Comprehending NJ 9842 and the Region Beyond

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Notes

1. Agreement between Military Representatives of India and Pakistan regarding the establishment of a Cease-Fire line in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, Annexure 26, Third Interim UNCIP Report, S/1430/Add. 1 dated 9 December 1949 and document titled Interpretation of Section II Paragraph C of Karachi Agreement.

2. The first demi-official article on this subject in Pakistan, written by a Military Observer and titled ‘Siachen Glacier: Facts and fiction’ appeared in Dawn, Defence of Pakistan Day Supplement, 6 September 1986. It clearly mentions that ‘….the portion of the CFL beyond KHOR was not demarcated due to the inaccessible glaciated nature of the terrain. It was then mutually decided by both the countries that this portion of the CFL would be demarcated later, on the basis of the 1949 Agreement by the local commanders assisted by the UN Military Observers……. The area being disputed, no Pakistani troops were placed in Siachen Glacier area in consonance with the provisions of the Karachi and Simla Agreements’. On the same lines, Lt. Gen. Khalid Mahmud Arif (Retd) in his article, ‘India’s Siachen adventure’, Dawn, Karachi, 21-22 May 1989 while discussing the status of the region beyond NJ 9842 writes ‘this portion of the CFL was to be demarcated in detail on the basis of the factual positions as of July 27 1949 by the local commanders assisted by the UN Military Observer. The demarcation has not taken place till today. It was not done at the time of signing of Karachi Agreement primarily for two reasons- inaccessibility of the area due to its glacial nature and absence of any fighting there because neither India nor Pakistan had troops deployed in the region. The military representatives had confined their agreement to the area of actual hostilities’. Later in his book Working with Zia, (Oxford University Press, 1995, p 223), he confirms that ‘The demarcation of the cease fire line was completed up to the terminus point NJ 9842 (edge of the Siachen Glacier area) on the basis of the factual position as of July 27 1949.The demarcation beyond the terminus point was left to be done subsequently and has not yet taken place. The Siachen Glacier area thus remained free from the troops of either country. This status quo was not disturbed during the Indo-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971’.

3. “Cease-fire Line Demarcation”, Hindustan Times, 2 September 1949.

4. General Khalid Mahmud Arif, India’s Siachin Adventure, May 21-22,1989,The Dawn, Karachi

5. Ibid.

6. While the article ‘Siachen Glacier: Facts and fiction’ (supra) mentions that ‘…The status of CFL in the area remained unchanged even after 1965 war. The CFL was disturbed during the 1971 war and at the end of the hostilities the new terminus was fixed in general area Shyok Valley instead of KHOR. However the CFL which now came to be called the Line of Control (LoC) was still not demarcated beyond Chulung La area (Map reference NJ 9842)’, Gen. Khalid Mahmud Arif in his subsequent article India’s Siachen adventure’(supra) writes ‘….The CFL terminus of the CFL (NJ 9842) remained unchanged despite the 1965 war….As a result of Simla Agreement signed on July 2, 1972 India extracted the price of Pakistan’s defeat…..The term CFL was renamed as Line of Control (LoC). However the northern terminus of the LOC once again remained fixed at NJ 9842. It indicates that upto the time of signing the Simla Agreement both the countries had no military troops deployed in the Siachen glacier area- a position which had remained unchanged since the signing of the Karachi Agreement of 1949. In other word the area north of point NJ 9842 remained un-demarcated and demilitarized.’

7. Document inspected by the Author.

8. Ibid.

9. Robert Wirsing, ‘The Siachen Glacier Dispute-I, The Territorial Dimension’, Strategic Studies, 10 (1), Autumn 1986 writes at p 51 ‘…The CFL extended from the international border between India and Pakistan in Punjab in a rough arc running 800 kilometres north and then northeastwards to a point (map grid point NJ 9842) 20 kilometres north of the Shyok river at the foot of the Saltoro range’. Lt. Gen Khalid Mahmud Arif refers to NJ 9842 being at the edge of the Siahen Glacier in Working with Zia (supra).

10. Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, in Siachen: A By-Product of the Kashmir Dispute and a Catalyst for its Resolution, Pakistan Journal of History & Culture, 27 (2), 2006, p 94 acknowledges that there was no line of control in the area of the Siachen Glacier that lay beyond NJ 9842 and in regard to India’s occupation of the Saltoro Heights observes ‘….even though it was not as such a violation of the Line of Control, it was surely a breach of the Simla Agreement’. Further at p 96 he again writes ‘The Siachen Glacier lies outside the formally agreed Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir State’ ;Hasan Askari Rizvi, in Chapter III, Siachen Glacier: Political and Geostrategic Dimensions in Pakistan India Peace Process, edited by P I Cheema, IPRI, Islamabad,2010 at p 82 observes that India’s decision to occupy the Siachen Glacier did not technically violate the LoC ; Dr Tahir Ashraf, in ‘The Antecendents of Pakistan-India Conflict’, Pakistan Vision, 19 (2) at p 23 observes however there was no LoC in the Siachin Glacier afar NJ 9842;

11. General Khalid Mahmud Arif, India’s Siachin Adventure, May 21-22,1989, The Dawn writes that the Karachi Agreement of 1949 continues to remain in force except in parts which have been modified through mutual consent; Jasjit Singh, Siachen Glaciers: Facts and Fiction, Strategic Analysis, October 1989 at p 703 while referring to the CFA writes in view of the fact that this is the only agreement so far pertaining to this area, even the limited nature of the agreement becomes important.

