Vikram Jit Singh, journalist and author of Flowers on a Kargil Cliff that narrates powerful human stories of love and loss in the 1999 Kargil War, speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.)

1 year ago

Vikram Jit Singh, journalist and author of Flowers on a Kargil Cliff that narrates powerful human stories of love and loss in the 1999 Kargil War, speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) | SAM Conversation

Transcript

00:00Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor.

00:18It is a pleasure to welcome journalist and author Mr. Vikramjit Singh, whose latest book

00:28Flowers on a Cargill Cliff has been published. It's a very touching and catchy title for

00:50something which happened in 1999. It was a very intense conflict

00:58and he has this book in three parts. The first part is Cargill War,

01:09the second part is Kashmir and the third is Beyond the Cargill Horizon.

01:15Mr. Vikramjit was out of those who, as per the concept of embedding journalists to military

01:35units during any conflict. The terminology and idea is American. It was tried in a few cases,

01:50in the case of Indian Army. As far as the Cargill conflict is concerned, I call it a conflict

02:02because it's not really a war. It was an intensification of what has been happening

02:08in Jammu and Kashmir ever since the late 80s. That war was covered by a lot of media teams

02:27being allowed to go there, being given access. It may be mentioned that in 1965, in 1971,

02:39we didn't have any concept of embedding journalists but there were media teams which were

02:46taken to the operational area where they were briefed, where they were given access for

02:56taking visuals. As per the technology of the time, the 1965 and 1971 wars were covered fairly

03:07reasonably. Vikramjit has not only given a touching title to his books but some of the

03:28titles to his chapters are also touching. I will just read out the first portion, Cargill War.

03:42Staring at a dog's death, Hear shells arched like red shooting stars.

03:56Hear shells, that's heavy explosive shells arched like red shooting stars.

04:06A shine that flashed in the Pakistani eye, Nameless graves under the snows,

04:22rusty peaks in lusty letters, irises in the park bunker's shadows.

04:32I will request Mr. Vikramjit to give briefly his impressions of this war because this is one which

04:46he saw up close and I must also mention there's an excellent foreword written to this book by

04:55Major General Raj Mehta who was commanding a Rashtriya Rifle sector during that war. Mr. Vikramjit.

05:11Well, thank you Colonel Bhatt for a very eloquent preface or introduction to my

05:18memoir of Cargill and Kashmir. I think the very basis of my memoir is that I was fortunate enough

05:31to be there at the line of fire. You know what is called a combat journalist.

05:40Initially in Kashmir for about one and a half years

05:44and then in Cargill where I went up twice to the troops into high altitude. Now the other

05:51journalists, I think the only thing that I need to distinct is that the other journalists were

05:58in the valleys whereas the battle was on the ridges. So they were close to the war but they

06:05were not inside the war. So when I went up with the troops, I stayed the night with the troops at

06:1415,700 feet during the war on point 4812 on the Khalubar region batallic which is a very well

06:23known battle, the Khalubar battle fought by the 12 Jackalai, the 111 Gorkha Rifles, the Ladakh

06:29Scouts, the 22 Grenadiers. You know that really broke the spine of the Pakistani intrusions

06:35in the batallic sector. And before that I went up with 18 Garhwal Rifles up the Tololing Nala

06:43to point 4700 where we were exposed to Pakistani fire because they were dominating the approach

06:51up the Tololing Nala. So we were shelled by the airburst shelling you know which

06:57explodes in the air above you and showers you with shrapnel. So that was another

07:04you know experience that I had with the frontline troops. But beyond Kargil,

07:13this is a question that I've been raising for the last 25 years

07:17and I raised it within two weeks of the war's commencement in May 1999. And my fundamental

07:25question was that how did this invasion occur? This kind of an invasion over nearly 200 kilometers

07:36of the LOC at some points 11 to 13 kilometers deep would not have been possible without

07:44a build-up which took place over the last seven to eight months.

