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From Kargil to the Coup: Events that Shook Pakistan
Ever since the Kargil war of 1999 between then newly nuclearized India and Pakistan, there has been endless speculation about the precise motivations, planning and execution of the operation. In her long-awaited study of Kargil, Nasim Zehra combines hitherto unknown information garnered from key players in the Pakistani military establishment involved in the planning of the incursion with a historically grounded and analytically nuanced analysis of the Indo-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir.
She convincingly shows how the Kargil conflict accentuated Pakistan's relations with not only India and the United States of America but also brought to the fore age-old tensions between the civil and military arms of the state, resulting in the 1999 military coup.
A gripping account of the Kargil war as it unfolded surreptitiously and then flagrantly, this study puts to rest myths about the relative strengths of the military decision-making process in Pakistan compared to its civilian counterpart, underscoring the imperative need to streamline both with a view to facilitating more cooperative relations between them, especially in the realm of strategic security.
Well researched and persuasively argued, the book is mandatory reading for students of international relations and South Asia. (Professor Ayesha Jalal, Historian) Nasim Zehra s book is a remarkably honest, bold, diligent and well-researched account of the Kargil episode, a doomed initiative, conceived in shadows, without a thought-through institutional evaluation and based on a misreading of the international situation. The author combines a wealth of information and a good deal of fresh detail with scholarly insights and deep analysis. She has produced a comprehensive landmark case study- a must read- of great value to policy makers and scholars in Pakistan and to the wider readership interested in the history and political affairs of the country and the region. (Riaz M Khan, Senior Diplomat, former Foreign Secretary) The Kargil episode has remained an enigma both in Pakistan as well as India. Shrouded in secrecy, the deafening silence on this conflict has given rise to many conspiracies, rumours and ill-informed opinions on both sides of the divide, in India and Pakistan.
In this book, the author has collated facts painstakingly and juxtaposed them into the regional environment. She establishes the context of this conflict in the light of the US-Afghan issues at the time, the international concerns in view of the potential of a Nuclear Conflict, the contradictions of the Lahore Declaration and the history of the Line of Control. An extremely well analysed study that will remain a reference point for any further study. (Lt General (retd) Tariq Khan, Pakistan Army Armoured Corps).
She convincingly shows how the Kargil conflict accentuated Pakistan's relations with not only India and the United States of America but also brought to the fore age-old tensions between the civil and military arms of the state, resulting in the 1999 military coup.
A gripping account of the Kargil war as it unfolded surreptitiously and then flagrantly, this study puts to rest myths about the relative strengths of the military decision-making process in Pakistan compared to its civilian counterpart, underscoring the imperative need to streamline both with a view to facilitating more cooperative relations between them, especially in the realm of strategic security.
Well researched and persuasively argued, the book is mandatory reading for students of international relations and South Asia. (Professor Ayesha Jalal, Historian) Nasim Zehra s book is a remarkably honest, bold, diligent and well-researched account of the Kargil episode, a doomed initiative, conceived in shadows, without a thought-through institutional evaluation and based on a misreading of the international situation. The author combines a wealth of information and a good deal of fresh detail with scholarly insights and deep analysis. She has produced a comprehensive landmark case study- a must read- of great value to policy makers and scholars in Pakistan and to the wider readership interested in the history and political affairs of the country and the region. (Riaz M Khan, Senior Diplomat, former Foreign Secretary) The Kargil episode has remained an enigma both in Pakistan as well as India. Shrouded in secrecy, the deafening silence on this conflict has given rise to many conspiracies, rumours and ill-informed opinions on both sides of the divide, in India and Pakistan.
In this book, the author has collated facts painstakingly and juxtaposed them into the regional environment. She establishes the context of this conflict in the light of the US-Afghan issues at the time, the international concerns in view of the potential of a Nuclear Conflict, the contradictions of the Lahore Declaration and the history of the Line of Control. An extremely well analysed study that will remain a reference point for any further study. (Lt General (retd) Tariq Khan, Pakistan Army Armoured Corps).
532 pages, Hardcover
First published May 17, 2018
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May 27, 2024
I decided to read this book in the 25th year since the Kargil war between India and Pakistan. This is a very detailed account on the background to and the actual incidents leading to the Kargil war, from the Pakistani perspective.
The Pakistan army codenamed this ‘Operation Koh Paima’. The book starts with the historical context on the dispute around Kashmir between India & Pakistan. The Pakistan army was smarting after the loss of the Bangladesh war in 1971, and India establishing its posts in Siachen in 1984. Knowing that the Pakistan army was no match for the Indian army in explicit combat, covert operations (including terrorism – not the author’s word) was preferred. As part of this Kargil incursion, Pakistan established nearly 200 posts 14 kms into Indian territory. After both states went nuclear, Pakistan thought nuclear blackmail was an effective strategy, and India would be forced to negotiate rather than fight back. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was informed at a later stage when fighting with Indian forces started – and not told clearly that hundreds of troops had crossed the line of control. Musharaf exuded confidence that the Pakistani troops could not be dislodged from the heights they had occupied. Sharif was told that he would be regarded as ‘Fatah-i-Kashmir’, the one who would have won Kashmir and he would be regarded as the greatest Pakistani after Jinnah. This led to him apparently hallucinating about the glory coming his way, and he started imagining himself hoisting the Pakistani flag in Srinagar. A few in the government did have their doubts about the operation and the consequences which would result. Sharif, in the initial stages of the conflict, high as a result of his imagination running wild, haughtily told Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee that the heights were occupied by mujahideen/fighters who had their moral support. In reality, they were all Pakistani soldiers.
Nothing after that went the way Musharaf or Sharif expected. Vajpayee told Sharif clearly that he felt betrayed since he had invested time & effort in a peace process, and he would ensure Indian territory was cleared. Internationally, Pakistan was isolated and was losing the war in the next few weeks. Since Pakistan had to keep up the pretence that these were mujahideen, the bodies of the solders had to be buried by India. Indian army men, backed by the air force and the Bofors guns pummelled the Pakistani positions & captured key peaks, though a lot of lives tragically were lost on both sides. India could acknowledge and pay tribute to her sons who died fighting, Pakistan could not. India called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff, and for Pakistan another war was lost, badly. Later, the strains between the army and government increased, leading to the coup. The Pakistan Kargil plotters managed to save face, gaining power – dumping all the blame for the Kargil fiasco on Sharif. As the author mentions – the generals blundered on the battlefield but won in the local political war.
I liked that the book provides a detailed account of the events leading to and after the Kargil war. This in my view will be a more reliable account than Musharaf’s own (which I have not read but in which he will mostly glorify himself). The author sticks to safety in a few aspects as one would expect – she avoids discussion on the vast terror infrastructure in Pakistan instead using phrases like “lack of progress in dialogue yielded space for armed conflict”. She similarly downplays the invasion of Kashmir which Pakistan initiated almost immediately after both nations became free, instead harping on India taking control of Siachen. That said, I would not have expected anything different in the book.
The author compliments both Sharif and Vajpayee for making a sincere attempt to strike peace between the two nations, and admits the Kargil war was a disastrous setback. There is a clear expression of extreme disappointment at the loss of face for Pakistan – the bigger tragedy though is the loss of life on both sides due to Musharaf’s recklessness. As one would expect, the Indian viewpoints are limited – especially around terrorism which is a serious omission. I found the last sections on the postmortem of military strategy and execution to be boring. The book could have been crisper.
Overall, an informative read.
My rating: 3.75 / 5.
The Pakistan army codenamed this ‘Operation Koh Paima’. The book starts with the historical context on the dispute around Kashmir between India & Pakistan. The Pakistan army was smarting after the loss of the Bangladesh war in 1971, and India establishing its posts in Siachen in 1984. Knowing that the Pakistan army was no match for the Indian army in explicit combat, covert operations (including terrorism – not the author’s word) was preferred. As part of this Kargil incursion, Pakistan established nearly 200 posts 14 kms into Indian territory. After both states went nuclear, Pakistan thought nuclear blackmail was an effective strategy, and India would be forced to negotiate rather than fight back. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was informed at a later stage when fighting with Indian forces started – and not told clearly that hundreds of troops had crossed the line of control. Musharaf exuded confidence that the Pakistani troops could not be dislodged from the heights they had occupied. Sharif was told that he would be regarded as ‘Fatah-i-Kashmir’, the one who would have won Kashmir and he would be regarded as the greatest Pakistani after Jinnah. This led to him apparently hallucinating about the glory coming his way, and he started imagining himself hoisting the Pakistani flag in Srinagar. A few in the government did have their doubts about the operation and the consequences which would result. Sharif, in the initial stages of the conflict, high as a result of his imagination running wild, haughtily told Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee that the heights were occupied by mujahideen/fighters who had their moral support. In reality, they were all Pakistani soldiers.
Nothing after that went the way Musharaf or Sharif expected. Vajpayee told Sharif clearly that he felt betrayed since he had invested time & effort in a peace process, and he would ensure Indian territory was cleared. Internationally, Pakistan was isolated and was losing the war in the next few weeks. Since Pakistan had to keep up the pretence that these were mujahideen, the bodies of the solders had to be buried by India. Indian army men, backed by the air force and the Bofors guns pummelled the Pakistani positions & captured key peaks, though a lot of lives tragically were lost on both sides. India could acknowledge and pay tribute to her sons who died fighting, Pakistan could not. India called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff, and for Pakistan another war was lost, badly. Later, the strains between the army and government increased, leading to the coup. The Pakistan Kargil plotters managed to save face, gaining power – dumping all the blame for the Kargil fiasco on Sharif. As the author mentions – the generals blundered on the battlefield but won in the local political war.
I liked that the book provides a detailed account of the events leading to and after the Kargil war. This in my view will be a more reliable account than Musharaf’s own (which I have not read but in which he will mostly glorify himself). The author sticks to safety in a few aspects as one would expect – she avoids discussion on the vast terror infrastructure in Pakistan instead using phrases like “lack of progress in dialogue yielded space for armed conflict”. She similarly downplays the invasion of Kashmir which Pakistan initiated almost immediately after both nations became free, instead harping on India taking control of Siachen. That said, I would not have expected anything different in the book.
The author compliments both Sharif and Vajpayee for making a sincere attempt to strike peace between the two nations, and admits the Kargil war was a disastrous setback. There is a clear expression of extreme disappointment at the loss of face for Pakistan – the bigger tragedy though is the loss of life on both sides due to Musharaf’s recklessness. As one would expect, the Indian viewpoints are limited – especially around terrorism which is a serious omission. I found the last sections on the postmortem of military strategy and execution to be boring. The book could have been crisper.
Overall, an informative read.
My rating: 3.75 / 5.
September 28, 2020
The year 1999 was another turbulent one in Pakistan's history.The previous year had been marked by the nuclear tests of India and Pakistan had to follow suit.In 1999,first came the Kargil War and in October,came General Musharraf's coup which deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (his second out of three stints in power,none of which ended happily).
The author is a journalist,and later became a TV news anchor.A few years back,I had read excerpts from this book in daily Dawn.Those excerpts were well chosen and made me want to read the whole book.
The book is a rather haphazard and rambling account,however.As the author mentions,she relied a lot on primary sources and interviewed many key figures and civilian and military officials.She is thus able to write a good deal about what was said during various meetings and briefings.
However,the presentation is pretty shoddy,and not very coherent.There is a whole lot of needless detail,which could easily have been trimmed.It is a very lengthy book,and I had to do a great deal of skimming.It is not compelling enough to be read word for word.
She does direct the blame at what she calls the "Kargil clique" and their whimsical and erratic decision making.That's fair enough,it was ill planned and a lot of blood of soldiers was shed in vain.As I remember it,the country during that summer of 1999,was more pre occupied by the cricket World Cup than the sacrifices of the soldiers.
