SECRET OF SHIMLA AGREEMENT

M P Ajithkumar

(Lecturer in History, Sanathana Dharma College, Alappuzha)

The period that constituted the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, the liberation of
Bangladesh and the Shimla accord formed one of the momentous times in the history
of India’s relations with its next-door nation. The war that formed one of the
great conflagrations in Asia of the last half a century resulted in the ultimate
and unconditional victory of India over her enemy nation. It was indeed the moment
of India shining as a superior military power and a reputed ally of one of the top
super powers of the world, the USSR.

The oft-repeated statement that Shimla Accord is to be observed as the basis of

all future relations between India and Pakistan has been a matter of queer
reading. Most of the Foreign Affairs Ministers, irrespective of their political
hues, have waxed eloquent over Shimla Accord as some thing, which is the only
panacea that can cut the long-drawn India-Pakistan ice. Even academics too are
sometimes mistaken on this. The many reported statements of successive Union
Ministers of India for External Affairs, on Shimla were just stereotypes of the
same folly. Indeed the talks about Shimla Accord still continue to be mere
eyewash. But only the Pakistanis can repose faith in Shimla Pact, as they do know
that it was India’s diplomatic defeat. An ordinary analysis would reveal the
actual picture and nature of this much-publicized agreement.

The Indo-Pakistan war of 1971 came to a temporary halt with the signing of the
Shimla Agreement. In the summit, which opened on 28 June 1972 in Shimla, Mrs.
India Gandhi warmly welcomed Mr. Z A Bhutto. Bhutto said that he too was sincere
to respond to the wishes of the people of the subcontinent who were fed up with
the past strife and conflicts and were eager to see a chapter of friendship and
amity opened in Indo-Pakistan relations1. On the second day of the summit the
talks reached a “crucial stage” with Mrs. Gandhi insisting on an over all
settlement which would cover some basic issues along with those arising from the
December war. Since such a settlement would involve the Kashmir problem also,
Pakistan remained silent on it. In fact Pakistan’s stand was very much judicious.
She wanted to get back the occupied territories and the prisoners of war before
the talks would pass on to the Kashmir dispute. Following this, India drew the
attention of Pakistan to the need of solving the outstanding disputes and the
establishment of a durable peace, which would be possible only through the
settlement of the Kashmir issue. But Bhutto wanted that the Kashmir issue be
“frozen and tackled at a more propitious time”. On the contrary, he demanded the
release of the prisoners of war by India as a preliminary step towards a durable
peace, and to give up the trial of a selected number of Pakistani military
officers on war crime charges by Bangla Desh. Pakistan also demanded to get back
the occupied territory from India notwithstanding that it had been illegally
occupying Azad Kashmir since 1947. As could be expected Pakistan conveniently did
not refer to Azad Kashmir when she demanded back the territories which India
occupied in 1971. Naturally such a programme was bound only to collapse, and it
seemed the summit would fail. But Bhutto said that he was “not going to shut the
door”. It is also interesting to note that he could not shut the door since such
an arrogant and uncompromising stand would have shut up inside India both
Pakistan’s territories and the prisoners of war. Were he to shut the door, he
would have had to return home empty-handed.

But there came a sudden bolt from the blue. The impasse disappeared dramatically
and all the hurdles seemed to have disappeared and India and Pakistan signed an
agreement on 2 July2. What was the immediate reason for this sudden and unexpected
change in the attitude of India, which signed the agreement without terms and
conditions, still remains an enigma. The Prime Minister of India and the President
of Pakistan hailed this signing ceremony as a “new beginning in the relations
between India and Pakistan”3. It was bilaterally agreed that “the principles and
purposes of the U N charter shall govern the relationship between the two
countries” and that they would settle “their differences by peaceful means
mutually through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually
agreed upon between them. It was agreed to respect each other’s territorial
integrity and sovereignty by observing the policy of non-interference in each
other’s internal affairs and to abstain from the threat or the use of force.
Prevention of hostile propaganda and the resumption of communication were on the
accord, and as a means towards attaining durable peace the signatories agreed to
withdraw the armed forces “to their side of international border”. It was agreed
that in Jammu and Kashmir “the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of 17
December 1971, shall be respected by both sides”4. Both the parties agreed that
any settlement between the two nations could be reached at through bilateral talks
and “other peaceful means”.

