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        Five rounds of talks over the Siachen glacier were held between India and Pakistan during the period from January 1986 to June 1989. Pakistan consistently took the stand that the Indian military action in the Saltoro range in 1984 was a direct violation of the Simla Agreement of 1972, which barred the threat or use of force to bring about a change in the Line of Control (LoC). Both sides stuck to their positions until the fifth round of talks in June 1989. Benazir Bhutto had come to power in Pakistan and New Delhi wanted to give the impression that it was willing to be more flexible on the Siachen issue.

        The Indian side demanded that Pakistan should cease its “cartographic aggression”, that is, its unilateral attempt to extend the LoC from the agreed terminus at map reference point NJ 9842 to the Karokoram pass on the border with China. The other Indian terms included the 'establishment of a de-militarized zone (DMZ)' at the Siachen glacier, exchanges between India and Pakistan of authenticated maps showing present military dispositions on the ground, the delimitation of the map based on 'ground realities' and the redeployment of Indian and Pakistani forces to mutually agreed positions. The Pakistani side, on the other hand, insisted that the deployment of forces should be in mutually agreed positions that were held at the time of the ceasefire in 1971 and called for the 'delimitation' of an extension of the LoC beyond the map reference point NJ 9842.

        In 1989, the two countries seemed to be reaching an agreement on working towards a comprehensive settlement by redeploying forces to reduce the chances of a conflict at Siachen. But the expected breakthrough was not achieved.

        Again Siachen figured prominently in the bilateral talks between India and Pakistan held in New Delhi in December 1998. Pakistani officials insisted that both countries had agreed in 1989 to redeploy troops to positions held in 1984. They claimed that India had again made a commitment to redeploy troops during the bilateral talks in 1992 and that the redeployment was to be monitored using helicopters. The cardinal and simple fact is that during the talks in December1998, Government of Pakistan tried cleverly and wickedly to convert all their deathless 'Passionate Pan-Islamic wishes relating to the Siachen glacier issue' into 'a solemn official commitment for re-deployment of troops made by Government of India in 1989'. India made it clear to Pakistan that Pakistan's demand that Indian troops should withdraw to the 1984 positions was totally 'untenable' and 'unacceptable'. Indian officials emphatically also told Pakistan that Indian troops were now in control of not only Siachen but also of higher ground in the Saltoro range. India's offer of a ceasefire in Siachen was also not accepted by Pakistan. Pakistan said a ceasefire proposal could only be considered if it was to be monitored by a third party. Government of India have always consistently taken the stand that any third party involvement would only lead to 'internationalizing' the issue.

        In short, over the years, Siachen itself has been the subject of seven major rounds of talks, between India and Pakistan. 'We have become specialists at high-altitude fighting probably the best in the world,' said General Sawhney, sounding as self-congratulatory as his Pakistani counterparts. 'We can tolerate the harsh elements. We have made livable conditions.'

        What is the bizarre reason for Siachen Glacier issue today? The whole joke is that the Indian Army has not raised any issue either with the Prime Minister or the Defence Minister or the National Security Adviser about the problems or otherwise of their continued strategic presence in that area. The pseudo secular mafia of mass media seems to have raised this issue to provide a talking point for Dr Manmohan Singh during his planned visit to Pakistan in August 2006. Toadies of pseudo secularism — known and unknown —in the Government of India at certain strategic levels seem to have supplied inputs to the media that it will be futile for both India and Pakistan to keep an Army Division in that God-forsaken area and that immediate withdrawal of troops by both sides would result in large scale avoidance of aimless and wasteful military expenditure. It may not be a big deal to withdraw from an area of snowy wastes at an altitude of over 20,000 ft. It is very easy to mislead the entire civilian population of India on the basis of this casual and infantile logic totally devoid of vision and strategy in the context of India's territorial integrity and military security. Pakistan's insistence on de-militarization of the Siachen sector arises from her desire that India should completely give up the entire Saltoro Ridge, a long ridge extending nearly 120 Kilometres (AGP runs on this ridge), from the border of India with Pakistan ceded Chinese territory in the North to India's Kargil Sector in the East. India's continued and stronger presence in the Saltoro Ridge and the Siachen Glacier is absolutely vital and unavoidable from the point of view of her national security for the following reasons:

        a) Strategic terrain-wise, India has a definite advantage over Pakistan's Northern Areas (Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir territory) and Pakistan ceded Kashmir territory to China.

        b) A buffer wedge is absolutely necessary to prevent further Pakistan-China geographical configuration.

        c) To close all routes of ingress leading to the Ladakh sector.

        d) To provide a security buffer against the known threat of Pakistan's military onslaught against the Kargil sector.

        From the above analysis it will be clear that India can never take the risk of withdrawing its troops from the Saltoro ridge and the Siachen Glacier. National security is a matter of life and death and cannot be subjected to the mundane processes of cost-benefit accounting. Nor should it be linked with the private and sordid career prospects of advancement or survival of individual civil servants surrounding themselves with an aura of self-proclaimed cosmic pretensions which are totally out of touch with harsh ground level terrestrial realities.

        If I can draw any inference from media reports and the recent statements of our National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, I can only say that we as a nation seem to be marching head along downhill towards a sell out to Pakistan which will ultimately put us on the dangerous road to an avoidable Armageddon in the not very distant future.

        India can never trust Pakistan in the matter of de-militarization of Siachen. Pakistan's obdurate unwillingness to even formally authenticate the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in any proposed arrangement clearly shows Pakistan's future military intentions. The criminal track record of Pakistan's political leadership during the last 50 years cannot be ignored by our effete, directionless, purposeless and ever-dithering political leadership. Pakistan is wedded only to the policy of Islamising the whole of India and nothing else. It is not, therefore, surprising that terrorism and proxy war against India continues unabated in Jammu & Kashmir.

        Dr Subhash Kapila has brilliantly observed: 'Today, Siachen too is being strategically marginalized and compromised again for political reasons. Siachen, like Aksai-chin is not Indian loose geo-strategic change which any Indian Prime Minister can put in a political juke-box'.

        To conclude in the appropriate words of Lt. Gen. Vijay Oberoi, the former Vice Chief of Army Staff:

        'The Indian Army has been deployed on the commanding Saltoro Ridge since 1984 and the line of deployment is known as the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL). There is actually no deployment on the Siachen Glacier itself, but in popular parlance the entire area and the dispute are referred to as the Siachen conflict. The Indian Army is not averse to vacating the AGPL, if the nation so desires, but wants that what it secured with great effort and many sacrifices, and which it has held safely for the nation, in the face of enemy action, as well as the severity of the climate and the treacherous terrain, for the last 22 years, should not be sacrificed at the altar of expediency, merely to notch up one more Confidence Building Measure (CBM) towards the ephemeral peace process. I say ephemeral because I see many reasons why this peace process is likely to remain transitory. Suffice to say that in our quest for a modus vivendi with Pakistan we should not land in situations which we would regret at a later stage, if the peace process goes sour or does not give us the results we are looking for'.

        'I have one more point in this regard, and that is, in no case should India agree to an arrangement whereby Pakistan and China are able to effect a link-up in the area of the Karakoram Pass. In the past, the nation has suffered because military advice was either ignored or was treated as an unnecessary irritant to the machinations of the political leadership or the babus of the day. Let us not repeat such mistakes again.'

        Tail Piece:

        Is it not politically unwise to trust Pakistan which always says: 'What is mine is mine and what is yours is negotiable?' Should Manmohan Singh depend only upon two Gods —one Islamic and the other Christian —Pakistan and USA?