07:47And I have produced evidence in my book to establish this. During the war,

07:55within two weeks of the war, I had put up an article in the Indian Express pointing out to the

08:04you know why this thing had occurred. What could have been the you know the lacunae of higher

08:11command? What are the failures of higher command? So I was an embedded journalist

08:19in Kashmir in counter-insurgency with numerous battalions. In Kargil, embedded with 18 Garhwal

08:26rifles, 12 Jack Light infantry. But I was not like the American embedded journalists.

08:32I maintained my independence and a critical view of higher command failures.

08:38And as in the book, the chapters which you have read out, there are stories of love and loss,

08:45of love and death. You know because war is a profoundly human experience. It affects us very

08:53dramatically. It leads to huge collateral damage. It leads to a vacuum in so many families' lives

09:02It leads to a vacuum in so many families' lives which can never be fulfilled. The children who

09:07have never seen their father, the widows who died, whose husbands died so young, they'd hardly

09:13known him before he gave his life in battle. The parents you know sometimes had loggerheads with

09:23their daughter-in-law after the war over money and so the collateral damage of war.

09:32Thank you Mr. Jain. You are right. You brought it out that it was a conflict to which we reacted

09:53easily eight months or so late. There was a diary of a young officer of the Pakistan Army

10:03named Lieutenant Mazullah Khan Simbal. It came into the hands of one of the units and

10:18copies were made of it to share with the media by Army Headquarters

10:31branch which deals with this subject.

10:34He was the one who had reported in December but it was quite obvious that the Pakistan Army

10:52had only sent officers on deputation. It was General Musharraf who was the Director General

11:07Military Operations before he became the Chief whose idea and planning it was and for this purpose

11:17they raised about 13 to 14 battalions of Northern Light Infantry made up largely of

11:28troops who were non-Sunnis. There are very small percentage of Sunnis in it and

11:36it became quite clear that they were raised more as a cannon fodder force.

11:42They did not receive rations as regularly as they should have.

11:57Their burials were all conducted in hours of darkness.

12:03There are a number of aspects and of course we all know that the Pakistan Army did not acknowledge

12:13some of the fatal casualties of Northern Light Infantry soldiers who would come into the hands

12:22of Indian Army and which we wanted to hand over and anyway they were given an

12:36honourable and correct burial as per their religious traditions etc.

12:41Although this war was covered quite, before that I think I will request Mr. Vikramji to get on to

13:01his next chapter Kashmir, the chapters of which are Death Before Dawn,

13:11Russell in the Autumn Leaves, Pandit Blood and Safyapura Snows,

13:22The Blunting of Armed Men, sorry The Hunting of Armed Men, No Kills,

13:29Where is the Story and lastly Ducks Tumble from Kashmir Skies. Go ahead Mr. Vikramji.

13:42Well, Karanbhat, when I landed in Kashmir in 1997 in October,

13:48I was a very curious young man and I was not satisfied with the newspaper headlines

13:56as reported by journalists. So, when I would read a newspaper headline from Kashmir that

14:02there has been an encounter in Saipur and four terrorists have been killed and one army soldier

14:07has put down his life, I wanted to know how exactly it happened. What happens when they

14:15open fire on each other? How much of a stiff fight do the terrorists give? What happens to

14:21the terrorist body when it's pulled out of the burnt house? What are the remains like?

14:28So, I wanted to be there when the action, when the bullets fly. To that effect, I put in a request

14:34to the co-commander in Srinagar, the 15th co-commander that when your troops go into battle

14:42in Kashmir, I want to be with them in the front line, in the inner cordon. I don't want to be

14:49outside in the third cordon where the brigade commander or the commanding officer is.

14:54I want to be where your sepoy or your rifleman is facing the flak

15:01because only then will I know and be able to write

15:05with a very high degree of authenticity what happens in an encounter in Kashmir.

15:12Fortunately, my request was heeded by the corps headquarters and I was given permission

15:19numerous times to be with the troops in operations. So, I was with them for three days at a go,

15:26two days at a go. I climbed mountains at night with them including the Safapur operation,

15:32which you've just mentioned. The Safapur operation was launched by 70 brigade,

15:38infantry brigade to nail the six Pakistani killers of the 23

15:45Kashmiri pundits of Vandhama who were shot on January 23, 1998.