Though the Shimla Agreement was signed it could not provide a final solution to
the Indo-Pak problem. For, after the signing of the Shimla Accord the Pakistani
spokesman said, “we remain where we are until a final settlement is reached” which
meant that this much publicized agreement was not a final one. More over the
Pakistani delegation deliberately abstained from being a party to any kind of a
“No War” declaration. Thus was signed the Shimla Agreement, leaving all the issues
unsettled. It is interesting to notice that when the situation was highly
favourable to India, India’s victory over the enemy being total, she failed to
settle her longstanding issues with the aggressor state. With the support of the
USSR having been already won, it was sure that even if India would take a tough
stand there would not have been any interference of the other super powers.
Besides, the victorious India had with her 90,000 prisoners of war and a large
tract of Pakistani territory. In such a favourable state India could have turned a
tough bargainer. She should not have made so large a concession as she did unless
there was some compensation, which the accord does not record. Instead of
asserting her moral will over the aggressor, she let Pakistan have all the
advantage.

There was widespread dissatisfaction in India about the Shimla Accord among the
various nationalist outfits, intellectuals and patriots. Strongly condemning this
agreement, A B Vajpayee, the leader of the Bharathiya Jana Sangh, described it as
a “sell out” and called upon all the parties to demonstrate against this “black
agreement”. According to him Pakistan’s agreement to renounce the use of force was
totally meaningless since ‘renunciation’ had been agreed upon by Pakistan several
times earlier only to be thrown to the winds shortly thereafter. Besides, he
argued that the agreement to settle the disputes by “other peaceful means” was
likely to keep the doors open for a third party intervention. He further
criticized that the agreement to withdraw the troops to the international border
would only imply that India would give up more than 5000 square miles of Pakistani
territory while 3000 square miles of India’s territory in Kashmir would remain
with Pakistan. He charged that there had been “some sort of secret understanding”
between Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto during their talks at Shimla.
True, by stating so Mr. Vajpayee was not casting doubt on the patriotism of Mrs.
Gandhi. But he called the attention of the nation to the fact that she should have
taken her cabinet colleagues also into confidence in regard to the provisions of
the agreement which had come as a bolt from the blue after the talks of the days
immediately preceding the agreement had been written off as having failed5. It is
again interesting to note that Mr. James P. Sterba’s report on the Shimla
Agreement in the New York Times was headlined “Shimla Accord: Behind the progress
report there is possibility of a secret agreement”6. Years after when Mr. Vajpayee
demanded answers in this regard and a full text of Mrs. Gandhi’s talks with Mr.
Bhutto at Shimla he got only an unsatisfactory reply. Replying to his query, the
official spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry said on 10 April 1978: “I do
not know about it. I am not competent to talk about it. It is not on record
anywhere”, and he suggested that the parties directly concerned, Mrs. Gandhi and
Mr. Bhutto may be approached7. Indeed one may be prompted to ponder whether these
talks concerning the fate of the two nations were so silly and insignificant as to
be kept only in the memories of the parties directly concerned.

In his memoirs titled A Diplomat’s Diary India’s former diplomat Triloki Nath Kaul
expresses disappointment with Mrs. Gandhi’s performance at the Shimla Summit with
Z A Bhutto. It is true that “she was hailed as Durga, the Goddess of war by Sri.
Vajpayee because of her toughness during the war”, he says. However she squandered
away its gains in her eagerness to show “magnanimity in victory”. T N Kaul further
criticizes her “for not getting a final settlement of the Kashmir question at
Shimla”, and writes,

She tried hard but Bhutto said if he agreed to a final settlement at Shimla he
would be overthrown and the military would take over power and increase tension
with India. When I suggested it at the conference table, Bhutto, addressing Smt.
Gandhi, said, ‘Madam, I assure you that within two weeks of my return to Pakistan
I shall prepare the ground for it (a final settlement of Kashmir Question)”.

Thinking that the Shimla meet would end in failure, Kaul left Shimla a few hours
prior to the conference ending at late night of 2 July 1972 and came to Chandigarh
to make arrangements for the return of Bhutto and his daughter Benazir. But what
happened at Shimla was contrary to what Kaul thought. Mrs. Gandhi signed an
agreement on the night of 2 July after a one-to-one meeting with Bhutto at “The
Retreat” after the parties had packed their luggage for the return. “No one else
was present”, but Mrs. Gandhi’s Secretary and economic advisor who was outside the
room and has said that there was verbal understanding for a final settlement of
the Kashmir question along with an agreement on the Line of Control. But this
final settlement from the part of Bhutto had never come. He could not save himself
from the military coup about which he had spoken at Shimla.