Certainly,she is soft on then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,who is presented as a victim of the whole affair.Sharif's own authoratarian tendencies and centralization of power,during that stint in government are not highlighted.
Moving on to the coup of October '99,again the account is not compelling and drags a fair bit.General Musharraf's own book,In the Line of Fire and Lt.Gen.Shahid Aziz's book,Yeh Khamoshi Kahan Tak,provide a much more interesting account of those events.
Overall a disappointing book and the original research gets a bit lost in the mountains of needless words and details.
The author is a journalist,and later became a TV news anchor.A few years back,I had read excerpts from this book in daily Dawn.Those excerpts were well chosen and made me want to read the whole book.
The book is a rather haphazard and rambling account,however.As the author mentions,she relied a lot on primary sources and interviewed many key figures and civilian and military officials.She is thus able to write a good deal about what was said during various meetings and briefings.
However,the presentation is pretty shoddy,and not very coherent.There is a whole lot of needless detail,which could easily have been trimmed.It is a very lengthy book,and I had to do a great deal of skimming.It is not compelling enough to be read word for word.
She does direct the blame at what she calls the "Kargil clique" and their whimsical and erratic decision making.That's fair enough,it was ill planned and a lot of blood of soldiers was shed in vain.As I remember it,the country during that summer of 1999,was more pre occupied by the cricket World Cup than the sacrifices of the soldiers.
Certainly,she is soft on then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,who is presented as a victim of the whole affair.Sharif's own authoratarian tendencies and centralization of power,during that stint in government are not highlighted.
Moving on to the coup of October '99,again the account is not compelling and drags a fair bit.General Musharraf's own book,In the Line of Fire and Lt.Gen.Shahid Aziz's book,Yeh Khamoshi Kahan Tak,provide a much more interesting account of those events.
Overall a disappointing book and the original research gets a bit lost in the mountains of needless words and details.
June 1, 2018
"Even the non-living object cannot escape the logic of interdependency, of interconnectedness."
"To what degree can constitutional power be exercised is dependent on how the elected leadership determines the context in which it operates."
–Nasim Zehra
'Nasim Zehra, in my opinion has written an 'excellent' book. It features historiographic and extreme 'comprehensiveness' of the entire Kargil chapter of Pakistan. A brimful account of the 'Kargil' episode, indeed! I doubt if any 'documented' conversation, quotes, by most actors involved, and major events have been left out.
Agreeing with 'Ayesha Jalal', I also believe the book is a 'must' study for students of Military history, Students of Politics/IR, and general enthusiasts who want to look deeply into the chapter that also lead to the infamous coup.
I'm in 'awe' of this lady's dedication, of how diligently she has dissected and presented all facts including rumors and half truths circling the environment at that time. Not leaving 'anything' officially documented and undocumented out. How she has included an astute viewpoint of Kargil warfare, both 'Militarily' and 'Politically'.
I'm inspired and I feel proud every time I come across a strong, successful Pakistani 'woman', who's work is impressive, commendable and worthy of appreciation.'
Thank you, Nasim Zehra.
"To what degree can constitutional power be exercised is dependent on how the elected leadership determines the context in which it operates."
–Nasim Zehra
'Nasim Zehra, in my opinion has written an 'excellent' book. It features historiographic and extreme 'comprehensiveness' of the entire Kargil chapter of Pakistan. A brimful account of the 'Kargil' episode, indeed! I doubt if any 'documented' conversation, quotes, by most actors involved, and major events have been left out.
Agreeing with 'Ayesha Jalal', I also believe the book is a 'must' study for students of Military history, Students of Politics/IR, and general enthusiasts who want to look deeply into the chapter that also lead to the infamous coup.
I'm in 'awe' of this lady's dedication, of how diligently she has dissected and presented all facts including rumors and half truths circling the environment at that time. Not leaving 'anything' officially documented and undocumented out. How she has included an astute viewpoint of Kargil warfare, both 'Militarily' and 'Politically'.
I'm inspired and I feel proud every time I come across a strong, successful Pakistani 'woman', who's work is impressive, commendable and worthy of appreciation.'
Thank you, Nasim Zehra.
October 29, 2018
The topic attracts instantly. There being not much on the conflict from Pakistani authors. The name of Nasim Zehra adds further lure to it as she has been a known name in current affairs for quite a while now.
The book has a logical start and builds on nicely, gripping the reader in anticipation of more to come. Its evenly poised at times where the author extensively quotes views of both antagonists of the conflict. However, at some point it leaves the plain of objectivity, if there was any, and turns into a gossip churning machine. Page afer page, revelation after revelation it comes out that the whole basis of it is some gossip in a coffee corner hither and tither.
One reason is definitely the lack of offcial military version or publicly shared records on the conflict from Pakistan Army but the other very important one is the lack of author's knowledge about basic military matters or tactics. She glosses over the fine details and suddenly builds a strategic scenario with little or no connection between both. Small tactical details are either missing or wrong. A scoop here and a scoop there is added, spiced up and produced.
This is no military history, this aint a classical political science one either. Probably working long enough on TV talk shows has got the once brilliant writer we knew from Defense Journal.
She praises the troops and young leaders on ground but pins it on the Higher command at all levels. Labels poor planning, wrong unsustainable aims and kind of a conspiracy that doomed the operation ab initio. The political scenario runs along with NS coming in and out. At times there are repititions which break what ever pleasure one is getting out of it. A recommended read only if you have to read about Kargil Operation.
The book has a logical start and builds on nicely, gripping the reader in anticipation of more to come. Its evenly poised at times where the author extensively quotes views of both antagonists of the conflict. However, at some point it leaves the plain of objectivity, if there was any, and turns into a gossip churning machine. Page afer page, revelation after revelation it comes out that the whole basis of it is some gossip in a coffee corner hither and tither.
One reason is definitely the lack of offcial military version or publicly shared records on the conflict from Pakistan Army but the other very important one is the lack of author's knowledge about basic military matters or tactics. She glosses over the fine details and suddenly builds a strategic scenario with little or no connection between both. Small tactical details are either missing or wrong. A scoop here and a scoop there is added, spiced up and produced.
This is no military history, this aint a classical political science one either. Probably working long enough on TV talk shows has got the once brilliant writer we knew from Defense Journal.
She praises the troops and young leaders on ground but pins it on the Higher command at all levels. Labels poor planning, wrong unsustainable aims and kind of a conspiracy that doomed the operation ab initio. The political scenario runs along with NS coming in and out. At times there are repititions which break what ever pleasure one is getting out of it. A recommended read only if you have to read about Kargil Operation.
September 2, 2018
A most unique gift for Pakistan and Pakistanis interested in the whole Kargil episode and the resulting coup which ousted the second tenure of Nawaz Sharif. In the detailed story and analysis, Nasim puts to rest the ancient tradition of fables and folklore prevalent on Pakistani culture when it comes to significant events like the wars and coups.
India started the first incursion over LOC in 1984 in Siachin, surprising the Pakistanis. The then President who was also the army chief chose not to internationalize this incursion, choosing instead to downplay this incident and to locally deal with the Indian incursion. With the reliance of international community on Pakistan to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, he could have easily used Siachin incursion to force back the Indians which is exactly what the Indians did when a small clique of generals chose to emulate India in Kargil. The whole Kargil affair not only exposed the weak leadership of the Pakistan army and the civilian government but exposed the distrust and disunity among the two governing bodies of the country. Kargil also cost Pakistan, perhaps the only real chance to reach a settlement on Kashmir issue as the International community was pressurizing India to negotiate in the wake of nuclear tests by India followed by Pakistan. But again the rift between the Army and Civilians was fully exploited by the Indians and the Americans to 'convince' NS to retrieve unilaterally from the heights of Kargil, which as a theatre of so many young lives lost. The Americans used their influence to get a favourable response for India thus getting closer to the Indians which was yet another blow to the Pakistani government.
Book is long read and has a lot of repetitions which make it a bit of a struggle to read, but content-wise this book is a goldmine.
India started the first incursion over LOC in 1984 in Siachin, surprising the Pakistanis. The then President who was also the army chief chose not to internationalize this incursion, choosing instead to downplay this incident and to locally deal with the Indian incursion. With the reliance of international community on Pakistan to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, he could have easily used Siachin incursion to force back the Indians which is exactly what the Indians did when a small clique of generals chose to emulate India in Kargil. The whole Kargil affair not only exposed the weak leadership of the Pakistan army and the civilian government but exposed the distrust and disunity among the two governing bodies of the country. Kargil also cost Pakistan, perhaps the only real chance to reach a settlement on Kashmir issue as the International community was pressurizing India to negotiate in the wake of nuclear tests by India followed by Pakistan. But again the rift between the Army and Civilians was fully exploited by the Indians and the Americans to 'convince' NS to retrieve unilaterally from the heights of Kargil, which as a theatre of so many young lives lost. The Americans used their influence to get a favourable response for India thus getting closer to the Indians which was yet another blow to the Pakistani government.
Book is long read and has a lot of repetitions which make it a bit of a struggle to read, but content-wise this book is a goldmine.
June 26, 2021
A comprehensive, thorough and detailed study on the infamous, “conceived-in-shadows” Kargil Crisis of the 1999; with enough references and resources to it’s credibility.
Although Nasim Zehra’s writing style was too irritating for me, she kept on repeating the same scenarios over and over with different adjectives and sensations, dragging it to 500+ pages.
Starting from a US-Afghan conflict with Osama Bin Laden’s threat looming over Americans, to the international concerns of South Asia becoming a nuclear region, the Lahore Summit, Pakistan’s successful ongoing foreign relations with India, to some of the Military’s top brass messing it all up through their adventure plan of seizing Kashmir, without consulting the civilian leadership, or even the intelligence agencies; this book is a well-researched unfolding into the enigmatic Kargil War, and the eventual military coup that followed.
What surprised me the most was the highly unprofessional manner in which the military’s top generals conducted the plannings and implications of the Operation, and how the civilian leadership got hell bent on removing the military chief at any cost.
From a historical perspective, Operation “Koh e Paima” had strikingly similar features with Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand Slam; all three planned on desires and sentiments of the planners, on the key note of “India will never strike back”.
In Pakistan, do we ever let ourselves learn from history?
Although Nasim Zehra’s writing style was too irritating for me, she kept on repeating the same scenarios over and over with different adjectives and sensations, dragging it to 500+ pages.
Starting from a US-Afghan conflict with Osama Bin Laden’s threat looming over Americans, to the international concerns of South Asia becoming a nuclear region, the Lahore Summit, Pakistan’s successful ongoing foreign relations with India, to some of the Military’s top brass messing it all up through their adventure plan of seizing Kashmir, without consulting the civilian leadership, or even the intelligence agencies; this book is a well-researched unfolding into the enigmatic Kargil War, and the eventual military coup that followed.
What surprised me the most was the highly unprofessional manner in which the military’s top generals conducted the plannings and implications of the Operation, and how the civilian leadership got hell bent on removing the military chief at any cost.
From a historical perspective, Operation “Koh e Paima” had strikingly similar features with Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand Slam; all three planned on desires and sentiments of the planners, on the key note of “India will never strike back”.
In Pakistan, do we ever let ourselves learn from history?
July 18, 2020
This is the first time I was reading an account of Kargil (or any other conflict for that matter) from inside Pakistan. I am used to hearing terms like Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, and for a change I was reading India Occupied Kashmir. The hostilities between India and Pakistan are quite deep rooted and each side has their own version of it. From an Indian perspective Pakistan does LOC violations frequently and in this book Pakistan has been depicted as a victim of Indian violations at LOC. Siachin (Operation Meghdoot) has been portrayed as an aggression by India and considered a violation of Shimla agreement.
This book clearly indicated that the Kargil operation was a planned operation by Pakistan Army since 1980's. However, I would not call it a well planned operation as the severe short sightedness in the planning has come out quite clearly in the book.
