The seizure of a swath of strategically territory as deep as 10 km and as wide as 140 km in Kargil by Pakistan-sponsored intruders raises two key unanswered questions. How did such a land-capture take the Indian military by surprise, and why did New Delhi wait three full weeks before ordering air strikes in support of ground operations against the invaders.

Pakistan has executed a skilful operation to capture and hold on to high ground in Kargil. The land-grab, with the intruders digging into Kargil's . snow-capped mountains, seeks to avenge Pakistan's despairing position in relation to the Indian-held Siachen glacier.

But unlike the never demarcated glacier, Kargil is on the Indian side of a clearly defined Line of Control.

India first failed to ånticipate that Pakistan would open a new front via Kargil and then was slow to understand the gravity and extent of the encroachment when it came to light. Whatever the final outcome, the flare-up - highlighted by the first ever enemy missile attacks on Indian warplanes in a situation other than war -has already served Pakistan's perceived interests by putting the global spotlight on Kashmir. In contrast, the land captured cannot but seriously embarrass India.

The Vajpayee Government has clearly fallen victim to its own rhetoric on the bus diplomacy. While the Lahore initiative made diplomatic sense, it made no sense for New Delhi to overplay the success of the bus diplomacy or to start believing its own rhetoric that a major breakthrough had been achieved in Indo-Pak relations. Pakistan is too deeply tied to an anti-India ethos, with Kashmir the glue holding it together.

Since it would have taken at least a few months to plan and carry out the encroachment with the precision and back-up support now on display, it is obvious that the intrusion was being plotted at the time the Lahore Declaration was signed.

The bus diplomacy held value for public relations, both domestic and international, but not for strategic objectives. Instant diplomacy can never bring instant results ... A serious error occurred in not quickly grasping the magnitude of the Kargil encroachment, and even downplaying it as if it were another of the usual annual events. It was not until the Army suffered some fatalities that the Government woke up and approved airstrikes. Vajpayee is not the first Indian Prime Minister to misjudge Pakistan's intentions. Mrs. Gandhi another leader, tough on national security, gave away the gains of the 1971 war at Shimla on the basis of oral commitments Bhutto never intended to honour ...

The land capture is not an Indian intelligence failure but a common sense failing that missed the obvious – that having tried almost every trick in its bag since 1990, Pakistan would seize any new element it could find. With its guarded heights, Kargil was an encroachment waiting to happen.

What India needs now is ... national unity and bipartisan support for the Government's effort to restore the status quo ante along LoC? (Source: The Hindustan Times)