15:54The challenge to my reportage was to reach the operational site in time before the action got

16:00over and for that the army did not provide me with a convoy. I had to reach the site

16:07myself. Whether I took an auto rickshaw, I took an auto rickshaw to reach the Safapur operation.

16:15At night when nobody was willing to stir out of Srinagar, I took an auto rickshaw to reach

16:20the Safapur operational base from where I climbed with nine Dogra into the operational zone.

16:26So, once you are into the operation, then you are with the troops. Then you are fired on from

16:35anywhere. You don't know where the fire is going to come because a Kashmiri house has so many

16:41windows. The initiative is with a terrorist. He opens a window and he lets off with his automatic

16:48rifle. So, the first casualty is the troops. I have seen that all with my own eyes. I have flung

16:56myself into ditches, trenches, what you call the proverbial trenches. I have rushed into a barber's

17:05shop and locked that door from inside because the terrorists were firing from outside.

17:10So, I have been fired upon by a Pika, a belted universal machine gun, in the open fields because

17:22he was sitting in a hut. I was with a section strength of the one Naga approaching them in

17:27a village called Gund Rehman, which is about 20 kilometers from Srinagar. So, I think

17:34what my book, now when people read my book, what they tell me, the feedback is that we see Kashmir,

17:43we see what soldiers go through with a different perspective. So, when they read now a little item,

17:50you know, a soldier dies in action in Kashmir, they see it differently because behind that little

17:57paragraph of a soldier's death is a huge operation.

18:05You know, searching in one operation for three days,

18:08a full infantry brigade was searching 200 houses.

18:16So, all this I put into my book with the bottom line or the essence of it,

18:23that it's not just about gallantry, it's not just about death or glory

18:27or in Kashmir. Kashmir is a lethal operation and it is very frustrating because you can hunt

18:35terrorists for three days, four days and not get anything.

18:39And then the divisional headquarters or the counterinsurgency force headquarters,

18:44their divisional equivalent, you know, they'll ask questions, what were you doing for four days?

18:49And the same thing happened to me as a journalist. When I went to operations

18:53and we didn't kill a single terrorist, my editor told me, what's the story? There's nothing in it.

19:01You know, they're not bothered about, you know, what the soldiers go through or what a journalist

19:05who goes through all of that, that's not of interest. It's just okay, you've got four

19:08terrorists killed, that's a story. No terrorists killed, well, go and do something else.

19:14So, I have written about five, six stories which were never published.

19:23And the stories which actually we shot terrorists were also killed because the powers that be in my

19:29organization, I was working for the Indian Express, at the apex level, were not well

19:36disposed towards me. So, my stories were killed. But finally, after 25 years, I've got the stories

19:43out and put them in this book. So, I think that about gives you a glimpse of what CIOPS

19:55as seen as it by a journalist is. I'm not a veteran. I have not written it from the

20:00point of view of a veteran. I have written it from the point of view of an outsider.

20:06It's a different perspective.

20:09It matters, you know. I cannot but help mentioning that I was an army spokesperson for 10 years,

20:24five years in the northeast, where I raised two new

20:33defence public relations, Ministry of Defence public relations

20:39offices, one in Imphal and the other in Guwahati. And thereafter, I got posted to Delhi as

20:49PRO Army. And I mean, your book is of particular interest to me because of my, you know,

21:01constant effort to share with media as much as possible of operational information

21:12for the benefit of the army, the country.

21:22That is one thing, you know, one should be very clear about. And not share something which may,

21:31you know, compromise operations.

21:33So, but it wasn't easy at times because the media wants more than you can give.

21:48And as I know that as an embedded journalist, you have to follow certain, you know, restrictions

21:58certain, you know, restrictions that have been placed on you.