As the book's title indicates, this is to cover the Kargil conflict of 1999 and the subsequent political turmoil in Pakistan resulting in a military coup.
The book starts with 1947 and a brief of all subsequent conflicts between India and Pakistan and then the book spends considerable number of pages in explaining Kashmir problem and Siachin issue in quite detail, which may be required for a reader who is unfamiliar with the conflict between the two countries. Important to note here is that the book present Pakistan's version and reasoning of the issues.
The major problem I found in this book was that the author has not been able to provide a smooth flow to the events. She has repeated same information (quite similar language also) at multiple places in the book. This multiplication of information broke the flow of the book. At one point she suddenly talked about the month of June and July 1999 and in subsequent chapter again went back in time. The same arguments were repeated at many places.
Whatever case she was trying to make in the book, she has failed to do so. And the reason is her non-fluid writing style.
This book clearly indicated that the Kargil operation was a planned operation by Pakistan Army since 1980's. However, I would not call it a well planned operation as the severe short sightedness in the planning has come out quite clearly in the book.
As the book's title indicates, this is to cover the Kargil conflict of 1999 and the subsequent political turmoil in Pakistan resulting in a military coup.
The book starts with 1947 and a brief of all subsequent conflicts between India and Pakistan and then the book spends considerable number of pages in explaining Kashmir problem and Siachin issue in quite detail, which may be required for a reader who is unfamiliar with the conflict between the two countries. Important to note here is that the book present Pakistan's version and reasoning of the issues.
The major problem I found in this book was that the author has not been able to provide a smooth flow to the events. She has repeated same information (quite similar language also) at multiple places in the book. This multiplication of information broke the flow of the book. At one point she suddenly talked about the month of June and July 1999 and in subsequent chapter again went back in time. The same arguments were repeated at many places.
Whatever case she was trying to make in the book, she has failed to do so. And the reason is her non-fluid writing style.
January 20, 2019
Well researched but poorly written with a lot of repetitions to the level of repeating same sentences after few pages. Writer says in the beginning that she wrote in pieces in prolonged period of time. Book is incoherent and clearly seems writer didn't read herself after completing the book. For a reader it is difficult to maintain the interest because of repetitions. Book is full of typos as well.
July 3, 2018
A worthy account of kargil episode. MUST READ for geopolitics & war enthusiasts.
Brilliant work by Nasim Zehra.
Brilliant work by Nasim Zehra.
October 19, 2018
Why is author repeating events over and over again!
April 21, 2019
It’s informative but horribly written. It keeps going in circles, repeats events multiple times and could’ve used better editing.
October 2, 2019
'Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.' The quote is most likely due to writer and philosopher George Santayana, and in its original form it read, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Lies, treachery and propaganda have often been used to cover up blunders, conspiracies and military misadventures spanning Pakistan’s 70-year history.
The Kargil misadventure is one such event that has not been fully probed largely because of the same reason. Nasim Zehra, in the well-researched book mentions Kargil debacle in great detail. Kargil clique, a group of four generals, COAS Gen Pervez Musharraf, chief of general staff Lt Gen Mohammad Aziz, FCNA (Force Command Northern Areas) commander Lt Gen Javed Hassan and 10-Corps commander Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmad were the masterminds of the plan. This clique considered it a brilliant strategic move but failed to achieve the objectives because of the failure of the civilian leadership. The majority of the military leadership was kept in dark, let alone the civil leadership. The PM came to know about it when incursions had already begun.
Having appointed Pervez Musharraf, the chief of the Army Staff, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif proceeded to initiate a peace process with India with American blessings. Sharif first met Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Colombo two months after the two countries’ nuclear tests and proposed reduction of tensions. Then, the two sides engaged in official talks coupled with track-two diplomacy. In November 1998, they agreed to resume passenger bus service across their border. When the bus service started in February 1999, Vajpayee announced his plan to ride the first bus from India into Pakistan.
Vajpayee’s bus diplomacy led to “a summit filled with symbolism and hope of warmer relations” between the two nuclear-armed adversaries. The two prime ministers agreed to a “composite dialogue” covering all disputes between their countries, including Kashmir. Sharif voiced the hope first, expressed by Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah days before partition, that “Pakistan and India will be able to live as the United States and Canada.” Vajpayee made a symbolic visit to the monument in Lahore marking the Indian Muslims’ demand for a separate homeland in a bid to reassure Pakistanis that even Hindu nationalists in India no longer question Pakistan’s right to exist.
The public mood in both India and Pakistan seemed to favor the peace process. Pakistan’s Islamists and the military did not. The Jamaat-e-Islami threatened to block Vajpayee’s bus route, described the Indian leader as Pakistan’s “national enemy” and held street demonstrations against India to highlight the Kashmir problem. The Islamists also called for a general strike in Lahore on the day of the summit meeting. Several ambassadors invited to a state dinner for Vajpayee “were turned back after demonstrators banged on their vehicles and blocked the road.” Sharif had planned to arrest Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed ahead of the demonstrations. Ahmed, however, could not be found as he stayed at the homes of military intelligence officials to avoid arrest (Sources within Military Intelligence official, Rawalpindi confirmed this report).
The demonstrations did not interrupt the peace process, but the threat of war did. India Pakistan talks came to an abrupt halt with the intrusion of Pakistani troops into a part of Indian-controlled territory along the Line of Control in Kashmir. In the summer of 1999, the two countries became embroiled in what came to be known as the “Kargil crisis,” named after the mountainous region in the Himalayas where the conflict took place. According to U.S. officials, the conflict had the potential to escalate into nuclear war based on “disturbing evidence that the Pakistanis were preparing their nuclear arsenals for possible deployment.”
Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani brigadier, has written the most comprehensive account of developments on the Pakistani side during the Kargil crisis, basing it on his “not inconsiderable personal knowledge” of the area, the principal Pakistani actors in the crisis, and “the collective character of the Pakistan army.” According to Brigadier Qadir, the Indian army found in May 1999 that “intruders had occupied the heights close to the Dras region in Kashmir.” Until then, the area known as Kargil was controlled by the Indians during summer but left unoccupied during the harsh winters. Four Pakistani generals, led by Musharraf, had planned “sometime around mid-November 1998” to occupy the terrain in Dras-Kargil during the winter absence of Indian troops. The plan was kept secret from other military commanders and “preparations proceeded in secret.” Musharraf “casually broached” the subject with PM Sharif at some point in December 1998 but the army “has not presented a complete analysis of the scale of the operation or its possible outcome.” Musharraf and the other three generals saw the occupation of Indian-controlled territory as a means of providing “a fillip to the Kashmiri freedom movement.”
Musharraf’s operation in Kargil was not intended to reach the scale that it finally did. Likely, it grew in scale as the troops crept forward to find more unoccupied heights, until finally they were overlooking the Kashmir valley. In the process, they had ended up occupying an area of about 130 square kilometers over a front of over 100 kilometers and a depth ranging between seven to fifteen kilometers. They were occupying 132 Indian posts of various sizes. The occupying troops belonged to Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry and numbered around one thousand, with four times that number providing logistical support. These troops were supported by “some local mujahideen assisting as labor to carry logistical requirements.” The plan as envisaged by the Pakistani military leadership: The political aim behind the operation was ‘to seek a just and permanent solution to the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir.’ However, the military aim that preceded the political aim was ‘to create a military threat that could be viewed as capable of leading to a military solution, to force India to the negotiating table from a position of weakness.
Little attention was paid in the plan to international reaction or the prospect of India’s deployment of different battlefield tactics. From India’s perspective, Pakistan’s military incursion into Kargil was not a small matter. Pakistani forces now occupied mountaintops overlooking the Kargil highway and were threatening to weaken Indian control over a significant part of Kashmir. Moreover, it violated the spirit of the peace process that Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee had agreed upon barely a few months ago and amounted to treachery on Pakistan’s part. India fought the Kargil intruders with a large force including heavy artillery. The Indian Air Force was brought in to bomb Pakistani soldiers on mountains as high as 17,000 feet above sea level. Initially, the intruders held on to their positions. The induction of Swedish-made Bofors guns and laser-guided aerial bombardment reversed the situation by the middle of June. India also mounted a major diplomatic campaign and received support from, among others, the United States and China. The international community almost unanimously demanded Pakistan’s withdrawal from Kargil. Instead of helping focus on the Kashmiri freedom struggle, Musharraf and his three fellow generals had managed to unite the international community against Pakistan. Pakistan first denied that the military operation in Kargil involved government troops and tried to blame Kashmiri militants, the mujahideen, for the incursions. India released a tape-recorded conversation between Musharraf and the Pakistan army’s Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Aziz Khan, that left no doubt about Pakistan’s military presence in Kargil. The conversation between Musharraf and Aziz Khan took place while Musharraf was in Beijing and Aziz Khan at army headquarters in Rawalpindi. It remains a mystery to this day how the Indians got hold of a tape of their conversation. Pakistani intelligence suspected that American intelligence taped the conversation and gave it to the Indians to embarrass Pakistan and force its withdrawal from the Kargil heights.
Unable to deny Pakistan’s role any longer and faced with the prospect of India defeating Pakistan militarily for the first time under civilian rule, Nawaz Sharif started looking for a face-saving settlement. India offered Nawaz Sharif a chance to distance himself from actions in Kargil by suggesting that the Pakistani army had undertaken the operation without political sanction. Nawaz Sharif did not want to take on the military leadership publicly and was also reluctant to show the world that he did not control the affairs of Pakistan as prime minister. Ironically, these were the same fears that had prevented Benazir Bhutto from going public over her differences with the generals during both her terms. Like Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif paid a heavy price for pretending to go along with out-of-control generals. He lost the power he tried to hold on to and also the credibility that might have survived had he exposed Musharraf’s strategic miscalculation once the world turned against Pakistan during the Kargil crisis.
Nawaz Sharif called President Bill Clinton on July 2 and appealed for American intervention immediately to stop the fighting and to resolve the Kashmir issue, followed by a more desperate call the next day. The Pakistani prime minister traveled to Washington for a July 4 summit with Clinton. He was seen off at Islamabad airport by General Musharraf and the two were shown together on Pakistan television to indicate that Prime Minister’s mission had the support of the army. Bill Clinton and Nawaz Sharif met at Blair House on U.S. Independence Day.
At the end of that meeting, Nawaz Sharif agreed to announce a Pakistani withdrawal from Kargil and restoration of the sanctity of the Line of Control in return for President Clinton taking a personal interest in resumption of the India-Pakistan dialogue. On returning to Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif asked the army to proceed against the principal actors in this episode and get rid of them. Musharraf knew that if heads were to roll, his would be the first. The army chief went on a tour of Pakistan’s garrisons to explain his position to his troops and galvanize support for his position as their commander. The Islamists hit the streets, again, with a vengeance, this time with banners that read, “‘Remove Nawaz, save the country’ and ‘Kargil retreat is betrayal.
On October 10, 1999, the Washington Post reported that Nawaz Sharif’s hold on power was growing tenuous and “Army leaders, humiliated by his decision to withdraw from a border conflict with India in July, have come close to breaking with his government. The Post article said Army spokesman Brigadier Rashid Qureshi “acknowledged ‘dissatisfaction’ in the army over Sharif’s decision to pull back from the border, but he insisted the military is eager to work with civilian officials to save Pakistan from disaster.”
Musharraf had started planning a coup d’état and, as part of that plan, had appointed some of his closest friends in the army as commanders in positions critical during a coup. On October 12, the coup was executed as soon as Nawaz Sharif tried to fire Musharraf and replace him as army chief with the head of ISI, Lieutenant General Ziauddin while Musharraf was out of the country. Official accounts, however, projected the coup as the military’s spontaneous reaction to Musharraf’s ouster.
