The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was an armed conflict between India and Pakistan that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control. The war is one of the most recent examples of high-altitude warfare in mountainous terrain, which posed significant logistical problems for the combating sides. It is also one of the very few instances of direct, conventional warfare between nuclear states. India had conducted its first successful test in 1974; Pakistan, which had been developing its nuclear capability in secret since around the same time, conducted its first known tests in 1998, just two weeks after the second series of tests by India. Meanwhile, India-administered Kashmir has been in turmoil for the last three decades since an armed rebellion against the Indian rule erupted in the early 1990s.

In recent years, the almost daily confrontations between Kashmiris on the one side and the Indian security forces on the other have only worsened. Security experts say not much has changed in Kashmir even after two decades of the Kargil war. The Kashmir unrest has been further compounded by New Delhi’s insistence on revoking the laws which protect the demographic structure of the only Muslim-majority region in the country. The chances of Kargil happening again are very remote, but the fact is that Kashmir continues to remain the fierce bone of contention between the two states and military action cannot be ruled out entirely.

ANZA KANWAL,

Rawalpindi.