Relevance: GS-2: India and its neighborhood- relations. Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests

Key phrases: Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL), Point NJ9842 ,Line of Control (LoC) Shaksgam Valley, Operation Meghdoot , Supra High Altitude (SHA), Nubra River, two difficult neighbors

Context

• Recently on the eve of Army Day (12th January), the Indian Army Chief, General Naravane, reportedly made an intriguing reference to the possibility of “demilitarisation of the glacial region” in Siachen. He is said to have reiterated that Pakistan would have to first authenticate respective troop positions along the 110-km long Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in the Siachen-Saltoro Ridge region for any talks on demilitarisation to take place.

Location of Siachin

• The Siachen Glacier is in Union Territory of Ladakh. It is located in the eastern Karakoram Range in the Himalayas, situated at an average altitude of 18,000 ft above sea level. Around 78 km long, it is the longest glacier in the Karakoram and second longest in the world's non-polar areas.
• The Siachen Glacier is in the northeast of Point NJ9842 where the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan ends.
• It is a hotly contested territory between Pakistan and India. Since 1984, both countries have been fighting intermittently for sovereignty over this region, because of which Siachen Glacier is sometimes called the highest battleground on earth.

Do you know?

• Siachen Glacier is the source for the 80 km long Nubra River, a tributary of the Shyok, which is part of the Indus River system.
• The Siachen base camp is also open for domestic tourists. It provides opportunity to explore this tough terrain, yet beautiful destination.
• Siachen Glacier also boasts of the world's highest helipad built by India at Point Sonam, 21,000 ft (6,400 m) above the sea level. India also installed the world's highest telephone booth on the glacier.
• On the Indian side, roads go only as far as the military base camp at Dzingrulma 72 km from the top of the glacier.
• Both India and Pakistan have deployed around 5,000 troops (brigade strength) each.

Why is Siachen important?

• Siachen acts Geopolitical and Geostrategic Frontier for India.
• The glacier demarcates central Asia from the Indian subcontinent, and separates Pakistan from China in the region.
• The region includes the Saltoro Ridge, a crucial mountainous stretch which acts as a watershed. It overlooks the area of Gilgit–Baltistan of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) that is under dispute with Pakistan. It also serves as a divide that prevents direct linking of PoK with China, stopping them to develop geographical military linkages in the area.
• It guards the routes leading to Leh, the principal town and capital of Ladakh.
• It overlooks and dominates the Shaksgam Valley, which was illegally ceded to China by Pakistan. It is close to the Karakoram Pass through which the Karakoram Highway passes connecting Gilgit-Baltistan to Xinjiang Province of China.
• Siachen serves as a watchtower for India to keep a deep watch on Gilgit and Baltistan regions of Pakistan. Siachen also helps India to keep a close watch on China ’s activities as Beijing has vastly improved its infrastructure in this region.
• If Pakistan gets the location advantage in Siachen, it would become a big threat to India from the west in Ladakh in addition to Chinese threats from Aksai Chin of the east.
• Due to its control over Saltoro Ride, India is better placed to strike a bargain while settling bilateral territorial disputes with Pakistan in the future.

Origin of Siachen dispute

• The genesis of the conflict lies in the Pakistan-sponsored ‘tribal invasion’ of Kashmir after the Partition when what is today PoK came into existence. The Line of Control delineated by the UN in 1949 became the Karachi Agreement, which did not clearly mention who controlled the glacier, merely stating that from NJ9842 (a map coordinate) the boundary would proceed “thence north to the glaciers.” UN officials presumed there would be no dispute between India and Pakistan over such a cold and barren region.
• After the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971, an agreement was signed between the two countries in 1972, which came to be known as the Shimla Agreement, but it failed to clearly mention who controlled the glacier and left the status of Indo-Pak boundary vague North of Pt NJ 9842.
• While the Karachi Agreement says, “From Pt NJ 9842, the ceasefire line will run Northwards to the Glaciers”, Shimla Agreement does not even make a mention of it.’

Divergent claims for demarcation of territory beyond NJ 9842

• The Indian claim on the Siachen Glacier is based on the widely accepted watershed principle of demarcation, and runs for almost 110 kms along the Saltoro Ridge from slightly west of NJ 9842 and ends at the Indira Col, a pass that is dominated by the Sia Kangri Mastiff at the tri-junction of India-Pakistan and Shaksgam (ceded to China by Pakistan, but still claimed by India). India claimed that the LoC thereafter (now called the Actual Ground Position Line or AGPL) ought to follow this line.
• Pakistan claimed that the LoC should continue as the crow flies in a north-easterly direction by joining Pt NJ 9842 with the Karakoram pass.

Cartographic aggression by Pakistan and the conflict

• Prior to 1984, neither India nor Pakistan had any permanent presence in the area. However cartographic aggression by Pakistan, mountaineering expeditions and counter-expeditions by both countries resulted in a conflict.
• India launched Operation Meghdoot (named after the divine cloud messenger in a Sanskrit play of Kalidasa) on 13 April 1984 when the “Kumaon Regiment” of the Indian Army and the “Indian Air Force” went into the Glacier.
• India it wrested control of the Siachen Glacier, its tributary glaciers, as well as the three main passes of the Saltoro Ridge immediately west of the glacier. This gives India the tactical advantage of holding the high ground.
• In 2003, there was an armistice treaty signed between India and Pakistan. Since then firing and bombardment has ceased in this area but the army of both nations is stationed here.