According to the official account, Sharif’s firing of Musharraf resulted in an institutional decision by the army to depose him. Later Sharif was put on trial for trying to “hijack” the plane on which Musharraf was traveling back from a trip to Sri Lanka. A reporter summed up the official version: Unaware that he had been ousted, General Musharraf was returning to Pakistan from Sri Lanka on a commercial flight. Air traffic controllers, reportedly under Mr. Sharif’s orders, refused to allow the plane to land as scheduled in Karachi. Vehicles blocked the landing strips. Runway lights were turned off. The airliner, nearly out of fuel, was finally able to land only after army officers loyal to General Musharraf had seized the airport.
In other words, the army had seized power only after being provoked to do so by Sharif’s decision to replace Musharraf. The Pakistani military always insists on an immediate provocation as the trigger of its coups. This narrative presents every Pakistani military ruler as a reluctant coup maker: Ayub Khan came to power after a violent scuffle in the East Pakistan legislature; Yahya Khan took over after months of rioting against Ayub Khan and the failure of Ayub Khan’s round table conference with politicians; Zia ul-Haq’s coup was the result of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s inability to compromise with politicians protesting a rigged election and the possibility of civil war; and now the army had deposed Nawaz Sharif because he was trying to replace their commander and was possibly endangering his life. The army’s ability to swiftly execute a military takeover within hours of a supposed provocation is often attributed to its having contingency plans for such occasions. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals a pattern of careful prior planning, including disorder in the streets orchestrated with the help of the reliable street power of Islamist political parties.
Lies, treachery and propaganda have often been used to cover up blunders, conspiracies and military misadventures spanning Pakistan’s 70-year history.
The Kargil misadventure is one such event that has not been fully probed largely because of the same reason. Nasim Zehra, in the well-researched book mentions Kargil debacle in great detail. Kargil clique, a group of four generals, COAS Gen Pervez Musharraf, chief of general staff Lt Gen Mohammad Aziz, FCNA (Force Command Northern Areas) commander Lt Gen Javed Hassan and 10-Corps commander Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmad were the masterminds of the plan. This clique considered it a brilliant strategic move but failed to achieve the objectives because of the failure of the civilian leadership. The majority of the military leadership was kept in dark, let alone the civil leadership. The PM came to know about it when incursions had already begun.
Having appointed Pervez Musharraf, the chief of the Army Staff, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif proceeded to initiate a peace process with India with American blessings. Sharif first met Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Colombo two months after the two countries’ nuclear tests and proposed reduction of tensions. Then, the two sides engaged in official talks coupled with track-two diplomacy. In November 1998, they agreed to resume passenger bus service across their border. When the bus service started in February 1999, Vajpayee announced his plan to ride the first bus from India into Pakistan.
Vajpayee’s bus diplomacy led to “a summit filled with symbolism and hope of warmer relations” between the two nuclear-armed adversaries. The two prime ministers agreed to a “composite dialogue” covering all disputes between their countries, including Kashmir. Sharif voiced the hope first, expressed by Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah days before partition, that “Pakistan and India will be able to live as the United States and Canada.” Vajpayee made a symbolic visit to the monument in Lahore marking the Indian Muslims’ demand for a separate homeland in a bid to reassure Pakistanis that even Hindu nationalists in India no longer question Pakistan’s right to exist.
The public mood in both India and Pakistan seemed to favor the peace process. Pakistan’s Islamists and the military did not. The Jamaat-e-Islami threatened to block Vajpayee’s bus route, described the Indian leader as Pakistan’s “national enemy” and held street demonstrations against India to highlight the Kashmir problem. The Islamists also called for a general strike in Lahore on the day of the summit meeting. Several ambassadors invited to a state dinner for Vajpayee “were turned back after demonstrators banged on their vehicles and blocked the road.” Sharif had planned to arrest Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed ahead of the demonstrations. Ahmed, however, could not be found as he stayed at the homes of military intelligence officials to avoid arrest (Sources within Military Intelligence official, Rawalpindi confirmed this report).
The demonstrations did not interrupt the peace process, but the threat of war did. India Pakistan talks came to an abrupt halt with the intrusion of Pakistani troops into a part of Indian-controlled territory along the Line of Control in Kashmir. In the summer of 1999, the two countries became embroiled in what came to be known as the “Kargil crisis,” named after the mountainous region in the Himalayas where the conflict took place. According to U.S. officials, the conflict had the potential to escalate into nuclear war based on “disturbing evidence that the Pakistanis were preparing their nuclear arsenals for possible deployment.”
Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani brigadier, has written the most comprehensive account of developments on the Pakistani side during the Kargil crisis, basing it on his “not inconsiderable personal knowledge” of the area, the principal Pakistani actors in the crisis, and “the collective character of the Pakistan army.” According to Brigadier Qadir, the Indian army found in May 1999 that “intruders had occupied the heights close to the Dras region in Kashmir.” Until then, the area known as Kargil was controlled by the Indians during summer but left unoccupied during the harsh winters. Four Pakistani generals, led by Musharraf, had planned “sometime around mid-November 1998” to occupy the terrain in Dras-Kargil during the winter absence of Indian troops. The plan was kept secret from other military commanders and “preparations proceeded in secret.” Musharraf “casually broached” the subject with PM Sharif at some point in December 1998 but the army “has not presented a complete analysis of the scale of the operation or its possible outcome.” Musharraf and the other three generals saw the occupation of Indian-controlled territory as a means of providing “a fillip to the Kashmiri freedom movement.”
Musharraf’s operation in Kargil was not intended to reach the scale that it finally did. Likely, it grew in scale as the troops crept forward to find more unoccupied heights, until finally they were overlooking the Kashmir valley. In the process, they had ended up occupying an area of about 130 square kilometers over a front of over 100 kilometers and a depth ranging between seven to fifteen kilometers. They were occupying 132 Indian posts of various sizes. The occupying troops belonged to Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry and numbered around one thousand, with four times that number providing logistical support. These troops were supported by “some local mujahideen assisting as labor to carry logistical requirements.” The plan as envisaged by the Pakistani military leadership: The political aim behind the operation was ‘to seek a just and permanent solution to the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir.’ However, the military aim that preceded the political aim was ‘to create a military threat that could be viewed as capable of leading to a military solution, to force India to the negotiating table from a position of weakness.
Little attention was paid in the plan to international reaction or the prospect of India’s deployment of different battlefield tactics. From India’s perspective, Pakistan’s military incursion into Kargil was not a small matter. Pakistani forces now occupied mountaintops overlooking the Kargil highway and were threatening to weaken Indian control over a significant part of Kashmir. Moreover, it violated the spirit of the peace process that Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee had agreed upon barely a few months ago and amounted to treachery on Pakistan’s part. India fought the Kargil intruders with a large force including heavy artillery. The Indian Air Force was brought in to bomb Pakistani soldiers on mountains as high as 17,000 feet above sea level. Initially, the intruders held on to their positions. The induction of Swedish-made Bofors guns and laser-guided aerial bombardment reversed the situation by the middle of June. India also mounted a major diplomatic campaign and received support from, among others, the United States and China. The international community almost unanimously demanded Pakistan’s withdrawal from Kargil. Instead of helping focus on the Kashmiri freedom struggle, Musharraf and his three fellow generals had managed to unite the international community against Pakistan. Pakistan first denied that the military operation in Kargil involved government troops and tried to blame Kashmiri militants, the mujahideen, for the incursions. India released a tape-recorded conversation between Musharraf and the Pakistan army’s Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Aziz Khan, that left no doubt about Pakistan’s military presence in Kargil. The conversation between Musharraf and Aziz Khan took place while Musharraf was in Beijing and Aziz Khan at army headquarters in Rawalpindi. It remains a mystery to this day how the Indians got hold of a tape of their conversation. Pakistani intelligence suspected that American intelligence taped the conversation and gave it to the Indians to embarrass Pakistan and force its withdrawal from the Kargil heights.
Unable to deny Pakistan’s role any longer and faced with the prospect of India defeating Pakistan militarily for the first time under civilian rule, Nawaz Sharif started looking for a face-saving settlement. India offered Nawaz Sharif a chance to distance himself from actions in Kargil by suggesting that the Pakistani army had undertaken the operation without political sanction. Nawaz Sharif did not want to take on the military leadership publicly and was also reluctant to show the world that he did not control the affairs of Pakistan as prime minister. Ironically, these were the same fears that had prevented Benazir Bhutto from going public over her differences with the generals during both her terms. Like Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif paid a heavy price for pretending to go along with out-of-control generals. He lost the power he tried to hold on to and also the credibility that might have survived had he exposed Musharraf’s strategic miscalculation once the world turned against Pakistan during the Kargil crisis.
Nawaz Sharif called President Bill Clinton on July 2 and appealed for American intervention immediately to stop the fighting and to resolve the Kashmir issue, followed by a more desperate call the next day. The Pakistani prime minister traveled to Washington for a July 4 summit with Clinton. He was seen off at Islamabad airport by General Musharraf and the two were shown together on Pakistan television to indicate that Prime Minister’s mission had the support of the army. Bill Clinton and Nawaz Sharif met at Blair House on U.S. Independence Day.
At the end of that meeting, Nawaz Sharif agreed to announce a Pakistani withdrawal from Kargil and restoration of the sanctity of the Line of Control in return for President Clinton taking a personal interest in resumption of the India-Pakistan dialogue. On returning to Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif asked the army to proceed against the principal actors in this episode and get rid of them. Musharraf knew that if heads were to roll, his would be the first. The army chief went on a tour of Pakistan’s garrisons to explain his position to his troops and galvanize support for his position as their commander. The Islamists hit the streets, again, with a vengeance, this time with banners that read, “‘Remove Nawaz, save the country’ and ‘Kargil retreat is betrayal.
On October 10, 1999, the Washington Post reported that Nawaz Sharif’s hold on power was growing tenuous and “Army leaders, humiliated by his decision to withdraw from a border conflict with India in July, have come close to breaking with his government. The Post article said Army spokesman Brigadier Rashid Qureshi “acknowledged ‘dissatisfaction’ in the army over Sharif’s decision to pull back from the border, but he insisted the military is eager to work with civilian officials to save Pakistan from disaster.”
Musharraf had started planning a coup d’état and, as part of that plan, had appointed some of his closest friends in the army as commanders in positions critical during a coup. On October 12, the coup was executed as soon as Nawaz Sharif tried to fire Musharraf and replace him as army chief with the head of ISI, Lieutenant General Ziauddin while Musharraf was out of the country. Official accounts, however, projected the coup as the military’s spontaneous reaction to Musharraf’s ouster.
According to the official account, Sharif’s firing of Musharraf resulted in an institutional decision by the army to depose him. Later Sharif was put on trial for trying to “hijack” the plane on which Musharraf was traveling back from a trip to Sri Lanka. A reporter summed up the official version: Unaware that he had been ousted, General Musharraf was returning to Pakistan from Sri Lanka on a commercial flight. Air traffic controllers, reportedly under Mr. Sharif’s orders, refused to allow the plane to land as scheduled in Karachi. Vehicles blocked the landing strips. Runway lights were turned off. The airliner, nearly out of fuel, was finally able to land only after army officers loyal to General Musharraf had seized the airport.
In other words, the army had seized power only after being provoked to do so by Sharif’s decision to replace Musharraf. The Pakistani military always insists on an immediate provocation as the trigger of its coups. This narrative presents every Pakistani military ruler as a reluctant coup maker: Ayub Khan came to power after a violent scuffle in the East Pakistan legislature; Yahya Khan took over after months of rioting against Ayub Khan and the failure of Ayub Khan’s round table conference with politicians; Zia ul-Haq’s coup was the result of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s inability to compromise with politicians protesting a rigged election and the possibility of civil war; and now the army had deposed Nawaz Sharif because he was trying to replace their commander and was possibly endangering his life. The army’s ability to swiftly execute a military takeover within hours of a supposed provocation is often attributed to its having contingency plans for such occasions. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals a pattern of careful prior planning, including disorder in the streets orchestrated with the help of the reliable street power of Islamist political parties.
