Dragonfire (18 page)

Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi

Local time: 0100 Saturday 5 May 2007
GMT: 1930 Friday 4 May 2007

‘I offer my
resignation, Prime Minister,’ said Mani Naidu, the head of the Intelligence Bureau.

‘Refused,’ replied Hari Dixit as he took his chair at the head of the table and opened a book in front of him.

‘I would like you to accept my resignation as well,’ said Chandra Reddy, of RAW, who should have known in advance of Pakistan’s attack on Kargil.

‘Refused,’ said Dixit, running his finger down a page in the book. He looked up at Naidu. ‘If we had a Home Minister, he could go, but we don’t because he has been
murdered. The situation is so grave and the actions of Hamid Khan so unpredictable that to reshuffle my intelligence agencies at this time would be immature to say the least. Within the past thirty
minutes, the whole of the Dras-Kargil sector has fallen, and we need to look ahead. Foreign Minister, before we begin on the details could you sum up where we stand diplomatically with China,
Pakistan and the United States?’

‘Pakistan denies involvement,’ said Prabhu Purie, ‘although we have the wreckage of their helicopters all over Kargil. We have heard nothing from Hamid Khan directly, but I
expect them to call for a UN Security Council meeting in the next few hours. Equally disturbingly, China is racking up pressure both bilaterally and through international institutions. I’m
told its troop levels on the border are almost high enough to launch an invasion. Reddy could give more details on that. Beijing has launched official complaints against us to the Human Rights
Commission in Geneva.’

‘What on earth for?’ said Dixit.

‘Prison conditions,’ replied Purie. ‘We treat our prisoners inhumanely.’

‘They must be out of their minds.’

Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China

Local time: 0800 Saturday 5 May 2007
GMT: 0000 Saturday 5 May 2007

President Tao Jian
had risen to become the leader of the world’s largest one-party state on a reputation for incorruptibility and hawkish nationalism. Having
gained the support of the economists and diplomats within the Party, he finally won over the military in March 1996 when the United States sent an aircraft carrier into the Straits of Taiwan during
China’s missile tests. It was Tao, then a vice-minister, who suggested that the then President Jiang Zemin and Foreign Minister, Qian Qichen, be summoned for a dressing down. From the
viewpoint of the Chinese military, if the Americans had the nerve to threaten China with an aircraft carrier, China had clearly shown herself to be too forgiving of Taiwan’s democracy and too
soft in response to international pressure.

On the rare occasions when he had to meet an American official, Tao made it unequivocally clear, albeit as part of a joke, that if the United States attempted such a show of force again China
would attack. His favourite parting remark, which he had mastered in English, was: ‘We may not be able to hit the Pentagon, but we can vaporize Hollywood.’ He became a key liaison
figure in pushing through the new policy to down-size the army, modernize it and invest in missiles and a blue-water navy.

Like most Chinese leaders, Tao was a pupil of the works of Sun Tzu’s
Art of War
. But he had also been influenced by the Prussian officer Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz, whose
work
Vom Kriege
or
On War
advocated that war should be seen as an extension of political policy and not as an end in itself. Years ago, when Tao first read Clausewitz, he discussed it
with translators and military experts to ensure that he understood the meaning. He then blended Clausewitz with Sun Tzu’s teaching that the supreme art of war was to subdue the enemy without
fighting. ‘War is a matter of vital importance for the state,’ wrote Sun Tzu in 500
BC
, arguing that the military was the instrument which delivered the
coup
de grace
to an enemy previously made vulnerable. While Sun Tzu argued that ‘there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited’, Clausewitz insisted that
‘To introduce into the philosophy of war a principle of moderation would be an act of absurdity. War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.’

As Tao Jian contemplated his political objective with India, he thought about Hari Dixit. Dixit had offered to come to Beijing and had then cancelled without explanation. He had struck Pakistani
positions across the LoC and emerged diplomatically unscathed.

The man might be a follower of neither Clausewitz nor Sun Tzu, but clearly he was a national leader of high brinkmanship and courage. The war about to be waged was not about Pakistan, but about
India and China. Ultimately, it was the first skirmish in a fight for global leadership.

Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi

Local time: 0600 Saturday 5 May 2007
GMT: 0030 Saturday 5 May 2007

‘How are we
fixed militarily?’ asked Hari Dixit. The National Security Council had not left the room since convening overnight. Each time decisions were
made, messages interrupted the meeting with new developments.

‘The Rajasthan and Punjab borders are in battle-ready positions, Prime Minister,’ said Chief of Army Staff, Unni Khrishnan. ‘We could move on Lahore any time you want. Fighting
is still going on along the LoC. A counter-attack has begun to retake Kargil.’

‘Casualties?’

‘Not clear yet on their side. But we have more than fifty confirmed dead and about two hundred wounded so far. We have drawn up plans to create a buffer zone on the Pakistan side of the
LoC, rather like the Israelis did in southern Lebanon. We’ve named it Operation
Qabza-e-Zamin
, or in English,
Secure Ground
.’

‘How would that go down at the UN and elsewhere?’ said Dixit.

‘Given what happened last night, if we went in now, we could get away with it,’ said Purie.

‘Can it be done?’ Dixit asked Khrishnan.

Khrishnan hesitated: ‘At a pinch, yes. It is high altitude and carries risk.’

‘What risk?’

‘The environment is the most hostile imaginable. Movement through the mountains is painfully slow. It takes an average of ten minutes to cover a hundred yards, five times longer than on
the plains. It’s even slower with rations, ammunition, weapons, warm-weather protection and communications equipment.’

‘But it is the same for the enemy, is it not?’ said Dixit.

‘They are dug in, sir. I am not saying we cannot do it, because this is what the mountain troops are trained to do. What I am flagging up is the chances of failure and the reasons. The
pathways, running along the mountain ledges, are narrow. The men have to walk in single file. If they slip and fall, it is certain death. If the enemy pins them down with machine-gun fire, there is
nowhere to flee to. Once out there, each unit is often cut off without a radio link. The high-frequency VHF radios operate on line of sight, so we have to set up relay stations, visible to each
other to make sure commanders can pass instructions through to the forward units. And finally there’s fatigue. The thin air saps the energy of the men.’

‘I assume each battle-front carries its own unique set of risks,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘and that Kashmir is worse than most. If we go in now we can argue our case on the
international stage. Can you do it?’

‘If you accept the level of risk, sir, we can give it our best efforts.’

‘And the China border?’

‘We shouldn’t fight there, Prime Minister,’ replied Khrishnan, glancing towards Purie.

‘The Chinese have diplomatically shot themselves in the foot by breaking the Missile Technology Control Regime and nuclear proliferation agreements,’ said Purie. ‘They also
have a record of backing losers. Cambodia, North Korea and Burma are not shining examples of success. We should persuade Beijing that Pakistan is only going one way and that is towards
collapse.’

‘And let international sanctions do the rest of our fighting for us,’ said Dixit. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Khrishnanji, what do you think?’

‘I am not as convinced as the Foreign Minister, Prime Minister,’ said Unni Khrishnan. ‘If China launches a cross-border attack, we will have to respond. Already they have
reinforced the border along the Thag La Ridge just west of Bhutan, which is where they made their first advances in the 1962 war. We now know they have sent
Kilo
-class diesel-electric
submarines to the Andaman Sea. Two surfaced as they went through the shallow waters of the Malacca Straits and made themselves known to the satellite cameras.’

Dixit put his head in his hands. ‘What in Heaven’s name are they trying to achieve?’ he said.

‘They think they can threaten us and win, sir,’ said Khrishnan.

Mumbai/Bombay, Maharastra, southern India

Local time: 0600 Saturday 5 May 2007
GMT: 0030 Saturday 5 May 2007

Within an hour
of the Kargil/Dras sector falling, explosions tore through cities all over India. The first was in Mumbai, the capital of Maharastra, where the state
government was fervently Hindu nationalist. A massive car bomb went off on Madame Cama Road, outside the state government offices, near Horniman Circle on the edge of the main modern downtown
business district. A security guard on duty was killed.

A second car bomb exploded in Delhi’s Connaught Place and over the next two hours there were bomb attacks in thirteen Indian states. The only significant city to escape was Calcutta, the
capital of West Bengal, for reasons which only became apparent much later.

