen Glacier soon. They were to leave this
Wednesday but this has been deferred until Sunday.
The team will train first at Leh in the Ladakh
region of Jammu and Kashmir and then at the
Siachen base camp, after which they will head off
to the 72-kilometer-long glacier - the longest
outside the polar regions.
The Siachen
Glacier is cradled in the eastern Karakoram Range
of the Himalayas. At the junction between India,
Pakistan and China, the glacier slides between the
Saltoro Ridge to its west and the main Karakoram
Range to the east, and overlooks the strategic
Karakoram Pass.
The glacier is notorious
for its inhospitable climate and treacherous
terrain. Temperatures drop to about minus-40
degrees Celsius, and blizzards touch speeds of
about 300 km/h, earning it the nickname "the third
pole". Avalanches are routine, and crevasses are
described as "man-eaters". What makes survival
there all the more difficult is the altitude; at
5,472 meters above sea level, air is thin, and the
lungs beg for oxygen. High-altitude pulmonary and
cerebral edemas are not uncommon.
Both
India and Pakistan claim the Siachen Glacier, but
India is in control of it. The dispute's roots can
be traced to a failure to demarcate the boundary
in this part of Jammu and Kashmir. Under the 1949
Karachi Agreement, the ceasefire line (CFL) on the
map ended at a grid point with coordinates NJ 9842
(this was the northernmost point where troops were
deployed during the India-Pakistan War of
1947-48).
The CFL became the Line of
Control (LoC) under the 1972 Simla Agreement. But
under this agreement too the endpoint of the
demarcated boundary remained the same. The
boundary beyond NJ 9842 was referred to simply as
"thence northwards to the glaciers". The Siachen
Glacier is such inhospitable terrain that nobody
thought it necessary to demarcate the boundary
there even as late as 1972. But that changed in
subsequent years.
In the late 1970s, India
woke up to the fact that publications abroad were
carrying maps showing the LoC extended northeast
from NJ 9842 to the Karakoram Pass, putting the
Siachen Glacier under Pakistani control. The
cartographic aggression was accompanied by
oropolitics (use of mountaineering for political
purposes) - Pakistan was launching foreign
mountaineering expeditions from the part of
Kashmir under its control to peaks such as Saltoro
Kangri and Teram Kangri, which flank the glacier.
In the early 1980s, India learned of Pakistan's
purchase of high-altitude fighting gear.
In April 1984, India landed two platoons
of soldiers on the two key passes of Bilafond La
and Sia La on the Saltoro Ridge. Pakistan had been
effectively preempted. And since then, the Siachen
Glacier has been under Indian control.
In
the two decades since, the armed forces of the two
countries have engaged in fierce fighting. "But
the fighting is not on the glacier itself or
anywhere near it," a retired Indian Army official
who has served on the Siachen pointed out. "Indian
soldiers are sitting on the Saltoro Ridge to the
west of the glacier. Between the Pakistani forces
and the glacier, there are high mountain peaks
controlled by India."
Both sides have lost
thousands of soldiers in the conflict over the
Siachen. Most of the deaths have been due to its
biting-cold weather and high-altitude sicknesses
rather than enemy fire. India has suffered more
losses, as its soldiers are on the heights.
In November 2003, India and Pakistan
agreed to a ceasefire along the international
border, the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the
"actual ground position line" in the Siachen. The
ceasefire has held since. As part of the ongoing
composite dialogue, Pakistan and India have
discussed the Siachen issue and have engaged in 11
rounds of talks on it.
Analysts say that
of all the issues over which India and Pakistan
spar, it is the Siachen conflict that is the
easiest to resolve. Both sides realize the
enormous human and material costs they have
incurred in keeping their soldiers deployed in the
icy heights. Both would like to end this wasteful
and inhuman conflict. Yet an agreement has
remained elusive.
Pakistan would of course
like India to vacate the Siachen. It has been
calling for demilitarization of the glacier.
The Indian government is not opposed to
demilitarization - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
has in fact called for the creation of a "peace
mountain" at the Siachen. But it wants the ground
position
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