War at the Top of the World

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Pakistan, for its part, says it will never accept India's alleged claim jumping. Says Foreign Ministry spokesman Jilani: "Siachen is perceived as a major act of Indian aggression." You hear that viewpoint often on the Pakistani side of the glacier. After a game on the highest cricket pitch in the world, in Gyari, Lieut. Colonel Iqbal sits down in a deck chair. "This war was forced on us," he says. "I have to stop the enemy from sitting on our land, and it might as well be here." Iqbal glances up sharply at a booming noise, which sounds like distant artillery fire. He grins; it's just another avalanche.

Despite what analyst Hussain calls a "trust deficit" between the two sides, fresh peace proposals are making the rounds in New Delhi and Islamabad. The Pakistanis want to separate troop withdrawals from the glacier from the knottier issue of who owns Kashmir and, with it, Siachen. For its part, India wants hard evidence—such as a map or a photograph in which the Pakistanis agree to the current front line as the border—before it will agree to demilitarize. One proposal, made by international environmentalists, is that the Siachen Glacier be declared a troop-free zone, with access permitted to mountaineering and scientific expeditions. The Indian army says that thanks to global warming, Siachen is receding at a rate of 10.5 m annually. International pressure is also being applied to solve the conflict, according to analysts in India. "The U.S. would like India to withdraw; they see it as a symbolically important step," says Brahma Chellaney, a defense analyst at New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research. Outsiders know that reaching a final settlement on Kashmir will be hard, but hope that the two sides can at last negotiate on what might be solvable. "Siachen looms high in what can be achieved," says Chellaney.

But honor is at stake. India and Pakistan each believe fervently in their own claim to Siachen. Both have spent blood and treasure to prove it, although the glacier's strategic value is minimal. From his camp on the ice, Pakistani Captain Nazir watches an Indian party through binoculars. Despite the cease-fire, Nazir can't relax. He is worried that an avalanche will sweep down on his encampment. "One came down on our toilet," he says. "Thank God nobody was inside." That would indeed be an awful way to go. But until India and Pakistan can find a way to trust each other, such a white death threatens the lives of young Indians and Pakistanis locked in a pointless war on the roof of the world.