The Shame at Simla
Among the series of retaliatory measures against India’s decisions in the wake of the dastardly attack on the tourists by the Pakistani Army – backed terrorists at Pahalgam on April 22 that Islamabad has taken, one is the “suspension” of the Simla Agreement of 1972.
Nothing could be better news for India than this. The Simla Agreement that was signed on 2nd July 1972 has possibly been the number one “egregious diplomatic achievement” by New Delhi so far.
On the other hand, the Agreement was arguably Pakistan’s most spectacular diplomatic victory over India, thanks to late President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto , who literally mesmerised the “ iron lady” and late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to do what he wanted in the Himachal capital.
In his much acclaimed book “ Negotiating India’s Landmark Agreements”, A S Bhasin, a retired Indian diplomat, has meticulously argued how India has been a poor negotiator in concluding the treaties or agreements with other countries.
Bhasin has cited the examples of the India-China agreement on Tibet, 1954; the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, 1971; the Simla Agreement, 1972; the India-Sri Lanka Accord, 1987; and the India-United States Civil Nuclear Deal, 2008. Of these, except the nuclear deal with the U.S., he has very poor opinion on the rest four in general and the one at Simla in particular.
For him, the Simla Agreement was a diplomatic defeat primarily because India did not settle the Kashmir issue with Pakistan once and for all despite everything going in its favour at that point of time.
Let us be reminded of some hard facts.
In 1971 India had won a decisive victory over Pakistan, leading to its disintegration and creation of Bangladesh. There were nearly 93000 Pakistani prisoners of War (PoWs) in India. India also had about 5000 square-miles of Pakistani area that its forces had captured.
Thus, Bhutto had come to Simla as the head of a defeated nation with nothing to bargain. India had everything to bargain for and solve the Kashmir issue in the most practical manner , recognising the then ceasefire line of 1949 agreed to at Karachi ( which was renamed as the Line of Control or the LoC) as the international border with Pakistan. Had Mrs. Gandhi pursued as a realist at Simla, the Kashmir issue would not have remained as a bilateral dispute to linger on.
However, it seems , Kashmir did not figure much at that time in the minds of Mrs. Gandhi and her advisors. Their main emphasis seemed to be on Pakistan accepting the reality of Bangladesh as an independent country. So much so that for obtaining Pakistan’s recognition of Bangladesh ( which Pakistan did after two years, in 1974) , Mrs. Gandhi, it is said, disappointed even many Bangladeshis when she let the Pakistani army get away with its ‘Genocide’ in Bangladesh, notwithstanding the massive evidence of the Pakistani army brutality there.
There are merits in the argument that if Nazis were tried for massacring Jews, if the Khemer Rouge, Saddam Hussein and Serbian militants were taken to task for their atrocities, and if Sri Lanka faces even today enquiries for their suppression of Tamil militants, why was the Pakistani Army allowed to get away with murder, rape and loot of Bengalis and Bangladesh denied justice?
Coming to India, the core issue of finding a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem was squandered away at Simla. In fact, the Simla agreement did not solve any of the substantive issues dividing India and Pakistan.
On the other hand, Bhutto achieved everything for which he had come. He became a savior by rescuing the 93,000 West Pakistani troops that became prisoners of war in India after signing the Simla Agreement. Through the Agreement, he also ensured that Indian troops withdrew from the 5000 square-miles of Pakistani area that they had gained in the war.
Bhutto rested diplomatic victory from the jaws of military defeat. If it was not the high watermark of his leadership, what else was?
Of course, going by the official description in the Delhi-establishment, Simla Agreement was a great masterstroke by Mrs. Gandhi in the sense that both India and Pakistan agreed to solve the Kashmir dispute “ bilaterally” and “peacefully” and by respecting till then the newly designated LoC without resorting to any military means.
But, if one reads the clauses of the Simla Agreement, there are “escape clauses”, which Pakistan has always exploited. Two of them are particularly noteworthy.
One is that “In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of 17 December 1971, shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognized position of either side”.
At first glance, it looks fine. But on a closer scrutiny if one notices the words “ without prejudice” to each other’s recognized positions, it opens all sorts of doors for the violation as Pakistan considers India’s Jammu and Kashmir as “illegally occupied”.
The second escape-clause happens to be the provision in the Simla Agreement that said: “That the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them”.
Here, the danger lies in the caveat “or other peaceful means mutually agreed upon.”
Pakistan has thoroughly exploited this by seeking relentlessly the U.N. intervention or third-party mediation in India-Pakistan relations.
In fact, the Simla Agreement in a way further legitimised , to the much glee of Bhutto and Pakistan, the notion of the disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir. India accepted explicitly through this Agreement that there was “a Kashmir dispute”.
No wonder why soon after “the Victor” Bhutto returned to his country by repatriating his POWs and reclaiming the lost territories, he talked of launching a hundred-year war with India and realising the self determination of the Kashmiris.
And here one unfortunate fact must be mentioned that while India returned 93000 Pakistani POWs, the Simla Agreement was totally silent on the home-coming of the 54 Indian POWs captured by Pakistan. Shockingly, they never returned and Mrs. Gandhi accepted that.
What could have been the reason for such Indian benevolence? Some foreign policy experts have written that Mrs. Gandhi, though a hard realist, unfortunately came under the strong influence of the leftist and pacifist advisers like D P Dhar and P N Haksar (incidentally, all of them happened to be Kashmiri Pundits).
They did not want Pakistan to be treated like the way a defeated Germany was treated by the victors through the Treaty of Versailles after the end of the World war I, which many considered to be responsible for the rise of Nazi Adolf Hitler.
And they did not like the idea of Bhutto going empty-handed to his country, thereby endangering the advent of a civilian -led or democratic government in Pakistan, long accustomed to military rule. So , it was a question of spreading the cause of democracy in the subcontinent.
Obviously, Pakistan , or for that matter Bhutto, did not reciprocate the Indian gesture through the Simla pact. On the other hand, every passing year since then Pakistani hostility towards India, particularly among its policy makers, both civilian and military, has intensified more and more to take , what they call, “revenge” of 1971.
In fact, one is reminded here how in 1192 AD despite defeating and capturing Mohammad Gauri, Delhi- ruler Prithvi Raj Chauhan let him off the hook. He showed mercy on the foreign invader. But, instead of being grateful, Gauri returned within a year with a larger army, defeated Prithviraj, usurped his kingdom and tortured him to death.
This Indian syndrome of inability to exploit battlefield victory and frittering away the advantage gained at the cost of soldiers’ blood, all in the name of “pacifism” or “peace offensive”, has always emboldened the enemies.
It remains to be seen whether the Narendra Modi government will be different. In fact, by disregarding the Simla Agreement, Pakistan has done a great favor to Modi to reclaim the Pakistan occupied Kashmir, something that the entire political class of India would support.
The Simla Agreement was a diplomatic disgrace to India. That Pakistan has killed it is a matter for cheers. There is no reason whatsoever for India to revive it.
(This piece first appeared in the Eurasian Times)