12. Sudha Ramachandran, ‘Does India really need to defend the Siachen Glacier’, The Diplomat, 23 February 23, 2015, writes: the two countries base their claims over the glacier on different interpretations of the words thence north to the glaciers in the 1949 and 1972 agreements; Harish Kapadia, The Battle of the Roses, Rupa 2010, at page 77 is incorrect when he writes ‘The Shimla Agreement of 1972 signed after the liberation of East Bengal, agreed to the line drawn at Karachi and carried it forward till grid reference NJ 9842.But it also retained the words ‘thence north to the glaciers’; in the 1972 agreement’ as there is no such phrase in the 1972 agreement.

13. K. Subramanyam, Kargil Review Report, 2000 in Para 14.32 observes that there is no warrant for departing from the logic of extending the LoC from NJ 9842 and thence north to the glaciers as set out in the delineation of the ceasefire line under the Karachi Agreement of 1949 which was subsequently converted into the Line of Control by the Simla Agreement of 1972.

14. Lt. Gen. V. R. Raghvan, (Siachen Conflict Without End, Penguin Books, 2002, at p 22) is not correct in asserting that ‘north’ in this particular clause required any qualification to clarify whether it was magnetic, grid or generally north, as no such qualification is attached to the same command in any other clause of the agreement. Therefore, the assumption that ‘north’ here would mean anything different from what it meant in any other clause is erroneous.

15. See B.G. Verghese, Siachen Follies, CPR Occasional Paper No. 20, May 2012, pp 6, 7, 8. For a discussion on the importance of the word glaciers see Jasjit Singh Ibid 10.

16. For example, Brig. (Retd.) M. Shafi Khan, “Siachen and the Indian designs”, The Nation, Islamabad, 25 December 1987 writes: ‘…We have also been talking about the Ceasefire Line and the Line of Control not having been marked beyond Khor or Grid Point NJ 9842’. Similarly Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Shiv K. Sharma, “Siachen: A fresh perspective”, Defence Today, 1 (1), 1993 writes ‘…After the 1947-1948 war in J&K, a cease fire line (CFL) was drawn under the Karachi Agreement. Demarcation of this line terminated at a place called Khor.’; Shahzad Masood Roomi, Siachen: The Geopolitics and Strategy in Frozen Battlefield, BrassTacks, at p 5 refers to KHOR as NJ 9842; Pavan Nair in “The Siachen War: Twenty-Five Years on”, Economic and Political Weekly, 44 (11), 14-20 March 2009, pp 35-40, at p 36 while referring to the Simla Agreement, writes: “due to a change in the line at the terminating point, the last demarcated point on the map corresponding to Khor was referred to as NJ 9842”; Siachen: End to Impasse, Report prepared by PSA, New Delhi, January 2013, p. 6 observes that due to the change in the line at the terminating point, the last demarcated point on the map corresponding to KHOR was referred to as NJ 9842’; Shrabana Barua, “Militarization of Siachen: An Anomaly in India’s national Security Context”, Mainstream 57 (27), New Delhi, 22 June 2019 writes: the line was drawn clearly starting from Chhamb passing through many points up to KHOR that is map grid reference NJ 980420; Martin A. Sugarman, (War above the clouds,1996,Sugarman Productions,California) writes: ‘In the Karachi Agreement it was vaguely specified that the line would move north to the glaciers from Khor, the last identified location…’ while referring to NJ 9842 as the terminal point.

17. Brig. Asad Hakeem, Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal, Demilitarization of the Siachen Conflict Zone: Concepts for Implementation and Monitoring, Sandia Report SAND2007-45670, September 2007, p.14.

18. For a discussion on the demarcation talks, refer to Major General S.K. Sinha’s account in Operation Rescue, Vision Books, 1977 at p. 141.

19. To see the general location of KHOR distinct and well short of NJ 9842 see Pauline Dawson, The UNMOGIP 1948-1965 with a post script on the impact on UNMOGIP of the India Pakistan War of 1971, 1987, Keele University, p 665

20. For a detailed discussion on the technical meaning of NJ 980420 refer to Romesh Bhattacharji, Ladakh Changing, Yet Unchanged, Rupa 2012, p. 209.

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Amit Krishankant Paul

Amit Krishankant Paul is a lawyer, mediator and researcher. He is the Author of the of the book ‘Meghdoot: The beginning of the coldest war’ which tells the story of how and why India ended on top of the Saltoro Heights on 13 April 1984, and writes regularly on this subject.