Why India should pull-back from Siachen?

Reasons that are being forwarded in favour of the demilitarisation of Siachen inter-alia includes the following:-

• The economic and human cost of occupying Siachen, a Supra High Altitude (SHA) frozen landmass, is very high.
• More soldiers have died in Siachen from harsh weather conditions than from enemy firing. According to an estimate, so far 2500 soldiers of both countries have lost their lives here without any gun battle.
• The economic and logistic bleeding has driven the two countries to the table even in the past. The cost of maintaining forces at these heights are tremendous. For India, cost of maintenance in the region is about Rs 5 crore a day.
• Sevre effect on health conditions of troops due to extreme weather conditions.
• The environmental damage.
• Diplomatically speaking, it is argued that withdrawal from Siachen will do both India and Pakistan a lot of good. It will earn tremendous international goodwill and go a long way in facilitating further the peace process in Kashmir.

Why India should not pull-back from Siachen?

• Siachen is a part of pre-1948 Jammu and Kashmir which India claims to be its integral territory. Thus, India’s dispute with Pakistan is territorial. In any eventual resolution of territorial disputes, possession of “disputed” territory under one’s control is a great “strategic advantage” during negotiations to strengthen one’s claims. Should India forgo this advantage in Siachen? Not likely.
• As a military power of consequence, money should not be a limiting factor as maintenance of the troops elsewhere in the Himalayan range of comparable heights, which is vital for India’s military preparedness, will also cost the country more or less the same.
• The average annual casualty figures in Siachen have come down to 10 from 28, thanks to technical and infrastructural improvements.
• For the strategic reasons as mentioned above.
• The likelyhood that our two difficult neighbors, already in illegal occupation of large chunks of J&K territory, would link up to surround Central Ladakh on three sides within our own territory.
• India’s history with Pakistan has been such that surrendering advantage has not brought any desired results. India released 96000 Pakistani prisoners of war after the Shimla Agreement 1972 with the hope that Pakistan would eventually agree to convert the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir to the international border. It did not happen.
• India surrendered Hajipir Pass that it had brought under control in the 1965 war. Had it remained with India, terrorists from Pakistan would have found it very difficult to cross over and cause havoc in the Kashmir valley.
• “With the Siachen sector facing threats from both west and east, there is perhaps no question of any disengagement from Siachen”

Challenges associated with demilitarization of Siachen

• Territorial sovereignty far outweighs strategic importance. That is why India has been insisting on the marking of the current positions that the Army holds on maps that are to be ratified by both sides. This will establish Indian territorial control along the Saltoro range.
• On the other hand, Pakistan has been reluctant to authenticate Indian positions as it will legitimise India’s act of violating the Simla Agreement by occupying an area that was under Pakistan’s administrative control. In other words Pakistan is loath to authenticate the AGPL since it would mean admitting it lost the Saltoro Ridge and the Quaid Post (named after the founder of Pakistan), now renamed Bana Post by India after Param Vir Chakra winner Subedar Bana Singh who captured it.
• The crux of the matter is that neither side is willing to make any territorial compromise.

Ramifications of Demilitarization

• Line of Control (LoC) does not have the recognition of an international border. It is disputed, volatile and permanently manned by troops. The Siachen Glacier is simply a glossed over extension of the LoC and the line from NJ9842 to Siachen is referred to as the actual ground position line (AGPL), which is exactly that: you own what you occupy. Here, possession is definitely nine-tenths of the law.
• In the past Pakistan has shown great duplicity in its approach to disputed territory; when expedient it could easily violate a signed agreement and grab and hold these commanding heights.
• Expelling intruders is more costly than holding these heights; the Kargil adventure illustrates this dramatically.
• Signing away such an important tract of territory held at great cost, without a practical dialogue, will be inappropriate and insulting to those Indian soldiers who have held these heights at great cost all these years.
• There have been many suggestions on how such demilitarization can be made foolproof to ensure Pakistan does not encroach on posts vacated by India – including the right to take military action. But in this part of the world, might is right and holding these heights is vital.

Conclusion

• The proposed Muzaffarabad-Yarkand Valley road via Shaksgam Valley will not only boost military interoperability between China and Pakistan but also pose a two-front threat against Indian forces in Ladakh. Further, the experts feel that with the standoff in eastern Ladakh and massive build up and expansion by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in sub-sector north which is very close to the Karakoram range and Soltoro ridge, it will not be possible for India to vacate the crucial positions on the glacier.Faced with a two front threat from iron brothers, demilitarization of Siachen at this point is an unworkable idea.Sometime in the distant future, when the Chinese PLA agrees to respect the Ladakh LAC and restores April 2020 status quo ante and the LoC is converted to an actual border, perhaps India can consider a move to demilitarize Siachen. Till then, India simply has to keep holding it.

Mains Question:

Q. Bring out the strategic importance of Siachen Glacier for India, Pakistan and China.Though Delimitarisation is not a bad idea if the intentions of parties involved are not bad. Analyse