Despite positive atmospherics and cordial talks permeating the recently concluded Pak-India talks on Siachen there was no substantial progress towards the perceived desire of both sides to demilitarise the icy heights - because the Indian army doesn't want.
The Indian army, and not just the Indian government, has traditionally been a forbidding hurdle in the way of an agreement between Pakistan and India to pull out forces from the glacier where frostbite takes 10 times more casualties than the bullets. This has been Pakistan's lingering hunch, but it is the WikiLeaks which confirms the Indian army mindset that seems to have dominated all 12 rounds of talks on Siachen between Pakistan and India including the latest one in New Delhi.
The revelation comes from a cable of US embassy in New Delhi, citing a senior Indian foreign service official, and a former Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan, T.C. Raghavan. He had opined that "Indian army has drawn a line with its political leadership...It has told the government of India that withdrawal (of forces from Siachen) was tantamount to ceding the area to Pakistan due to the difficulty of retaking it should Pakistan occupy it". Any deal, the cable suggested, could only come after a go-ahead from the Indian army. And that doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.
All the shots, in terms of administrative and security decisions, that rang out in the Occupied Kashmir or further beyond including Siachen glacier are called by the military which appears determined to hold on to this icy frontline to pre-empt any possibility of Pakistan and China joining up in this area. Sustaining some 10,000 soldiers at an altitude between 18,000 and 22,000 feet is indeed a very costly proposition both for Pakistan and India. But from Indian military high command's point of view the cost of maintaining presence in Siachen is a very small fraction of its overall defence expenditure.
Held against this ill-disposed backdrop it was only natural that the defence secretary-level talks in New Delhi over the weekend remained inconclusive. The Indian side insisted on "authentication" of the 110-km Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) with the help of aerial or satellite imagery to show up on the ground. Pakistan offered to go along, provided India gave firm assurance that such a move would not be taken as endorsement of India's claim to the glacier.
Both sides have observed cease-fire since 2003, but even if there is no fighting and no battle-inflicted casualty the harsh weather takes tremendous toll of life on both sides. Of course, the wording of the joint statement issued after two days of deliberations does reflect realisation that human lives are being sacrificed unnecessarily in pursuit of unrealistic strategic considerations.
A 'non-paper' handed over by the Pakistan delegation to the host side may be of some help when the foreign ministers of the two countries meet next month or when their defence sectaries take up the Siachen demilitarisation issue in their next round of talks. After some four years of disconnect between Islamabad and New Delhi following the Mumbai attacks the fact that a joint statement was issued after the Siachen talks is a move forward; that the officials would meet again adds to that progress.
Of course earlier too, when Rajiv Gandhi visited here in 1989, India had shown willingness to demilitarise the Siachen glacier, but it did not take place presumably because of opposition from the Indian military. It is our hope now that New Delhi would positively respond to Pakistan's offer of early withdrawal of troops from Siachen - defying the hard-liners who would like the Indian government to maintain the status quo.