FOR them, it was an elusive war in more ways than one. Kargil's forbidding landscape put them at one big remove from the theatre of action. The distant thud of shells and second-hand descriptions of hand-to-hand combat that's what they had to rest content with. Official caginess did the rest.
But foreign correspondents were not dismayed: Newsweek's Tony Clifton reported the 1971 war between India and Pakistan from both sides. He remembers the wall-like secretiveness of the Indian army at the time journalists weren't allowed to quote officers, casualty figures were secret and setbacks in operations were never discussed. But all that has changed dramatically this time round. 'I'm very much struck by the regular Indian briefings, admitting casualties, pictures of coffins coming home somewhere along the line the public relations of the Indian army has been turned around 180 degrees,' he says.
In 1971, it was East Pakistan that was more open Clifton and some other journalists were shepherded through areas of conflict. And it was India, secretly arming the Mukti Bahini then, that was tacit and defensive. The situation now is reversed.
The problem for Pakistan now, explains Clifton, more than anything else, is that the whole presentation is based on a lie: that no army regulars were involved. Even Mushahid Hussain, Pakistan's information minister whom Clifton has known personally for many years, does not sound credible any more. 'I felt really sorry for him during one briefing because he must have known that in that room not a single journalist believed a word he was saying.'
Although disinformation is part of warfare, even the most normal information about Pakistani troop advancement, or the state of their preparedness, was unavailable. Clifton says, 'Ironically, it has really been a brilliant operation on the part of the Pakistanis, but they can never say so, and that's horrible for their morale.'
On the other hand, this was a brilliant opportunity for India to convey and showcase to the world the activities of the Muslim fundamentalists and their footsoldiers. But it was caught on the wrong foot with an incoherent media policy on the issue and this blunted the edge New Delhi could have had in the information war.
'Because Indians were slow in showing evidence that Pakistani soldiers were involved, it created some scepticism outside the country. Even after evidence began to be presented, no one believed India immediately,' says Associated Press bureau chief Arthur Max. bbc's Mike Wooldridge says initially when information was really hard to come by, 'we were trying to smoke out the story, but because (getting) it was so difficult at the time, we continued to talk about the Sonia Gandhi (and her Italian origin) story, which was huge then. Perhaps we might have given more emphasis to the conflict earlier had we got the information then.'
The flow of information, other than the daily briefings in New Delhi, was sporadic. The worst was a clampdown of about 10 days in June when many foreign correspondents were moving to the Valley from where they hoped to proceed to the conflict areas, but were being thwarted. It was a 'very frustrating time', says Pamela Constable of The Washington Post, but adds military control over information varied from day to day there was no grand design.
Some foreign reporters complained that local journalists were being favoured during the clampdown. But according to public relations officer Col S.K. Robertson, who came to Srinagar from Kohima about 25 days ago with three others to manage the sudden influx of journalists, the foreign media were not being discriminated against. 'It's just that Indian journalists who had contacts and knew people in the army managed to escape the net; most foreigners did not have such contacts.'
Though Col Robertson rationalises the clampdown by saying it was necessary because certain media personnel, including Indians, had become unruly and indisciplined, he agrees that there has been no consistent media policy on Kargil.
The foreign press trapped in the Valley turned to events around them and the world received a blitz of anti-India sentiment from local Kashmiris. The clock had turned back for a few days: in the early '90s the foreign media's reportage from Kashmir tended to focus on India's alleged repression of the indigenous freedom movement. But as the story moved on, the focus had switched to the growing involvement of Afghans, Islamic mercenaries etc. That was until now. Looking around for stories to write, some of them revisited old haunts beginning with the All Party Hurriyat Conference leadership.
Thus they came upon the torching of all of Khargam village, allegedly by the Indian army, after it shot dead two militants hiding there. Such stories in the The Independent, The Washington Post, bbc etc. were given big play by ptv in their propaganda war against India. 'It was fortuitous for Pakistan... and India's bad luck,' says Peter Popham of The Independent. Pakistan's wily information minister cited these stories during a difficult interview with bbc's Hardtalk, which has a worldwide audience.
Remarks another western journalist: 'An entire generation of Delhi-based foreign correspondents and their readers had been virtually unaware of the ongoing alienation of most Kashmiris from India until poor media management put the issue centrestage. Quite unnecessarily, India gave Pakistan a free kick.'
These seemingly ad hoc restrictions were but one glitch in India's information war: although Pakistani briefings may have been fewer and less informative, many foreign journalists have been disappointed at the Indian briefings. 'There was a sense that we were being treated like children. Day after day, they (the Indian army) said that we have taken this or that feature which was reported diligently in the Indian press,' says Peter Popham. 'There was no overall view, just that there has been one brilliant victory after another, although strangely, the number of infiltrators continued to remain the same they could have given more details without revealing information that would hurt operations.'
Another major cause of grief for the press was contradictory casualty figures. Arthur Max, who has covered a number of wars in West Asia, was particularly unconvinced about the official statistics. 'How do they explain that casualties on the other (Pakistani) side were higher when they had all the advantages of higher ground.' According to Max, the attackers (the Indians, in this case) should have suffered higher casualties than the defenders. But not, apparently, in this case. The electronic media especially was suffering from excessive secrecy of the Indian army en route to the war zone. 'During the last trip, we travelled on escorted press buses and were told what we could or could not film... this was frustrating for TV because a lot of what you wanted to film, like a close shot of a soldier shaving, was being considered a security threat,' says bbc's Mike Wooldridge.
But nothing is ever fair in war and coverage this time was freer than, say, the Gulf War. Tony Clifton, who had unusually good access during that conflict, says that for the most part reporters were being misinformed, their movement restricted and some reporters were even arrested by the US army. 'Reporters had to disguise themselves as army personnel in order to get any sort of information.'
And while Pakistan ran its secret war, its media managers proved surprisingly helpful at times. The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Karp recalls the time he and some other journalists requested a visit to the Pakistan side of the LoC. They were granted their wish the very next day. 'I had just met Mushahid Hussain and Rashid Qureshi, the Inter-Services Public Relations officer, at a lunch I did not expect such prompt action. The officials phoned me almost immediately after the lunch and told me the trip had been arranged.' Compared to that is the Indian experience: 'If you want to arrange a trip to Kargil, you have to call a hundred times and hardly anyone calls back.' That could also be because the demand for such trips is greater in India, he explains. Facts are important, but good impressions are also a handy companion.
So at a time when both sides claim victory, neither has won the information war.
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