June 13, 2020
Living in country like Pakistan and reading about the correct history is very difficult, as much of our history is being fabricated over the years. Many Authors have tried their best to bring the truth Infront of the public like K.K Aziz in his book” The murder of history” have covered the events before the motherland gain independence, he has compared his findings with the findings of the most historians. One can easily understand that all we taught in school about Pakistan history were more fiction than facts.
Pakistan had fought four wars with India during these 71 years, but not much have been written about these wars or if we find a piece of writing it would be from military mindset and the author has tried his best to hide their mistakes. Kargil war is considered to be the most important war of all time because it was the first time when the Prime minister of India Vajpayee was visiting Pakistan and it was decided that Kashmir problem must be solved through dialogues.
Much have been written about the ignominious incident, we have the military point of view from General Pervez Musharraf book “In the line of Fire” not much have been written on the civilian side and also not an investigation was allowed to find the truths about the war. Recently we have a book “From the Kargil to the Coup” by Nasim Zehra covered the most important incident “The Kargil war” trying to solve the mysteries and all the unanswered question which evolve in the aftermath. Some of the questions were Who was responsible for it? Does the civilian leadership was unaware of the incident? Is the statement [“we have won the war on ground but lost in table”] which most of the military personnel give is correct?
The book starts by describing the reality of Kashmir issue, then describe both 1948,1965 and 1971 wars briefly and she is on the view that all wars we have fought is due to Kashmir. Interestingly she had proved that what Musharraf have said in his book about Kargil war is wrong, as in the book “in the line of Fire” Musharraf says “They [who were fighting against the Indian army in kargil] were not our soldiers they were mujahedeen”.
Nasim Zehra took more than half a decade to write the book “from the Kargil to the coup”, the authenticity of the book is difficult to challenge as she had interviewed from different Generals who were eyewitness of the incident both from either side of the border not only this she had also brought the civilian mindset by arguing the issue with political leadership of that time in Pakistan. The flow of her writing is exceptional covering each aspect in detail, one must find himself in the battle field while reading this book. I think these kinds of books must be included in our curriculum for the students of Political Science and International Relation (IR). It is said those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.
Pakistan had fought four wars with India during these 71 years, but not much have been written about these wars or if we find a piece of writing it would be from military mindset and the author has tried his best to hide their mistakes. Kargil war is considered to be the most important war of all time because it was the first time when the Prime minister of India Vajpayee was visiting Pakistan and it was decided that Kashmir problem must be solved through dialogues.
Much have been written about the ignominious incident, we have the military point of view from General Pervez Musharraf book “In the line of Fire” not much have been written on the civilian side and also not an investigation was allowed to find the truths about the war. Recently we have a book “From the Kargil to the Coup” by Nasim Zehra covered the most important incident “The Kargil war” trying to solve the mysteries and all the unanswered question which evolve in the aftermath. Some of the questions were Who was responsible for it? Does the civilian leadership was unaware of the incident? Is the statement [“we have won the war on ground but lost in table”] which most of the military personnel give is correct?
The book starts by describing the reality of Kashmir issue, then describe both 1948,1965 and 1971 wars briefly and she is on the view that all wars we have fought is due to Kashmir. Interestingly she had proved that what Musharraf have said in his book about Kargil war is wrong, as in the book “in the line of Fire” Musharraf says “They [who were fighting against the Indian army in kargil] were not our soldiers they were mujahedeen”.
Nasim Zehra took more than half a decade to write the book “from the Kargil to the coup”, the authenticity of the book is difficult to challenge as she had interviewed from different Generals who were eyewitness of the incident both from either side of the border not only this she had also brought the civilian mindset by arguing the issue with political leadership of that time in Pakistan. The flow of her writing is exceptional covering each aspect in detail, one must find himself in the battle field while reading this book. I think these kinds of books must be included in our curriculum for the students of Political Science and International Relation (IR). It is said those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.
August 8, 2019
A very well researched book indeed, coming from a Pakistani writer and thats too on such a sensitive issue is remarkable however this book is only for those who are really interested in Indo-Pak issues/Pakistani politics /civil-military imbalance or related issues I term this piece by Nasim Zehra as a specialized reading.
The events,dates,locations are clearly marked with references this add to its authenticity, if any one one wants to do the fact check on Kargil issue then this is the real go to book.
The tilt is clearly in favor of political leadership of that time but this stance is justly explained thru facts and figures.
lastly I must say that in spite of being a scholar and a journalist the writer has used an easy narrative style and the concluding page is literary to the core
The events,dates,locations are clearly marked with references this add to its authenticity, if any one one wants to do the fact check on Kargil issue then this is the real go to book.
The tilt is clearly in favor of political leadership of that time but this stance is justly explained thru facts and figures.
lastly I must say that in spite of being a scholar and a journalist the writer has used an easy narrative style and the concluding page is literary to the core
July 22, 2020
Kargil Conflict is a topic on which not much has been written in Pakistan. "From Kargil to the Coup" did entice me to read the book which as evident from the title offered military as well as political spectrum of Kargil Conflict with its fallout as a coup d'état. The book seems to be well researched as the author claims to have produced it in one and a half decade and it indeed covers pre and post conflict political, diplomatic and military aspects in detail but there are certain shortcomings in the book.
The book is full of repetitions which makes the reading quite dull. Repetition of words, phrases and statements is something the author should have avoided. At times, the repetitions occur in consecutive pages.
After spending one and a half decade on a book, the author must have included first-hand accounts of some prominent military officers. Being a renowned journalist it would not have been that big a task to interview some key military figures on whom the author has put all the blame.
The author should have got the manuscript of the book proofread by a military man. The writing reflects she is not well versed with military terms and structures as the book is full of minor errors e.g.
• Colonel Sher Khan is actually Captain Kernel Sher Khan.
• GI is actually GSO-I.
• Colonel Staff is a Colonel not a Brigadier.
• Brigadier Major is actually Brigade Major.
• Strength of soldiers in a battalion is not in thousands but in hundreds.
• At places author has mixed up the terms LOC and LAC.
• Regiments like 6 NLI are written as NLI-6.
Author has put almost all the blame on the four military planners for failure of Op KP referring them as Kargil Clique throughout the book and presenting the premier Nawaz Sharif as a victim of a misadventure and subsequent coup. Although the ill planning and execution of Op KP by military planners is not debatable, PM Nawaz Sharif also deserves his due share of criticism. Since, the book mentions multiple times that army chief sought PM’s approval for withdrawal after 17 May briefing which was denied by the premier, putting all the blame on military planners was unjustified. PM Sharif not only approved the execution of Op KP but owned it till the very end. Moreover, with respect to the inquiry and punishment for a misadventure, how could PM think of punishing his army chief when he himself was an accomplice?
The book also lacks comprehensive maps of Op KP and is full of printing errors.
The book is full of repetitions which makes the reading quite dull. Repetition of words, phrases and statements is something the author should have avoided. At times, the repetitions occur in consecutive pages.
After spending one and a half decade on a book, the author must have included first-hand accounts of some prominent military officers. Being a renowned journalist it would not have been that big a task to interview some key military figures on whom the author has put all the blame.
The author should have got the manuscript of the book proofread by a military man. The writing reflects she is not well versed with military terms and structures as the book is full of minor errors e.g.
• Colonel Sher Khan is actually Captain Kernel Sher Khan.
• GI is actually GSO-I.
• Colonel Staff is a Colonel not a Brigadier.
• Brigadier Major is actually Brigade Major.
• Strength of soldiers in a battalion is not in thousands but in hundreds.
• At places author has mixed up the terms LOC and LAC.
• Regiments like 6 NLI are written as NLI-6.
Author has put almost all the blame on the four military planners for failure of Op KP referring them as Kargil Clique throughout the book and presenting the premier Nawaz Sharif as a victim of a misadventure and subsequent coup. Although the ill planning and execution of Op KP by military planners is not debatable, PM Nawaz Sharif also deserves his due share of criticism. Since, the book mentions multiple times that army chief sought PM’s approval for withdrawal after 17 May briefing which was denied by the premier, putting all the blame on military planners was unjustified. PM Sharif not only approved the execution of Op KP but owned it till the very end. Moreover, with respect to the inquiry and punishment for a misadventure, how could PM think of punishing his army chief when he himself was an accomplice?
The book also lacks comprehensive maps of Op KP and is full of printing errors.
May 4, 2022
A well researched book. Hats off to author for the strenuous effort she has put in. Couldn't have been more encompassing of the situation. Extremely valid analysis and valuable lessons drawn. I just hope this book reaches the corridors of power in my country...
At the same time, I hope that the next edition comes shortly...
Because its so poorly edited. Repeations, typos, font errors, unnecessary notes are there...
"History is indeed our abiding teacher.... But in Pakistan Have We Learned from History?"
At the same time, I hope that the next edition comes shortly...
Because its so poorly edited. Repeations, typos, font errors, unnecessary notes are there...
"History is indeed our abiding teacher.... But in Pakistan Have We Learned from History?"
March 14, 2019
Biased approach, she is trying to catch a Falcon with both hands. A sold mind I must say.
November 19, 2022
Mostly verbose pentagonese attempted veiling of facts of paki history of military dictatorships, coups and fraudulent pretense of a democracy or any civilian government.
As one arrives at chapters that one may have thought would reward one for wading through the propaganda, lies, and inaccuracies of author's paki narrative, one finds it hard to escape a sense of having been cheated, and being not surprised at that, either!
For, the book seems to promise the story behind - and Other than plethora of names - and who did what -, there really isn't anything worth reading or buying the book for, after all. Facts have all been known if any worthy of notice, and perhaps an entertaining detail might be about a dinner on eve of the coup even as it was unfolding. Is that tidbit worth wading through the toxic rest? - Well, no!
***
"According to Napoleon, ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’"
Did India know of the paki incursion in November, when it happened, and waited to hit them in June, at leisure?
***
"Could the international community have forced India to buckle under Kargil pressure?
"There were neither individual nor collective compulsions for key members of the international community to have even advised Delhi to enter into negotiations on any outstanding bilateral dispute. The question of any member, including Pakistan’s strategic ally China, to have even advised, leave aside forced, India to buckle under the pressure from Operation KP and enter into negotiations over Siachen etc. with Pakistan, did not arise. In fact, any move likely to culminate in a military confrontation between Pakistan and India, the two hostile neighbors who had recently acquired nuclear weapons, would make the international community panic. And Pakistan had made the move—which was also being interpreted as nuclear blackmail by Pakistan. ... There was complete consensus within the key members of the international community, including the US, EU states, the UN, and also Pakistan’s closest strategic ally, China, that Pakistan should not be rewarded for Operation Kargil. ... "
***
"Did Pakistan plan to deploy nuclear weapons in an all-out war?
"There were neither individual nor collective compulsions for key members of the international community to have even advised Delhi to enter into negotiations on any outstanding bilateral dispute. The question of any member, including Pakistan’s strategic ally China, to have even advised, leave aside forced, India to buckle under the pressure from Operation KP and enter into negotiations over Siachen etc. with Pakistan, did not arise. In fact, any move likely to culminate in a military confrontation between Pakistan and India, the two hostile neighbors who had recently acquired nuclear weapons, would make the international community panic. ... "
Later, the then paki army chief made similar assertions after his coup, but he wasn't doing so without thought, and it was clear blackmail.
" ... but was not backed by substantive evidence. ... "
When someone wielding a gun pointing at you is threatening to shoot to kill, and showing no sign of civilised conduct, it's a rare one who'd ask a prophet if the threat was intended to be carried out - or ask the gun wielding thug for proof of intentions by demonstration of performance.
