After Kargil, the Indian armed forces' need for permanent deployment of forces along the Line of Control rises. Financially, the burden increases. Each piece of bread for an Indian soldier costs between fifty and sixty rupees in the high snow-bound mountains. Deaths from frostbite and cold exceed those in actual combat by a ratio of five to one. Without the cold war largess provided by the former Soviet Union, the Indian economy will find it increasingly difficult to bear the cost - as difficult as the Pakistani economy is finding itself in the absence of billion of dollars from the West when it was an ally of the free world.
Reality indicates otherwise.
The Indians will say the insurgency is entirely Pakistani inspired and that Kargil has proved their point. Yet reports in the western press about the fervor of the Kashmiris in the refugee camps in Azad Kashmir and the frustration of villagers in Indian occupied Kashmir give a different picture. Some analysts discard the comparisons with Kosovo because Kashmir is in Asia, not in Europe. But there can be no diminution of attention when there is a problem in a newly nuclearized South Asia. When concerns about global peace and security combine with concerns about gross violations of human rights, they demand attention.