Today is Kargil Diwas, the day we remember the 527 glorious Indian soldiers who wrote their brave war legacy in blood against brutal odds and kicked the Pakistan Army across the Line of Control – from Mushkoh Valley to Kurbat La in Jammu and Kashmir – in 1999.
As we celebrate the saga of those who sacrificed their lives and were seriously injured, the key lesson of the Kargil War was that proactive intelligence and sustained military vigilance against an unscrupulous adversary like Pakistan would reduce the economic and human costs of war.
If Indian military and civilian intelligence had not viewed Pakistan through rose-colored glasses after the 1999 Lahore Declaration, and if Indian Army commanders had not undertaken long-range patrols only on paper, Kargil could have been prevented or pre-empted, instead of costing India billions of dollars and the lives of brave soldiers in this limited war.
Documents recovered from Pakistani officers and soldiers killed on Dras, Mushkoh and Batalik heights clearly revealed that the Pakistan Army under the command of the then Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf planned to storm the Kargil theater at the same time when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was transporting his affection vehicle to Lahore in February 1999 under pressure from the “Jofi and Babi (Hugs and Kisses)” gang. It was treason of the highest order, but one would have expected nothing less from Musharraf in hindsight.
The fact is that Pakistani infiltrators were first seen on 3 May 1999, in the Batalik sector, although documents recovered from the Pakistanis showed that their Northern Light Infantry crossed the Mushkoh sector as early as 1 March, with General Musharraf himself visiting the Goltari Brigade via Drass at the same time.
Although Indian intelligence provided reports of the mobilization of jihadists in Ulthingthang in Gilgit-Baltistan via Kargil town, the reports were not actionable to say the least, with everyone falling into the Indo-Pak bhai bhai syndrome.
If we look at the last 27 years, India has paid extremely high sums in men and material costs due to the lack of intelligence among the agencies over the years, relying more on technical intelligence and its dismal analyses.
After Kargil, India paid the price for the hijacking of flight IC-814, the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001, the 2002 Kalushak massacre, the 26/11 attacks and numerous terrorist attacks in the hinterland, organized by the Pakistani deep state and its jihadi arms. Be it the 2025 Pahalgam attacks, the 2019 Pulwama, the 2018 Uri, or the 2016 Pathankot attacks, India’s external and internal intelligence has been shown to be weak, even though the Modi government has retaliated militarily against every Pakistani perfidy.
Poor intelligence costs money as every BrahMos missile used in Op Sindoor costs money $40 crore, as well as Rampage missile, S-400, SCALP, Harpy, Harop, Palm 200 or Warmate loitering munition, apart from the human costs.
While not all such attacks could have been prevented even after obtaining actionable intelligence as happened on 26/11, India must work hard to upgrade its intelligence if it aspires to reach the global summit.
Indian intelligence agencies should not function like other government departments, trying to save money for the exchequer, and focus entirely on writing long reports for the government.
If you do not invest in human intelligence in terms of money and materialism, you will end up paying a million times more in war in foreign currency. Indian intelligence must free itself and eliminate the threat from where it comes from, without fear of major powers.
We have to ask ourselves whether we know why President Xi Jinping fired his two defense ministers and half the members of the Central Military Commission or what the deal was between Field Marshal Asim Mounir and US President Donald Trump? Do we know what is happening on the ground in the Middle East?
The answer is probably no. Even our armed forces and intelligence leaders have moral compasses despite facing a most unscrupulous enemy in the West and a force in the North that will challenge the United States for first place at the end of this decade.
The problem is that while political leadership is brimming with energy, professional leadership is doing its job in its own silos without the same passion.
The Cargill lesson was repeated in the PLA invasion of Pangong Tso in 2020, and the Pahalgam attack in 2025 imposed very high annual operating costs on the country, as a simple review of such incidents over the past quarter century will reveal.
India cannot become a superpower unless its opponents feel its pressure and are deterred from targeting Bharat. Are we ready to empower Indian intelligence through merit and innovation, or are we satisfied with a colonial mentality, bureaucratic management based on seniority and safe players?
It would be very unfortunate if the second option were chosen, despite having a very strong Prime Minister, Interior Minister, Defense Minister, Foreign Minister, and National Security Advisor.
