rediff.com: India rebuilds defences a year after Kargil

India's military establishment has raised a new corps to defend the frozen Himalayan heights of Kargil, launched an arms-buying spree and ordered a review of the nation's security system.

Taken by surprise last year by the biggest peacetime influx of hundreds of armed intruders in disputed Kashmir, India's military planners want to lay to rest the ghosts of Kargil.

Nearly 500 soldiers died on the icy slopes in a ten-week offensive to repel the intruders.

Now, buoyed by a 28 per cent hike in defence spending plans for the fiscal year to March 2001, the military is refurbishing extensively.

"The re-arming of India has begun but it will take time," said G Balachandran, an independent security affairs expert.

"Most of the big ticket projects are years old and even if the orders are passed now, it will take time before the forces get it," he said.

The intruders exploited gaps in India's defence and intelligence resources left by years of pressure on spending to seize a piece of land near the military ceasefire line that divides Kashmir with Pakistan, a government-appointed panel said.

Soldiers fought battles at dizzying heights of 17,000 feet, using heavy 30-year-old guns and in uniforms that hardly kept them warm.

"The cost of nearly 500 military personnel killed was bad enough. The trauma of being caught off-guard and surprised was equally shocking," said retired Lieutenant General V R Raghavan.

This winter, troops were deployed across the snow-bound heights of Kargil near the control line with new snow gear, guns and plenty of tinned food.

"Unlike last year, we had proper winter clothing, sleeping bags, and fibre reinforced plastic huts," said an army captain back from the frontline. "We were also acclimatised better."

Aerial surveillance vehicles, advanced listening devices and an artillery-locating radar are being acquired for frontline troops, Defence Minister George Fernandes told anxious members of Parliament last week.

"The army has been deployed in direct eyeball to eyeball confrontation with adversary's troops, we have initiated several counter measures to thwart any attack," he told Parliament.

The army, which has been given more than half the defence allocation of Rs 585.87 billion ($ 13.62 billion) for fiscal 2000/200, is in talks with Russian manufacturers to buy T-90 tanks, Fernandes said.

The Indian Air Force, which relentlessly pounded the Kargil intruders last summer, is looking to buy new fighter planes and a jet trainer aircraft it has sought for more than a decade.

British Aerospace and France's Dassault Aviation lead the race to supply the training aircraft, the deal for which could be worth as much as $ 1.5 billion.

The new trainers are expected to reduce flying accidents in the air force, which lost 552 planes and 200 pilots in the 10 years to 1988/89.

Despite the increased money available and the step-up in defence purchases, some experts are sceptical whether the country's security has improved.

The sudden surge in spending is more of a knee-jerk response to defence requirements, while the country needs a clear, long term arms acquisition policy, they say.

"The last 50 years of India's history show a tendency of going to sleep over security matters and waking up when one of our neighbours attacks us, " said K Subrahmanyam, the country's leading security expert.

(c) Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


	HOME \| NEWS \| REUTERS \| REPORT

India rebuilds defences a year after Kargil: Reuters