Kaul makes an interesting revelation of the reason why Mrs. Gandhi failed to get
an agreement converting the ceasefire line in Kashmir into the international
border in the parleys held at Shimla from 28 June to 2 July. It was a gesture of
goodwill towards the People of Pakistan that would befriend them in course of
time. Indeed this wild goose chase had started from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru,
which had yielded no result at all8. Better to say, the policy of appeasing
Muslims, started from the time of Gandhiji as a means to gain the goodwill of
Muslim League and which continued in post-independent India, yielded no result. In
fact it only made the Muslim League and its creation, Pakistan, more arrogant,
uncompromising and audacious enough to pooh-pooh the foolish generosity of India
and its leaders. And this was the chief characteristic of Pakistan in all its
dealings with India.

At Shimla Bhutto was given two clear alternatives. He was asked whether he wanted
to get back first the prisoners of war or the 5000 square miles of territory India
captured form Pakistan. Bhutto outfoxed Mrs.Gandhi by asking the territory first.
Bhutto’s daughter Benazir who accompanied him to Shimla explains the evil and
clever design behind such a demand. She writes in her autobiography Daughter of
the East that she was in fact surprised at such a topsy-turvy priority of her
father as there was an impatient demand for the release of such a large number of
prisoners of war. But Bhutto calmed her and told,

The POW’s will be freed in any case. Prisoners are human problem. The magnitude is
increased when there are 93000 of them. It would be inhuman to keep them
indefinitely. And it will also be a problem to keep on feeding and housing them.
Territory on the other hand is not a human problem. Territory can be assimilated.
Prisoners cannot. The Arabs have still not succeeded in regaining territory lost
in the 1967 war with Israel. The capturing of land does not cry out for
international attention the same way as the prisoners do9.

But this diplomatic fact of history did not dawn on India’s Iron Lady. This was
the first great victory of Bhutto. Second, Bhutto like all his predecessors was
determined to keep alive in future a vital bone of contention, and he knew that
any settlement regarding the Line of Control and the Kashmir Question would only
undo this. It was in the interest of Pakistan that the Ceasefire Line should not
be converted into an international border. Again Bhutto proved successful in
getting the issue of Kashmir inserted into the Shimla Agreement as an unsettled
one between India and Pakistan so that the latter could project it as the reason
for any conflict between the two nations in future10. By signing such an agreement
Mrs. Gandhi was indirectly, though inadvertently, accepting that the Kashmir issue
was something yet to be settled.
Mrs. Gandhi’s Secretary and Economic Advisor, P N Dhar gives his version of her
tame surrender to Bhutto at Shimla. He says that Bhutto used all wily and
shameless tactics to save the talks from breaking down. When Bhutto and Indira
Gandhi were alone talking Bhutto softened her by saying that he had to prepare his
country and its National Assembly to accept the Line of Control as a permanent
border for which he needed two weeks. Dhar who was standing outside the room
probably overheard everything. Mujh par bharosa kijye (Trust me), Bhutto implored
her again and again and won over her. But Dhar says that this was only an oral and
not written agreement. Spoken words vanished into thin air and what remained were
India’s unsolved problems as they did prior to 1972. What the soldiers of India
gained militarily the Prime Minister of India fretted away diplomatically!

True, love of peace and magnanimity to the neighbour are good qualities a nation
must develop. But it should not have jeopardized national interests. However the
Lady of the Shimla Agreement did not take this into consideration with the result
that it only aggravated the aggressiveness of the enemy. No wonder, after going
home in a victorious mood, he took all the credit for striking a winning bargain
and threw all his promises to winds. While addressing his nation on his return
from India, an elated and audacious Bhutto said, “I had gone to India with two
views, first to get our territory back and then to get our Prisoners of War back.
I have done the first in five months [a judicious gain] what the Arabs could not
get done in five years”. He further said that “I will get the POWs back too
because India cannot keep them for long because international pressure is turning
against India”. The moderate diction and the slipper-licking diplomacy Bhutto
resorted to while in Indian soil gave way to the reckless and arrogant statements,
the moment he landed in Pakistan. There was no moderation in his words. On the
other hand, as V P Bhatia observes, he started preparing for a nuclear arsenal to
checkmate India forever. The chameleon made contradictory and villainous
statements about the Accord. On 3 July 1972, while addressing a cheering and
frenzied mob he felt no shame or prick of conscience to air his inborn vile that
“the right of self-determination is the Kashmiris’ right and no one can take it
away from them”. Thus the Shimla ‘understanding’ or the Shimla Accord could only
boost the Pakistani arrogance. It was one of the great tragedies of Indian history
and a great national misfortune that Mrs. Gandhi’s Pakistani counterpart could
easily fool her.

