The Kargil conflict had exposed a woeful moment of under-preparedness—both in the intrusions going undetected for as long as they did and the damage that years of neglect and miles of red tape had done to India’s fighting power. But in ‘This Unquiet Land: Stories From India’s Fault Lines’ Barkha Dutt shows the readers the other side to the war—the human side that we seldom get to see. The following is an excerpt from the book:

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One of the moments from the Kargil War that remain fresh in my memory was the breakfast of eggs and toast—our first meal in days which went beyond glucose biscuits and tea—that I shared with the soldiers I had spent the long night in the bunker with on the eve of the assault on Tiger Hill.

The soldiers shyly showed us photographs from back home, of brothers, sisters, friends and, of course, girls they had hoped to marry. More than one had broken off the engagement as soon as the war began. Martyrdom at the front line was not a wedding gift everyone was prepared to receive.

We spoke and argued about death, about the brutality of war. It was here that I realized how flawed were the assumptions we civilians made about nationalism and war. Journalists, political pundits and in particular war-mongering jingoists could play cheerleaders to conflict from the comfort of their drawing rooms in the nation’s cities and towns. But to meet hundreds of young men at the battlefront and talk to them about the possibility of imminent death changed me—and my beliefs—fundamentally. It was entirely possible to be filled with overwhelming admiration for these men in uniform and through their eyes understand that the imperatives of war were different, and that it would always be shadowed by loss.

Major Ajit, whose eyes seemed to wear the marks of a private torment, told me that a soldier’s motivation and readiness to die came first from the need to uphold the honour of his paltan, his platoon, his military unit, his regiment—everything else came next. As we were talking, the men who had saved our lives received their orders to move up the mountains and into the battlefield, as at that point the war was still far from over. On a whim I took off the single strand of beads strung around my neck and thrust it into the hands of the soldiers to whom we owed our lives. It was my way of saying good luck. In return, one of the soldiers insisted we keep his dog tag along with a single bullet.

There was no more to be said, and if there was, we lacked the appropriate words. War reporting was conventionally assumed to be about ducking bullets, showcasing military hardware and celebrating courage. But in 1999 it also became about humanizing the narrative of bravery. Our war coverage was all about making Kargil less one dimensional and to allow for a soldier’s portrait to be painted in the colours of both light and shadow.

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One of the most remarkable books ever published about contemporary India, arguably the most complex society on earth, This Unquiet Land tells the truth about the country’s secrets and lies, its torments and triumphs, and its heroes and villains. This is the first book by Barkha Dutt, India’s best-known journalist.