Battle For Memory: When India Honoured It's Adversary's Fallen Soldiers Because Pakistan Refused To

In the summer of 1999, Pakistani troops climbed the icy ridgelines of Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir and took positions high above India's National Highway 1A. They came not in declared uniform but dressed as irregular fighters. Behind the subterfuge was a coordinated plan to sever Indian supply lines to Ladakh and force a strategic realignment along the Line of Control. The intruders belonged to the Northern Light Infantry (NLI), a paramilitary force drawn mostly from the Gilgit-Baltistan region, deployed under regular army command.

At the time, the NLI's ambiguous status was politically convenient. When the fighting intensified and casualties mounted, Pakistan could disown the operation and deny that regular troops were involved. After the war, the NLI was quietly absorbed into the regular Pakistan Army. This institutional change was not ceremonial. It recognised that the burden of Kargil had been borne by men who were officially invisible in life and, for many, remained unclaimed in death.

The Indian Army, under direct provocation, launched a determined counteroffensive. Indian soldiers fought uphill, often in rather exacting conditions, to retake the territory that overlooked critical logistics corridors.

The war left many casualties in its wake and Pakistan suffered a major setback. Among those who died on the Pakistani side was Captain Sher Khan of the NLI; his actions at Tiger Hill left a strong impression on Indian officers. These commanders, in keeping with the professional traditions of their institution, and in keeping with the legacy they had inherited, submitted a formal citation to their seniors acknowledging his courage.

Captain Khan's story did not vanish into the fog of war. Pressured by growing media scrutiny and domestic questions, Pakistan posthumously conferred upon him the Nishan-e-Haider, its highest military honour.

Unfortunately, his case was a rare exception. Most NLI soldiers killed during the conflict were left unclaimed. The Pakistani establishment failed to even take their remains back, caring not for their sacrifice but only about the optics of being embarrassed as agressors on the global stage. Indian soldiers buried them with military rites, their identities deliberately obscured by the country they served. The episode exposed a troubling disjunction between Pakistan's official narrative and the lived experiences of its soldiers.

Pakistan's refusal to accept the bodies of its own soldiers was a deliberate decision made at the highest levels of military command. By labelling the fallen as "freedom fighters" or "militants", Islamabad distanced itself from the battlefield realities of Kargil. The disavowal was for a diplomatic purpose: shielding the state from international backlash. But for the boots on the ground, it was simply an abhorrent institutional failure.

These men were deployed under orders. Their deaths, therefore, were the state's responsibility, not burdens to be buried in anonymity.

This pattern has repeated itself in various forms. Pakistan's military has increasingly preferred tactics that blur lines between regular and irregular warfare.

From proxy groups in Kashmir to paramilitary deployments under unofficial cover, the strategy creates deniability. It comes at a huge cost, though. Soldiers, treated as tools in geopolitical gambits, often without recognition or accountability, lose morale. Their families lose faith in the establishment they were meant to serve.

The Kargil War serves as one of the earliest and most visible examples of this model.

The Pakistani military's evolution since 1947 has involved a steady detachment from its shared martial heritage with India. Born from the same colonial tradition, the two armies initially operated with similar codes of conduct. Over time, while the Indian Army remained under clear civilian control, grounded in constitutional discipline, Pakistan's military took a different course. Political power, covert operations, and a parallel narrative structure became its hallmarks, allowing it to dominate the state from behind the curtain.

The abandonment of NLI soldiers in Kargil was symptomatic of this transformation. When survival of the institutional narrative became more important than honouring the dead, a line was crossed. The damage was not limited to strategy or diplomatic fallout. It impacted the collective psyche of regions like Gilgit-Baltistan, where families received neither bodies nor answers. The war's legacy lives not only in memorials on the Indian side, but in silences across Pakistan's remote provinces.

The Indian Army, during and after Kargil, demonstrated an approach shaped by a professional code that values honour and recognition beyond the boundaries of nationality. Its decision to recommend Captain Sher Khan for recognition stood out not as sentimentality, but as an act of soldierly respect. The gesture forced Pakistan to acknowledge what it had denied, offering a sliver of dignity to one man among many who were otherwise forgotten.

The long shadow of Kargil still hangs over South Asia's strategic discourse. For India, it affirmed the value of constitutional subordination and clarity in military conduct. For Pakistan, it exposed a method of war that relies on confusion, plausible deniability, and disposability. The mountains where the war played out are unchanged. But they now carry a layered memory- of tactics, of valour, and of men who were sent forward without names, and returned without honours.

(Aritra Banerjee is a Defence & Security columnist)