22:03For example, when I was covering counterinsurgency and the Kargil war,

22:07I was not allowed a camera. I was just not allowed a camera into the operations. And I

22:12didn't actually want it because I'm a writer. You know, I don't like taking photographs. I like

22:17observing with my eyes and storing it in my head. And even in Kargil, when I went up with the troops,

22:23the camera which was given to me was in the hands of the brigade major or somebody else in

22:28the army. I was only given the camera at certain points. Okay, now Vikram, you can take photographs,

22:34that's it. And then the camera was taken back. So, operational restrictions were very well,

22:40you know, impressed upon me. That makes a lot of sense because,

22:44you know, you shouldn't have any case of when the principle for the conduct of visual media in,

22:55you know, conflicts, wars is that the camera must always face the enemy.

23:05It must not, at the time of, when a hot conflict is on, when a hot engagement is on,

23:14it must not face your own side. Facing your own side can be done at any other time, you know,

23:22when the battle isn't on. There are certain very interesting aspects of showing a soldier's life

23:31when the bullets aren't flying also because they're not flying 24 hours, you know, 24-7

23:39indefinitely. But it is, you know, the person, the officer conducting media has to be very

23:52careful because during the Kargil operation, there was one case of a camera getting, you know,

24:02a little bit of a view of what is going on here and that helped. That helped Pakistan

24:09to register that position and artillery fire came on them and there was a loss of some

24:17gun crew members, some soldiers of the gun crew. Well, actually, you know, Kargil, the media was

24:23completely a novice in covering conflict close to the war. And so, you know, media was all over and

24:32at one point of time, the army banned the media during the war and then they again relented and

24:36got the media. So, I think there were going to be hiccups or, you know, what you call malfunctions

24:42in the media's approach. But overall, if you take the larger perspective, the media was a

24:47force multiplier in Kargil. It exposed the Pakistanis that they were not a fedayeen

24:53or a freedom fighter, you know, invasion of Kargil. They were regular army soldiers and

24:59India was fighting a righteous battle. And had international opinion not come on to our side,

25:05we would have fallen into the Pakistani trap because the international opinion

25:09would have sought a ceasefire at the altered line of control.

25:12And today, fortunately, the line of control that Pakistan wanted to

25:18affect on ground in Kargil is now a string of graves of Pakistani soldiers left behind

25:26by the Pakistani army. And I think it is very dishonorable that an army has not taken back

25:32its soldiers. Till today, 244 Pakistani soldiers lie. Which army in the world will dishonor

25:41its own men? Disgraceful. It's disgraceful, you know.

25:49Let's come to your third part, the third and final part of your book,

25:56Beyond the Kargil Horizon. The chapters are,

26:01She waited two years. He lay dead in a Kargil cave.

26:06His memories will end only with my pyre.

26:1621 November, the divinity of coincidence.

26:23Moral courage under fire.

26:25Moral courage under fire.

26:29Humble donkeys saved the day.

26:33After the war, Romil's scar.

26:40Briefly, if you could, some of them are very touching

26:46titles for chapters.

26:48You know, the war is so brutal. It does inflict such brutality upon the human emotional

27:05self that, you know, words fail you. But we must preserve these stories for our generations to come,

27:14to know what the enormous price humans pay to defend a nation's borders.

27:22So I have collected stories from the war which will move people and see the human side

27:32of soldiering. For example, take Kumari Shrestha, the widow, who refused to

27:40acknowledge or accept that her husband had died in action. She said, if he's dead,

27:47show me his body. And they couldn't show him, couldn't produce the body because he was missing

27:53in Kargil's crags and boulders at enormous heights. For two years, this very brave

28:04very brave and very lady of great self-belief kept applying Sindoor to her hair

28:16and her nuptial bangles kept tinkling on her arms.

28:22There are some bodies of, you know, soldiers who died in the 1962

28:29India-China war, which are probably, you know, in the snows, well-preserved.

28:38Over the years, few of them were recovered because of maybe the, you know,

28:47climate effect of snows melting. But, you know, the point about this lady was

28:54that she was a lady of not very substantive financial means.

28:59But she refused to accept the compensation on death. She said, he's not dead.

29:05That is the character I am highlighting. It's not about a missing soldier. There have been

29:10missing soldiers in many wars and are still missing. Eventually, what was the outcome?