" ... Pakistan military’s high command had sabotaged the Lahore Summit and should not be rewarded. Pakistan had to be made to retreat unconditionally. ... "
" ... As a key member of the clique later recalled, they conveyed to the country’s elected leadership, ‘We are holding this. Now you take advantage, whatever you can, at military and political level.’[1156] However, the unfolding Kargil crisis proved the clique’s nuclear deterrence calculation flawed on two counts: Operation KP did turn into a military conflict and, while Washington and other Security Council members did exercise forceful diplomacy, it was to force Pakistan to retreat from Kargil, not to reward Pakistan’s operation. The spin-off of this clique’s brinkmanship (read nuclear blackmail) was immensely negative. It undid the diplomatic gains accrued to Pakistan for its mature diplomatic and political moves after the nuclear tests."
"Three factors point to deliberate manipulation. First, Pakistan was not in such a desperate military situation that it would have needed to opt for nuclear weapons. Secondly, and most importantly, Pakistan did not then have the capability to the deploy nuclear weapons[1158], nor had the Indians picked any intelligence on Pakistan readying nuclear weapons. Thirdly, the Americans deliberately chose an attitude of benign neglect and ignored Indian moves to ready its nuclear missiles for use.[1159] ... "
When a thug breaks in at midnight wielding a gun pointed at you, a policeman with any sense is likely to not ask if the gun is likely to fire or has a bullet, and what's more, would excuse the threatened victims of break-in - for arming and retaliation.
Especially so in US.
***
"Was there a pro-India tilt in Washington during Kargil?
"With the Kargil blunder, Pakistan provided the Clinton Administration a priceless opportunity to invest in strategic trust-building with India. Throughout the crisis, Washington’s key policy men opened multiple lines of communication with their Indian counterparts. It began with the 27 May call by Inderfurth, who called the India ambassador, Naresh Chandra, to inform him about what Pickering had told the Pakistanis. Subsequently, on 16 June, Inderfurth met with Brajesh Mishra in Cologne. After the 23 June Islamabad meetings between US CENTCOM Chief General Zinni and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief General Musharraf, State Department official Lanpher went to brief Delhi on the Islamabad meetings. Similarly, during the crucial Sharif-Clinton summit on 4 July, in a manner unprecedented in summit diplomacy, Clinton would call Vajpayee to brief him of the summit talks. Similarly, the Indian NSA and External Affairs Minister were also updated on Sharif-Clinton talks by their counterparts, NSA Sandy Berger and Acting Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. The sole purpose was to share with the Indians every aspect of their communications with Pakistan."
It's unclear if the above is realistic evaluation or a skewed perception.
***
"Was the Prime Minister’s Washington dash necessary?
"As the country’s chief executive, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif could have ordered withdrawal of Pakistani troops, bringing an end to Operation KP. In keeping with Islamabad’s public position that the Kashmiri Mujahideen and not the Pakistani troops had seized the heights, Sharif could have announced that Islamabad would use its goodwill to urge the Kashmiri Mujahideen to return from IOK. This would have been consistent with the farcical ‘Mujahideen’ position Pakistan had illogically and clumsily maintained since the beginning of Operation KP. The international community would have been relieved that the battle between two nuclear powers had drawn to a close. The prime minister, however, chose to engage the Clinton Administration because he had hoped that Washington would make a public statement of support for the Kashmiris and of facilitating a political resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Sharif and his close political aides also believed that American involvement at this withdrawal stage would make it more palatable for the army high command since the army chief had himself had sought Washington’s engagement. However, as subsequent developments showed, neither did the Clinton administration make any public statements supporting the Kashmir struggle, nor did the Sharif-Clinton 4 July encounter influence the post-Kargil tensions that surfaced between the elected prime minister and the army chief."
Here, and throughout the book on this point, author tries subterfuge to veil a lie. She claims that the Washington trip was for Kashmir.
It wasn't.
Plain truth is that, despite the lies to the contrary position proclaimed repeatedly by author, in reality pakis were being not only pounded relentlessly by India but couldn't take it, and the paki dash to Washington was the bully going crying to the police asking him to stop his intended victim bashing him up, something the bully hadn't expected - and this failed, since everyone in the international community was aware, via satellite footage, of who had invaded.
***
"Could the Prime Minister have Ordered an Inquiry Against The Kargil Planners, Especially the Army Chief?
"Immediately after 4 July, tensions began developing between Sharif and Musharraf, with each worried about his survival. Investigating the why, who, and how of Operation KP, to establish responsibility and to take action against those who had launched an operation that had ended in such a fiasco, was, however, far removed from the prime minister’s mind. Civil-military coordination remained generally smooth almost throughout the Kargil period. Some briefings for the PM were held at the 10 Corps Headquarters. Most, however, were held in the PM House, where the army brass would bring its maps, etc. Often, meetings would almost take the form of the DCC but hardly any decision-making took place in these. The prime minister had, in fact, left the decision-making process during Kargil in military hands. Although Sharif had the constitutional authority to directly lead decision-making, he did not ‘interfere’[1160] and had simply supported the army.
"The thought of holding an inquiry against Musharraf is unlikely to have occurred to a PM who had supported Operation KP. It is true that the PM was first briefed of the Operation only after it was a done deed. The PM had also declined Musharraf’s rhetorical mid-stream offer to withdraw his troops from Kargil. In fact, there was written evidence of the Parliament’s bipartisan Defense Committee’s positive support for Operation Kargil in a letter written by the Committee chairman in praise of the army chief’s presentation."
And, unlike the army chief with his openly thug mindset, Nawaz Sharif remained honest enough and decent enough to not turn immediately on someone when it was a fiasco, despite his own self having neither been aware nor initiated it, and never in control, of the assault, until he was required as the figurehead to get help from US to get India to stop!
"In the overall asymmetric civil-military relations in Pakistan’s power structure, there have been only two incidences when elected prime ministers sought to hold army commanders to account. One was when, after the 1971 surrender at Dhaka and the breakup of Pakistan, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto formed the Hamoodur Rehman Commission to conduct an inquiry into the military debacle. His army chief, Zia ul-Haq overthrew him in a military coup and hanged him following legally dubious court proceedings. The second was in 1988, when Prime Minister Junejo ordered an inquiry into the deadly Ojri Camp ammunition disaster. No sooner had he announced the inquiry, the military President Zia ul-Haq sacked him."
And the post Kargil coup wasn't different, either.
"In the absence of a political culture of holding the military accountable, the reactions of military men when held accountable, the complexities of the initiation and, indeed, of the termination of Operation KP, the fiercely anti-Nawaz mood of the political opposition, and the dominant claim of the time that Kashmiri Mujahideen had fought the Indians across the LOC while Pakistani troops fought mostly along the LOC: all these militated against Sharif conducting a Kargil inquiry. ... "
Again author is verbose in attempting to veil facts - namely, that pakis never have had a properly functioning government of any sort other than a military dictatorship, never any culture or education system other than one rooted in invader and looters mindset carrying heritage of history of hordes from Central and West Asia invading, looting and destroying India- which included until 1947 the very land pakis were given, torn out of India - and no other aim set for their very nation other than destruction of India, as a result of this choice of the heritage.
The so-called nation, in reality is no more than a jihadist factory grown around a military base, for West for freedom of expensive usage against Russia, conceived in this mindset of invading and looting, and aim of destruction of India now grown to destruction of the world, and born of deliberately perpetrated massacres of thousands of Hindus in 1946-47 that were intended to, and succeeded in, forcing India to let a piece be torn out.
***
"Beyond fear, the contradictions of the Operation, Kargil produced serious frictions even in the post-Kargil phase. For example, while maintain its insistence that Mujahideen had been fighting in Kargil, how could the army receive the bodies of the martyred soldiers? Similarly, while insisting that only Mujahideen fought in Kargil, how could major programmes honouring the martyrs of Kargil be organized by the Sharif government? ... The army sought widely publicized honouring of the Kargil martyrs and of those having returned alive from across the LOC."
"Throughout history, the acid test of generals at war or in military operations has been the victories they have piled up. No general is more successful than the outcome of the war he leads. In more complex situations, like those in South Asia in the second half of the twentieth century, the yardstick for assessment has to be what have the wars have achieved. History has examples of individual brilliance leading armies to victories and steering nations away from disaster. Outstanding military commanders, such as Alexander, Khalid bin Walid, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Salahuddin Ayyubi, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Vo Nguyen Giap, were men who wrested victory from situations where deep imprints of defeat were written. Bin Walid became the legendary general who, despite the numerical superiority of battle-hardened adversaries like the Romans and the Sassanids, piled up victories for the Rashiddun Caliphate. Napoleon ‘inspired a ragged, mutinous, half-starved army and made it fight’[1161] like a winning combination that few would fight before or after. Salahuddin, with his less experienced army, reversed the Crusaders’ winning streak with his grand victory in the decisive Battle of Hattin in 1187. Julius Caesar, personally brave in battle, was creative in tactics and engineering. There was Alexander, another general facing most armies who outnumbered his own, but always remaining undefeated. Genghis Khan, a masterful general who, through excellent military intelligence and tactics and by uniting nomadic tribes and confederation and his strategic raids, became the founder of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire in history, which included most of Eurasia and substantial parts of Eastern Europe. In more recent times, the Viet Minh Commander, General Vo Nguyen Giap, who led his men to defeat a technologically superior adversary by perfecting and applying a unique war technique, which was the most important dimension of the Vietcong’s overall political, economic, and diplomatic strategy for defeating the Americans.
"In the Kargil operation, the performance of the clique of commanders, the quality of their strategic planning, and of their command, all tell a different story. Yet the power equation, absence of any accountability, the absence of censure when it mattered, and bravado minus logic or sound analysis, have ruled the day. Despite repeated blunders, the commanders in charge escaped accountability."
What author is either unable to perceive, or unable to say, is that the paki military is a bully who, thrashed outside, comes home to beat up his wife and children, old parents and helpless siblings.
***
" ... Major General Akbar Khan, the lead military man in Pakistan's first attempt to regain Kashmir, had readily accepted Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's label of ‘raiders’ for the Pakistani forces involved in the 1947–48 ‘Acquire Kashmir’ Operation. ... "
Kashmir had been free until invaded by pakis, and it wasn't Nehru but Jinnah who pretended thst it was tribals, not his military.
" ... The former general, eulogising the Pakistani ‘raiders’, suggested, ‘We may perhaps also qualify for sitting in that distinguished gallery of personalities like Genghis Khan, Timur Lang, Mahmud of Ghazni, and even Alexander.’ Interestingly, Pakistan's senior-most general equated his own men with history’s prized military leaders, who had raided, ravaged, and even reigned over foreign lands in the pre-Westphalian world. ... "
No, he was far more specific, in his dream and desire to belong to the club that was all comprised of invaders each from elsewhere and attacked India, invaded and looted India, sought to destroy India.
He included none of the tall figures that were from or of India, despite his own homeland having been a part of India for ever until then less than a year ago, and his own ancestral origins being in India.
And that's the divide, of India- and those that seek to destroy India.
" ... This voluntary characterization of a state's army as ‘raiders’, in the context especially of the Kashmir operation, flowed from the juxtaposition in this Pakistani soldier's mind, of the Pakistan Army as a force for right, dedicated to undoing the wrong committed at the time of Pakistan's creation. ... "
That's convoluted fraud seeking to justify invasions, massacres and loot, with fraudulent claims of rights.
British had in fact given far too much land to pakis in the first place, when plebiscite would have denied them all but East Bengal, which alone had voted for partition. Sindh was evenly divided in vote. Punjab had voted for unionists and NWFP was determined to stay with India - as was Baluchistan. Brits rode roughshod over all of the provinces in handing over the land pakis got, because it was military base needed for use of West against Russia.
What those raiders were identifying with was, has always been, identity of invaders, looters, destroyers and killers wreaking havoc against India. This isn't due to perceived rights but simply a mindset of a robber.
And they certainly had no 'right' to Kashmir, which, until pakis attacked, was independent.