It is also to be noticed that Pakistan failed to honour its own commitments made
in 1972 Shimla agreement. Later even Bhutto’s daughter herself denied Pakistan’s
commitment to the Shimla accord. When asked about the 1972 Pakistani commitment
made by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the former Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira
Gandhi, Banazir only answered in an evasive manner, which was quite unbecoming of
a Prime Minister. During his talks with Banazir, Dubey drew her attention to the
assurance her father had given Mrs. Gandhi that the Line of Control in Jammu and
Kashmir would be made the plank on which the Kashmir issue would be solved for
good. Mr. J N Dixit thus writes about her interesting reactions to it:

She made two points in response: First, that though she was at Shimla, she was a
young student then, so she did not recall any proposals or assurances of the type
having been given by her father. She said that her father had not mentioned
anything about his last private conversation with Mrs. Gandhi before the agreement
was signed. She then went on to say that nearly two decades had elapsed since the
Shimla discussions and, therefore, she did not know how relevant the discussions,
or even some aspects of the Shimla agreement, were in the changed circumstances in
Jammu and Kashmir as well as in the subcontinent. She said that India should agree
with Pakistan to examine the origins of the Kashmir issue and the right of self-
determination of Muslims. This particular exchange between Dubey and Benazir led
India to the definite conclusion that Pakistan no longer wished to adhere to
Shimla agreement or the commitments, whatever lip service it may occasionally pay
to certain clauses of the agreement as a matter of formality or convenience11.

The Shimla agreement thus remains one among the many Pakistani promises, which had
been thrown to winds. Indeed this was only an accord with no tangible provisions
except that it for the time being papered over the cracks and helped Bhutto, the
Pak tyrant to escape from the noose that India put around the Pak neck. One of the
many unfortunate moments in the history of India-Pakistan relations, the Shimla
summit remains as the notorious example in which the wrong diplomacy wrote off the
victory the Indian military rightly brought for India.

Footnotes

1 The Statesman, 29 June 1972.

2 Indian Express, 3 July 1972.

3 The Hindu, 3 July 1972.

4 See the text of Shimla Summit Agreement, M. P. Ajithkumar, India-Pakistan

Relations: the Story of a Fractured Fraternity, New Delhi, 2006.

5 A G Noorani, “Was there a secret Bhutto-Indira Pact?” Sunday, April 1978.

6 New York Times, 3 July 1972.

7 A G Noorani, Op. Cit.

8 India had in fact with her three trumps to force Bhutto agree to end the
Kashmir dispute for ever by permanent partition of Kashmir. Partition of Jammu
and Kashmir was in fact the purpose of the ceasefire of 1 January 1949 also. To
put it right, Pt. Nehru had been trying hard from 1949 to 1960 when the Canal
Water Agreement, highly favourable to Pakistan, was signed to make it agree to the
partition of Kashmir. Indeed the wily Pakistani rulers kept dangling such a hope
before Nehru, which however was not to be given effect to. The American archival
documents also show that the USA too favoured such a settlement, but the Pakistani
attitude was to grab more. “What we have, we have. What will you give from what
you have?” was their attitude. See V P Bhatia, “Diplomatic disaster at Shimla”,
Organiser, 3 August 2003.

9 V P Bhatia, “Diplomatic disaster at Shimla”, Organiser, 3 August 2003. It is

interesting to note that Pakistan always tried to project the Kashmir issue as the
reason of the bilateral disagreements. Though it strove to include the Kashmir in
the Tashkent Agreement Lal Bahadur Sastri did not agree to it. He had in fact
refused to any mention of Kashmir as the cause of Indo-Pakistan tension in
Tashkent agreement as Ayub and Bhutto insisted there.

10 It is interesting to note that Pakistan always tried to project the Kashmir

issue as

the reason of the bilateral disagreements. Though it strove to include the Kashmir

in the Tashkent Agreement Lal Bahadur Sastri did not agree to it. He had in fact

refused to any mention of Kashmir as the cause of Indo-Pakistan tension in

Tashkent agreement through Ayub and Bhutto insisted it.

11 J N Dixit, Anatomy of a Flawed Inheritance, Delhi, 1995, p. 135