The Iron Fist

THE KARGIL WAR effectively reversed all the gains from Vajpayee’s Lahore bus diplomacy. And committed though he was to the idea of an enduring peace with Pakistan, he did not baulk at the prospect of a war when Pakistan unpredictably revealed its aggressive intent to occupy Indian territory

- Gen. (retd) V.P. Malik

Pakistan’s Kargil intrusion in May 1999, so soon after prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore and the signing of the Lahore Declaration, came as a big surprise to everyone, no one more so than Vajpayee himself. Even as he led us during the war, Vajpayee kept trying to understand Nawaz Sharif ’s and Pakistan’s motive. As late as May 17, 1999, he sent his interlocutor R.K. Mishra to Islamabad to complain to Sharif about the infiltration; Mishra even accused him of knowing about the Kargil plan when signing the Lahore Declaration.

After my briefing and by the launch of the tri service-led Operation Vijay on May 23, 1999, he was convinced of Pakistan’s perfidy. He declared “the new situation was not infiltration but a move to occupy Indian territory. All steps will be taken to clear the Kargil area”. He also rang up Sharif and told him that “we will not allow any intrusion... we shall clear our territory by force”.