The most concentrated violence was in the north-east. Two car bombs exploded in the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, Itanagar; one outside the town hall and the other close to the police station.
Bomdi La, the southern town in the Kameng Division near Bhutan, was attacked by three timer bombs and grenades were thrown in the western town of Tawang, the closest major centre to the Bhutanese
border.

In neighbouring Assam, guerrillas claiming to be from the once-defunct United Liberation Front of Assam fought running gun battles with police and troops in Dispur, the state capital, and in the
second city, Narogong. When the fighting was finished, twenty-nine Indian security personnel were dead, together with more than fifty guerrillas.

Strategically, the most important target was the main trunk road heading north towards Sikkim from West Bengal, cutting across the smallest corridor of Indian territory. It was less than thirty
kilometres across at its narrowest. Wedged between Nepal to the west and Bangladesh to the east, this was where the geographical cohesion of India was at its most vulnerable. It was known as the
Siliguri corridor or Chicken’s Neck. The road, which linked Siliguri and Guwahati, was blown in three places and blocked with booby-trapped empty fuel trucks. Two hundred mujahedin fighters
held the position, while Indian infantry and fighter planes tried to dislodge them. It was later discovered that the guerrillas had come over the border from Bangladesh, where they had been trained
for the operation by Pakistani and Chinese specialists. Every man would die, but for a short time, Pakistan’s dream and India’s nightmare had come true. The seven states of the
north-east were cut off from the rest of India.

Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi, India

Local time: 0730 Saturday 5 May 2007
GMT: 0200 Saturday 5 May 2007

‘Let me get
this clear, Prime Minister,’ said Unni Khrishnan, the Chief of Army Staff. ‘You believe that China and Pakistan have an agreement to sever
the north-east militarily, and at the same time move in on Kashmir. But I am convinced China does not want war.’

‘No, perhaps it doesn’t. But it will go as far as it can by pushing it to the edge.’ Dixit put on his spectacles and looked down. ‘I think the answer might lie in this
memo I have in front of me. It was written to Pakistani Field Marshal Ayub Khan in 1966 by Zulfi Bhutto, who was then Foreign Minister. We should note the circumstances. Pakistan had just been
defeated by us in the 1965 war. Bhutto considered the terms of the truce unacceptable and was quoted as saying that Pakistan needed complete victory over India. The only alternative would be
Pakistan’s destruction as a self-respecting nation. He described the Tashkent Agreement which ended the hostilities as a national humiliation and diplomatic betrayal. Then he outlined his
plan, and I am convinced that Hamid Khan has borrowed Bhutto’s strategy to use for his own foreign policy. Remember, of course, that Bangladesh was still East Pakistan.

‘“The defence of East Pakistan would need to be closely coordinated with Chinese actions both in the north-east of India and also possibly in the regions of Sikkim and Nepal. It
would be necessary to provide the Chinese with a link-up with our forces in that sector. I envisage a lightning thrust across the narrow Indian territory that separates Pakistan” – or
Bangladesh as it is now – “from Nepal.”’

Dixit looked up. ‘Bhutto was referring to the Chicken’s Neck, exactly the same area which the terrorists held this morning. “From our point of view, this would be highly
desirable,” he wrote. “It would be to the advantage of Nepal to secure its freedom from isolation by India. It would solve the problem of Sikkim and Tibet.” ’

‘It would also deal with China’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh,’ said Prabhu Purie, ‘and bring Bhutan and Nepal into the Chinese sphere of influence.’

‘In short, gentlemen,’ Dixit went on, ‘that is the price the Chinese dictatorship is asking us to pay for peace. We give Kashmir to Pakistan. Expel the Dalai Lama and much of
the Tibetan community from India. Abandon our security obligations to Bhutan and Nepal and renegotiate our borders with a view to handing over Arunachal Pradesh and giving independence back to
Sikkim. And it will go like that, chiselling away at us to make us the weaker power in Asia.’ He paused, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, then summed up: ‘It is not the road
democratic India would seek to go down.’

Line of Control, Kashmir

Local time: 0830 Saturday 5 May 2007
GMT: 0300 Saturday 5 May 2007