Author does lie on level after level, not very differently from a rotten onion.
***
" ... India's systematic role in being a mid-wife to the 1971 breakup of Pakistan ... "
Because East Bengal hadn't been subjected to racist discrimination and linguistic chauvinism of denying freedom of language, not to mention massacre of three million and mass gang rapes of half a million, by paki military?
Or was it because ....
As one arrives at chapters that one may have thought would reward one for wading through the propaganda, lies, and inaccuracies of author's paki narrative, one finds it hard to escape a sense of having been cheated, and being not surprised at that, either!
For, the book seems to promise the story behind - and Other than plethora of names - and who did what -, there really isn't anything worth reading or buying the book for, after all. Facts have all been known if any worthy of notice, and perhaps an entertaining detail might be about a dinner on eve of the coup even as it was unfolding. Is that tidbit worth wading through the toxic rest? - Well, no!
***
"According to Napoleon, ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’"
Did India know of the paki incursion in November, when it happened, and waited to hit them in June, at leisure?
***
"Could the international community have forced India to buckle under Kargil pressure?
"There were neither individual nor collective compulsions for key members of the international community to have even advised Delhi to enter into negotiations on any outstanding bilateral dispute. The question of any member, including Pakistan’s strategic ally China, to have even advised, leave aside forced, India to buckle under the pressure from Operation KP and enter into negotiations over Siachen etc. with Pakistan, did not arise. In fact, any move likely to culminate in a military confrontation between Pakistan and India, the two hostile neighbors who had recently acquired nuclear weapons, would make the international community panic. And Pakistan had made the move—which was also being interpreted as nuclear blackmail by Pakistan. ... There was complete consensus within the key members of the international community, including the US, EU states, the UN, and also Pakistan’s closest strategic ally, China, that Pakistan should not be rewarded for Operation Kargil. ... "
***
"Did Pakistan plan to deploy nuclear weapons in an all-out war?
"There were neither individual nor collective compulsions for key members of the international community to have even advised Delhi to enter into negotiations on any outstanding bilateral dispute. The question of any member, including Pakistan’s strategic ally China, to have even advised, leave aside forced, India to buckle under the pressure from Operation KP and enter into negotiations over Siachen etc. with Pakistan, did not arise. In fact, any move likely to culminate in a military confrontation between Pakistan and India, the two hostile neighbors who had recently acquired nuclear weapons, would make the international community panic. ... "
Later, the then paki army chief made similar assertions after his coup, but he wasn't doing so without thought, and it was clear blackmail.
" ... but was not backed by substantive evidence. ... "
When someone wielding a gun pointing at you is threatening to shoot to kill, and showing no sign of civilised conduct, it's a rare one who'd ask a prophet if the threat was intended to be carried out - or ask the gun wielding thug for proof of intentions by demonstration of performance.
" ... Pakistan military’s high command had sabotaged the Lahore Summit and should not be rewarded. Pakistan had to be made to retreat unconditionally. ... "
" ... As a key member of the clique later recalled, they conveyed to the country’s elected leadership, ‘We are holding this. Now you take advantage, whatever you can, at military and political level.’[1156] However, the unfolding Kargil crisis proved the clique’s nuclear deterrence calculation flawed on two counts: Operation KP did turn into a military conflict and, while Washington and other Security Council members did exercise forceful diplomacy, it was to force Pakistan to retreat from Kargil, not to reward Pakistan’s operation. The spin-off of this clique’s brinkmanship (read nuclear blackmail) was immensely negative. It undid the diplomatic gains accrued to Pakistan for its mature diplomatic and political moves after the nuclear tests."
"Three factors point to deliberate manipulation. First, Pakistan was not in such a desperate military situation that it would have needed to opt for nuclear weapons. Secondly, and most importantly, Pakistan did not then have the capability to the deploy nuclear weapons[1158], nor had the Indians picked any intelligence on Pakistan readying nuclear weapons. Thirdly, the Americans deliberately chose an attitude of benign neglect and ignored Indian moves to ready its nuclear missiles for use.[1159] ... "
When a thug breaks in at midnight wielding a gun pointed at you, a policeman with any sense is likely to not ask if the gun is likely to fire or has a bullet, and what's more, would excuse the threatened victims of break-in - for arming and retaliation.
Especially so in US.
***
"Was there a pro-India tilt in Washington during Kargil?
"With the Kargil blunder, Pakistan provided the Clinton Administration a priceless opportunity to invest in strategic trust-building with India. Throughout the crisis, Washington’s key policy men opened multiple lines of communication with their Indian counterparts. It began with the 27 May call by Inderfurth, who called the India ambassador, Naresh Chandra, to inform him about what Pickering had told the Pakistanis. Subsequently, on 16 June, Inderfurth met with Brajesh Mishra in Cologne. After the 23 June Islamabad meetings between US CENTCOM Chief General Zinni and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief General Musharraf, State Department official Lanpher went to brief Delhi on the Islamabad meetings. Similarly, during the crucial Sharif-Clinton summit on 4 July, in a manner unprecedented in summit diplomacy, Clinton would call Vajpayee to brief him of the summit talks. Similarly, the Indian NSA and External Affairs Minister were also updated on Sharif-Clinton talks by their counterparts, NSA Sandy Berger and Acting Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. The sole purpose was to share with the Indians every aspect of their communications with Pakistan."
It's unclear if the above is realistic evaluation or a skewed perception.
***
"Was the Prime Minister’s Washington dash necessary?
"As the country’s chief executive, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif could have ordered withdrawal of Pakistani troops, bringing an end to Operation KP. In keeping with Islamabad’s public position that the Kashmiri Mujahideen and not the Pakistani troops had seized the heights, Sharif could have announced that Islamabad would use its goodwill to urge the Kashmiri Mujahideen to return from IOK. This would have been consistent with the farcical ‘Mujahideen’ position Pakistan had illogically and clumsily maintained since the beginning of Operation KP. The international community would have been relieved that the battle between two nuclear powers had drawn to a close. The prime minister, however, chose to engage the Clinton Administration because he had hoped that Washington would make a public statement of support for the Kashmiris and of facilitating a political resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Sharif and his close political aides also believed that American involvement at this withdrawal stage would make it more palatable for the army high command since the army chief had himself had sought Washington’s engagement. However, as subsequent developments showed, neither did the Clinton administration make any public statements supporting the Kashmir struggle, nor did the Sharif-Clinton 4 July encounter influence the post-Kargil tensions that surfaced between the elected prime minister and the army chief."
Here, and throughout the book on this point, author tries subterfuge to veil a lie. She claims that the Washington trip was for Kashmir.
It wasn't.
Plain truth is that, despite the lies to the contrary position proclaimed repeatedly by author, in reality pakis were being not only pounded relentlessly by India but couldn't take it, and the paki dash to Washington was the bully going crying to the police asking him to stop his intended victim bashing him up, something the bully hadn't expected - and this failed, since everyone in the international community was aware, via satellite footage, of who had invaded.
***
"Could the Prime Minister have Ordered an Inquiry Against The Kargil Planners, Especially the Army Chief?
"Immediately after 4 July, tensions began developing between Sharif and Musharraf, with each worried about his survival. Investigating the why, who, and how of Operation KP, to establish responsibility and to take action against those who had launched an operation that had ended in such a fiasco, was, however, far removed from the prime minister’s mind. Civil-military coordination remained generally smooth almost throughout the Kargil period. Some briefings for the PM were held at the 10 Corps Headquarters. Most, however, were held in the PM House, where the army brass would bring its maps, etc. Often, meetings would almost take the form of the DCC but hardly any decision-making took place in these. The prime minister had, in fact, left the decision-making process during Kargil in military hands. Although Sharif had the constitutional authority to directly lead decision-making, he did not ‘interfere’[1160] and had simply supported the army.
"The thought of holding an inquiry against Musharraf is unlikely to have occurred to a PM who had supported Operation KP. It is true that the PM was first briefed of the Operation only after it was a done deed. The PM had also declined Musharraf’s rhetorical mid-stream offer to withdraw his troops from Kargil. In fact, there was written evidence of the Parliament’s bipartisan Defense Committee’s positive support for Operation Kargil in a letter written by the Committee chairman in praise of the army chief’s presentation."
And, unlike the army chief with his openly thug mindset, Nawaz Sharif remained honest enough and decent enough to not turn immediately on someone when it was a fiasco, despite his own self having neither been aware nor initiated it, and never in control, of the assault, until he was required as the figurehead to get help from US to get India to stop!
"In the overall asymmetric civil-military relations in Pakistan’s power structure, there have been only two incidences when elected prime ministers sought to hold army commanders to account. One was when, after the 1971 surrender at Dhaka and the breakup of Pakistan, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto formed the Hamoodur Rehman Commission to conduct an inquiry into the military debacle. His army chief, Zia ul-Haq overthrew him in a military coup and hanged him following legally dubious court proceedings. The second was in 1988, when Prime Minister Junejo ordered an inquiry into the deadly Ojri Camp ammunition disaster. No sooner had he announced the inquiry, the military President Zia ul-Haq sacked him."
And the post Kargil coup wasn't different, either.
"In the absence of a political culture of holding the military accountable, the reactions of military men when held accountable, the complexities of the initiation and, indeed, of the termination of Operation KP, the fiercely anti-Nawaz mood of the political opposition, and the dominant claim of the time that Kashmiri Mujahideen had fought the Indians across the LOC while Pakistani troops fought mostly along the LOC: all these militated against Sharif conducting a Kargil inquiry. ... "
Again author is verbose in attempting to veil facts - namely, that pakis never have had a properly functioning government of any sort other than a military dictatorship, never any culture or education system other than one rooted in invader and looters mindset carrying heritage of history of hordes from Central and West Asia invading, looting and destroying India- which included until 1947 the very land pakis were given, torn out of India - and no other aim set for their very nation other than destruction of India, as a result of this choice of the heritage.
The so-called nation, in reality is no more than a jihadist factory grown around a military base, for West for freedom of expensive usage against Russia, conceived in this mindset of invading and looting, and aim of destruction of India now grown to destruction of the world, and born of deliberately perpetrated massacres of thousands of Hindus in 1946-47 that were intended to, and succeeded in, forcing India to let a piece be torn out.
***
"Beyond fear, the contradictions of the Operation, Kargil produced serious frictions even in the post-Kargil phase. For example, while maintain its insistence that Mujahideen had been fighting in Kargil, how could the army receive the bodies of the martyred soldiers? Similarly, while insisting that only Mujahideen fought in Kargil, how could major programmes honouring the martyrs of Kargil be organized by the Sharif government? ... The army sought widely publicized honouring of the Kargil martyrs and of those having returned alive from across the LOC."
"Throughout history, the acid test of generals at war or in military operations has been the victories they have piled up. No general is more successful than the outcome of the war he leads. In more complex situations, like those in South Asia in the second half of the twentieth century, the yardstick for assessment has to be what have the wars have achieved. History has examples of individual brilliance leading armies to victories and steering nations away from disaster. Outstanding military commanders, such as Alexander, Khalid bin Walid, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Salahuddin Ayyubi, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Vo Nguyen Giap, were men who wrested victory from situations where deep imprints of defeat were written. Bin Walid became the legendary general who, despite the numerical superiority of battle-hardened adversaries like the Romans and the Sassanids, piled up victories for the Rashiddun Caliphate. Napoleon ‘inspired a ragged, mutinous, half-starved army and made it fight’[1161] like a winning combination that few would fight before or after. Salahuddin, with his less experienced army, reversed the Crusaders’ winning streak with his grand victory in the decisive Battle of Hattin in 1187. Julius Caesar, personally brave in battle, was creative in tactics and engineering. There was Alexander, another general facing most armies who outnumbered his own, but always remaining undefeated. Genghis Khan, a masterful general who, through excellent military intelligence and tactics and by uniting nomadic tribes and confederation and his strategic raids, became the founder of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire in history, which included most of Eurasia and substantial parts of Eastern Europe. In more recent times, the Viet Minh Commander, General Vo Nguyen Giap, who led his men to defeat a technologically superior adversary by perfecting and applying a unique war technique, which was the most important dimension of the Vietcong’s overall political, economic, and diplomatic strategy for defeating the Americans.