29:16Eventually, they found his body in Kargil at 14,000 feet two years after the war in a cave and

29:22this was just a skeleton. So, the last, the bugle was blown for him at 14,000 feet outside that cave

29:29where they cremated his body. And they took the ashes back and handed it over to his widow

29:36in a red urn, you know, in a red matka. And then she accepted the finality that he was gone and

29:44she accepted the compensation due to the next of kin in case of death in action.

29:49There is a story of, you know, Jintu Gugai and Anjana Prashad and Jintu died in the war. He was

29:57awarded a Veer Chakra. And Anjana refused to marry anybody after that.

30:05And it was Jintu's parents who persuaded her because they wanted her to continue with her

30:10life and not live in a tragic remembrance, in a memory of. And look at the coincidence.

30:20Anjana finally got married years after the war and she had two children.

30:26And her daughter was born on November 21, which is also, which was also Jintu's birthday.

30:33And courage knows no line of control. There is Captain Romel Akram of the Pakistani Army,

30:40whose strength of 22 men on 5140 Gan Hill in Dras was down to almost just the officer because

30:50six men were dead, 16 were wounded and he was now taking on a concerted infantry assault on his

30:57position by three companies. And he was firing RPGs and he got a bullet through his, you know,

31:04his cheek. And he's got this huge, massive scar down his cheek, which reminds you of the Prussian

31:14fencing scars, the Mensur fencing scars because the Prussians used to, you know, fence with naked

31:21blades. You know, the Prussian landed nobility, the Junkers. And long scars was a sign of not just

31:29nobility, but masculinity. They had a better chance at wives if they had long scars, sported long

31:35scars. And in this chapter, I have also detailed how the Pakistani recce patrols with cavalry

31:46detailed how the Pakistani recce patrols with cameras had started coming into Dras

31:53across the LCA in October 98. And they had taken pictures

32:00of including 5353, the controversial peak. And those pictures I published in my book.

32:09I have three pictures of General Musharraf across the line of control in the Moscow sector

32:15on March 28, with three of his generals, General Aziz Khan, Lieutenant Aziz Khan,

32:21Lieutenant Mahmood Ahmed, and Major General Javed Hassan, the commander of CNA.

32:30So this is the question that I have been raising. And my concern, after years of covering war and

32:37defence reportage is that the strategic challenge to India is coming in the high mountains.

32:43Whether it is guerrilla warfare, limited conflict, grey zone warfare.

32:49We have been surprised in Kargil, we have been surprised in eastern Ladakh in 2020.

32:56So if we do not heed the truth about what happened, what were the factors which led to those

33:04incursions, we would be again surprised one day and we will pay a very heavy price for surprise.

33:14Our young boys, our young officers, our soldiers will again pay the price, their families,

33:19their children, their widows, their mother and father. And I do not want that to happen.

33:25Anyway, thank you Mr. Vikram for very interesting thoughts that you shared.

33:42And you have a very military look yourself. Is it because you have an impressive handlebar

33:52mustache? Did your association with the army motivate you or whatever?

34:00No, I think it is just I like those mustaches and I had them long before I went to Kashmir.

34:05And I like them. I was a hunter before I gave up hunting. So I thought hunting birds and

34:16animals is so unfair. And if I have courage in me, I should go and test out against people who

34:22can hit me back good and hard, which is the terrorists or the Pakistani army. If I am a

34:27shikari, I should do the real shikar. That's why I went to Kashmir. Only beware of anti-shikar

34:39activists. No, I don't shoot now. I am a conservationist. I used to do it long time back.

34:47Anyway, that's why I said I gave up shooting a long time back and I went to Kashmir. And if I

34:52am a shikari, I should do the real stuff. I should take on somebody who can hit me back good and hard.

34:59Anyway, you did your share of soldiering and thank you very much.

35:06A pleasure.

35:07All the best.

35:09Thank you very much. A pleasure to be with you, Colonel Bhatt.

Vikram Jit Singh, journalist and author of Flowers on a Kargil Cliff that narrates powerful human stories of love and loss in the 1999 Kargil War, speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) | SAM Conversation

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