Earth’s highest battlefield

The 10 soldiers missing in the avalanche at the Siachen Glacier have been declared dead. It is an indication of the inhospitable conditions that many of the bodies will never be recovered. But the Seventh Pay Commission does not seem to concur. It wants to reward policemen and administrators posted in Guwahati with hardship allowance that is nearly twice that for army officers in Siachen. About 1,000 Indian soldiers have died since the conflict on the earth's highest battlefield began in 1984. More have died because of the extreme weather conditions rather than bullets. Countless others have come away with scars of frost bite. The Karachi 1949 ceasefire fire agreement had understood the insanity of dividing a dangerous, inhospitable slab of ice called the Siachen Glacier. It left the border undefined beyond a place known only by its grid reference, NJ 9842.

In 1984, the Indian Army launched 'Operation Meghdoot' after it felt Pakistan had designs on the glacier. Pakistan responded by rushing troops and Siachen became part of a list of irresolvable disputes between the two countries. Since then soldiers have remained primed for combat at heights where ordinary human beings cannot survive for a day. Every soldier comes away with physiological damage of some sort. But for them, a posting on the ridges surrounding the glacier is the ultimate dare in the service of the nation. Political leaders on both sides have tried to end the confrontation but the Kargil intrusion led to a decline in trust quotient. The Indian Army now wants any Indo-Pak pullout agreement to acknowledge its currently held positions to act as evidence in case of another 'Kargil'.

The latest tragedy on the glacier is the cost the two countries pay for the obduracy of their political and military leaders. The seeds of a withdrawal are present in the draft text of 1992 which is a public document. It is not just for the sake of a confrontation that is pointless. The shelling that continued till 2004 and accumulated human waste have despoiled the glacier. It is time to start descending from those treacherous heights.