"In the Kargil operation, the performance of the clique of commanders, the quality of their strategic planning, and of their command, all tell a different story. Yet the power equation, absence of any accountability, the absence of censure when it mattered, and bravado minus logic or sound analysis, have ruled the day. Despite repeated blunders, the commanders in charge escaped accountability."
What author is either unable to perceive, or unable to say, is that the paki military is a bully who, thrashed outside, comes home to beat up his wife and children, old parents and helpless siblings.
***
" ... Major General Akbar Khan, the lead military man in Pakistan's first attempt to regain Kashmir, had readily accepted Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's label of ‘raiders’ for the Pakistani forces involved in the 1947–48 ‘Acquire Kashmir’ Operation. ... "
Kashmir had been free until invaded by pakis, and it wasn't Nehru but Jinnah who pretended thst it was tribals, not his military.
" ... The former general, eulogising the Pakistani ‘raiders’, suggested, ‘We may perhaps also qualify for sitting in that distinguished gallery of personalities like Genghis Khan, Timur Lang, Mahmud of Ghazni, and even Alexander.’ Interestingly, Pakistan's senior-most general equated his own men with history’s prized military leaders, who had raided, ravaged, and even reigned over foreign lands in the pre-Westphalian world. ... "
No, he was far more specific, in his dream and desire to belong to the club that was all comprised of invaders each from elsewhere and attacked India, invaded and looted India, sought to destroy India.
He included none of the tall figures that were from or of India, despite his own homeland having been a part of India for ever until then less than a year ago, and his own ancestral origins being in India.
And that's the divide, of India- and those that seek to destroy India.
" ... This voluntary characterization of a state's army as ‘raiders’, in the context especially of the Kashmir operation, flowed from the juxtaposition in this Pakistani soldier's mind, of the Pakistan Army as a force for right, dedicated to undoing the wrong committed at the time of Pakistan's creation. ... "
That's convoluted fraud seeking to justify invasions, massacres and loot, with fraudulent claims of rights.
British had in fact given far too much land to pakis in the first place, when plebiscite would have denied them all but East Bengal, which alone had voted for partition. Sindh was evenly divided in vote. Punjab had voted for unionists and NWFP was determined to stay with India - as was Baluchistan. Brits rode roughshod over all of the provinces in handing over the land pakis got, because it was military base needed for use of West against Russia.
What those raiders were identifying with was, has always been, identity of invaders, looters, destroyers and killers wreaking havoc against India. This isn't due to perceived rights but simply a mindset of a robber.
And they certainly had no 'right' to Kashmir, which, until pakis attacked, was independent.
Author does lie on level after level, not very differently from a rotten onion.
***
" ... India's systematic role in being a mid-wife to the 1971 breakup of Pakistan ... "
Because East Bengal hadn't been subjected to racist discrimination and linguistic chauvinism of denying freedom of language, not to mention massacre of three million and mass gang rapes of half a million, by paki military?
Or was it because ....
July 29, 2019
Some unknown information from key players in the Pakistani military establishment involved in the planning of the incursion of Kargil War with a historically grounded and analytically nuanced analysis of the Indo-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir and Civil Military relation in Pakistan.
November 11, 2018
Well researched and in depth retrospective analysis of events starting from planning of Kargil Op and it's ultimate culmination in the coup. The reason I'm giving it 3 stars is that the current edition is full of editorial mistakes with a lot of verbosity/ repetitions and feels more like a draft . I hope the next edition is free from these errors and is a bit brief. Moreover, a general feeling of bias is felt all along in favour of ex PM NS, portraying him innocent and sincere. Even if he wasn't complicit in the later stages of the Op, it makes him inept and incompetent. Overall, a good read with solid facts and figures particularly of the operational and diplomatic fronts.
January 15, 2019
Typos are plenty and lots of passages have been duplicated en masse in different chapters. Clearly, the editorial work is a bit shoddy, but the book is a great read. Well researched and focused on the Kargil operation, its a great view into the opaque governing systems in Pakistan.
July 12, 2020
Absolute propaganda and Pakistani mouthpiece
The facts are wrong from 1st page onwards. There is no such place like IOK. Author is unaware of it and fails to mention pakistan occupied Kashmir. Totally baseless narrative and wastage of time. Better to read same fiction
The facts are wrong from 1st page onwards. There is no such place like IOK. Author is unaware of it and fails to mention pakistan occupied Kashmir. Totally baseless narrative and wastage of time. Better to read same fiction
November 13, 2018
Very well researched, excellently argued but let down by sub-par editing. I wish she had chosen a better publishing house.
December 23, 2019
Repetitive and poorly edited - a profoundly disappointing work
April 14, 2021
Pro pakistan book in partial denial
The only saving grace for this book is that there is no denial that Pakistani troops, not any Mujahideen or "Freedom fighters" were involved in the Kargil war. There seems to be too many tortuous excuses/justifications for the exercise, going back to 1948.
There seems to be difficulty acknowledging the general deceitful behavior of the Pakistani polity vis-a-vis India during Kargil, and the fact that it was a big loss militarily. Politically, there was little loss, since no territory was lost by Pakistan, and this was enabled by the early running away of the Pakistan army and the joint Clinton Sharif declaration. There seems to be no appreciation in the book of this running away after being thrashed, even though individual soldiers did fight bravely. The cowardice of the entire Pakistani armed forces top brass to own up to their mistakes and apologize to their soldiers, and not just a clique, was not pointed out. Turning such excuses means that the same mistakes will be repeated again and again, and the neighborhood peace will be destroyed. The book disappoints.
The only saving grace for this book is that there is no denial that Pakistani troops, not any Mujahideen or "Freedom fighters" were involved in the Kargil war. There seems to be too many tortuous excuses/justifications for the exercise, going back to 1948.
There seems to be difficulty acknowledging the general deceitful behavior of the Pakistani polity vis-a-vis India during Kargil, and the fact that it was a big loss militarily. Politically, there was little loss, since no territory was lost by Pakistan, and this was enabled by the early running away of the Pakistan army and the joint Clinton Sharif declaration. There seems to be no appreciation in the book of this running away after being thrashed, even though individual soldiers did fight bravely. The cowardice of the entire Pakistani armed forces top brass to own up to their mistakes and apologize to their soldiers, and not just a clique, was not pointed out. Turning such excuses means that the same mistakes will be repeated again and again, and the neighborhood peace will be destroyed. The book disappoints.
June 16, 2020
A well-researched account of the Kargil saga. Till date there has been no formal enquiry into the whole Kargil episode officially in Pakistan. This book meticulously details the reasons (from Pakistani perspective) and narrates the genesis of the Plan and its execution till the coup. Highly recommended reading for someone interested in Indo-Pak relations and geo-politics.
This book has been recently published from Lahore and the only way for me to purchase was through amazon.com where the price was listed as $49.99. However the landed price at doorstep was almost double! An observation (and I hope that generalising to publication of all English books out of Pakistan is not true) - very shoddy job of editing with numerous spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, repetitions of phrases, sentences, paragraphs and poor quality of binding of the book! For a book from a renowned Pakistani scholar and security expert with high quality of research, these deficiencies should have been avoided!
This book has been recently published from Lahore and the only way for me to purchase was through amazon.com where the price was listed as $49.99. However the landed price at doorstep was almost double! An observation (and I hope that generalising to publication of all English books out of Pakistan is not true) - very shoddy job of editing with numerous spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, repetitions of phrases, sentences, paragraphs and poor quality of binding of the book! For a book from a renowned Pakistani scholar and security expert with high quality of research, these deficiencies should have been avoided!
March 27, 2021
Given the shroud of secrecy over the facts of the Kargil debacle and it's aftermath and false and pig headed bravado of the Kargil clique of Generals, it is a commendable effort to simply come out with a work like this. Given that success finds many claimants while a defeat is an orphan, strategic blunder of Kargil changed the course of Pakistan's history without any doubt. And the change was not for the good as it led to another period of military (albeit liberal) rule that didn't do the institution building any good. The book suffers a bit from repetition and duplication in a number of places. Probably because it was written over a very long time and the author didn't write in a single stretch as a single project. It is also quite voluminous and if edited properly, could have been cut short by 100 pages. Despite the length, it is a very good effort and a one volume home run for anyone curious to dissect the events leading up to and following the Operation Koh Paima. After all, history is our abiding teacher!
February 3, 2021
FAVOURITE LINE:
"These fighting men, having sworn on oath, in the hallowed halls of the Kakul Academy & Cadet College, to defend their country at all costs, now atop the 15000-16000ft steep and rugged peaks, were honouring their oath".
MY 2 CENTS:
Biased and Anti Army narrative, tried to prove PM innocence. Vengefully tried to portray army is weak nerve and cannot handle pressure in other words "Melining armed forces of Pak".
Undue favour to PM Nawaz and while reading sometime feels like reading Nawaz Sharif Biography. Pg291 "... Chatted with spectators gathered around. He told them to 'pray for him and for nation…."
By reading the book, it seems that every negative decision was taken by army and civil government is being portyed like an Innocent child.
It will be a delight for Nawaz Supporters 😊
"These fighting men, having sworn on oath, in the hallowed halls of the Kakul Academy & Cadet College, to defend their country at all costs, now atop the 15000-16000ft steep and rugged peaks, were honouring their oath".
MY 2 CENTS:
Biased and Anti Army narrative, tried to prove PM innocence. Vengefully tried to portray army is weak nerve and cannot handle pressure in other words "Melining armed forces of Pak".
Undue favour to PM Nawaz and while reading sometime feels like reading Nawaz Sharif Biography. Pg291 "... Chatted with spectators gathered around. He told them to 'pray for him and for nation…."
By reading the book, it seems that every negative decision was taken by army and civil government is being portyed like an Innocent child.
It will be a delight for Nawaz Supporters 😊
August 12, 2025
Nasim Zehra struggles to be objective if one were to be charitable. This book is tough to read as it is an assault on the English language over nearly 600 pages. For example, people extricate their pound of flesh instead of extracting it in this book.
This book can be split into 3 parts.
Part 1 is a valiant defence of Musharraf's Kargil as revenge for Siachen plan. Funnily, book makes no mention of the fact that Siachen was never demarcated properly while the Kargil LoC always was. Ergo, Kargil 1999 was a violation of accepted norms which Op Meghdoot 1984 wasn't.
Part 2 is the defence of the innocent Nawaz Sharif who was stabbed in the back by Musharraf and the Indians during the Op
Part 3 is a defence of Sharif against the Coup plotters.
Odious book about some really Odious Pakistanis.
.
This book can be split into 3 parts.
Part 1 is a valiant defence of Musharraf's Kargil as revenge for Siachen plan. Funnily, book makes no mention of the fact that Siachen was never demarcated properly while the Kargil LoC always was. Ergo, Kargil 1999 was a violation of accepted norms which Op Meghdoot 1984 wasn't.
Part 2 is the defence of the innocent Nawaz Sharif who was stabbed in the back by Musharraf and the Indians during the Op
Part 3 is a defence of Sharif against the Coup plotters.
Odious book about some really Odious Pakistanis.
.
October 21, 2019
If you didn't know about what happened during 1999 in other words you were too young to look at then this book is for you otherwise author deliberately sugar-coated many harsh facts about the politician to make army a villain in every aspect though military take overs are not a good thing and poison for real democracy but in this book author took 300 out of 465 pages to prove nawaz sharif mafia right
Long story short Biased.
Long story short Biased.
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