Indian Troops Reach New Peaks With Yoga

Guardian

Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi

Tuesday April 4, 2006

A new weapon is being deployed on one of the bleakest, highest battlefields in the world. On the snow-capped peaks and glaciers of Kashmir's Himalayas Indian soldiers, numbed by the elements and worn out after years of eyeballing their old enemy Pakistan, have been ordered to take up yoga.

India's generals have turned to an ancient form of meditation and breathing as a buffer against the stresses of daily life in a conflict zone. The top brass insist that finding inner peace will not blunt the troops' fighting spirit, preferring to highlight instead the physical benefits of yoga.

Officers say that the stretches provide excellent exercise especially on remote mountaintops where even short runs can leave the physically fit gasping for oxygen. "Stress-busting keeps soldiers alert and has made yoga a regular feature of training given to soldiers assigned to 'high-stress' areas," said the army's spokesman in Kashmir, Lieutenant Colonel VK Batra. "Yoga helps soldiers to convert negative stress into positive energy, which is necessary for alertness, and alertness in these areas can mean life or death."

More than 100 soldiers underwent the training, seen as rather less rigorous than the more usual seven-mile hikes in freezing temperatures that soldiers often undertake. But the results were startling in the Kashmir region of Ladakh, which rises up to 4,570 metres (15,000 ft).

Soldiers in a unit trained there apparently gave up smoking and drinking, with "their physical fitness level increased and the mental faculty sharpened," Lieutenant Colonel Latika Mohan told news agencies.

India keeps tens of thousands soldiers posted along the mountainous frontier known as the Line of Control, which separates its part of Kashmir from Pakistan's portion of the region, over which the rivals have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947.

Both nations claim all of Kashmir, and among the disputed peaks is the Siachen glacier, the world's highest battlefield where troops face each other atop a 20,000ft icy expanse.

Further complications include a 17-year-long Islamic insurgency in India's portion of the Himalayan region which has left more than 67,000 people dead.

The insurgents demand independence or to see India's part of Kashmir merged into Pakistan. Militants frequently ambush soldiers.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006