KARGIL WAR

KARGIL WAR

July 26th is the day people in India remember and pay tribute to heroes of the KARGIL WAR , a momentous engagement on the frontier between India and neighboring Pakistan. 10 years ago Pakistani forces made an incursion into the Punjab region of India which, when scrutinized from even afar, represents a milestone not only for the people of that region, but for all of us. For this writer, tales of heroism and the impact this war has had on regional relations delivers a poignant message, heroism is not bound by any flag.

As an American, I remember stories of distant wars fought by US soldiers, to a large extent for political reasons, geo-strategic positioning, or even sometimes an ideal. But, for many people around the world conflict is a much less detached sort of drama, so close to home, and for them more poignant and dire. Such is the case of what is known as the Kargil War (or conflict) for people in India. It is doubtful that any of our readers from the United States or Europe will even recognize this war. Never the less, it is vital for people to know about, remember, and learn from regional conflict, perhaps even more so than highly publicized war – the epidomy of failed human interaction.

Without giving a history lesson, it is important for all our readers (even some of those in India and Pakistan) to understand the significance of this particular failure in human diplomacy, a war in which two nuclear powers, neighbors, sharing a common physical border, confronted one another in a conventional confrontation. Why is that significant you might ask? It is significant because it has never happened before, and because never before have two neighboring countries confronted one another armed with such sophisticated conventional weapons in what is now modern warfare. More importantly perhaps, the Kargil War represents a “heightening” of the stakes in a conflict essentially caused by the last of the Colonial Empires. Beyond the political lessons though, there is the singular human element and of course one nation’s tribute to those singular human sacrifices.

Heroes The World Never Knew

One of the stories I have read over the last couple of days was about a popular actor from India, Abhishek Bachchan (image left), traveling to rather remote Kargil to pay homage to the heroes of the war. Abhishek, who is married to Miss World Aishwarya Rai (below left), shared some poetry, some home cooked food prepared by Aish and his mother, and his personal experiences in shooting the movie “LOC Kargil”. The images for me, are reminiscent of celebrities visiting our own troops, and honestly, one reason I decided to write this article. When I got into reading some of these stories from India, just what Kargil meant for many people there was brought home to me personally. We are all, after all, so much alike.

Even more touching than the stories of celebrities doing their part to honor their countrymen, the valor of some of the combatants in that war emphasizes an idea I will share at the end of this article. But, one particular hero, Havaldar Yogendra Yadav (then 19), epitomizes what bravery and honor means in any language, for any country, in any human drama. Winner of India’s highest award for valor, the Paramvir Chakra (for the US audience, the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor), exhibited unbelievable human courage and selfless sacrifice at a place called , Tiger Hill one costliest battles of the for Indian forces in the conflict. Listening to the account (below) of this heroes test under fire, made me think of dozens of such stories about our own troops. In thinking of this, I felt like saying something actually profound, or at least profound for me: