i think it is important to put the whole article for members benefit. have posted the link above.
The Hindu : Did Bhutto outwit Indira Gandhi?
Did Bhutto outwit Indira Gandhi?
To Understand the political climate prevalent in the subcontinent in June-July 1972, when the Simla Conference was held, it is necessary to recall the events that preceded it - events that altered some basic perceptions that the Pakistan leadership had held dear. The emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign state had starkly shown the inadequacy of religion as the sole basis of nationality. It also repudiated the two-nation theory and struck a deadly blow to Pakistan's claim, implicit as well as explicit, that it spoke on behalf of the Muslims of the subcontinent. Bhutto was acutely conscious of this fundamental change of context and he stated this frankly in his preliminary conversation with Indira Gandhi. He referred critically to his own views on these subjects, which he had articulated in extremely bellicose language earlier. He even lamented the tripartite division of the Muslim community in the subcontinent and hoped that, in the new circumstances, the community would become a strong force for peace and stability in the region.Furthermore, Bhutto said he was convinced by the events of 1971 that Pakistan could not acquire Kashmir via military intervention. In March 1972, a month before the meeting of emissaries in Murree, he told Indian journalists that a settlement of the Kashmir issue would emerge on the basis of a "line of peace" and that the right of self-determination, in his view, was not to be exported from outside. "Kashmir troubles me a lot," Bhutto said. He did not want its dark shadow looming over Indo-Pak. relations. He wanted his countrymen to get over the trauma of the emergence of its eastern wing as a separate independent state as quickly as possible and concentrate on making the now smaller Pakistan a prosperous country. He told Indira Gandhi in his meeting with her on July 1: "I have been saying in Pakistan: how can we fight for rights of Kashmiris? I have prepared public opinion for days ahead. But we cannot do it under compulsion." Bhutto was personally inclined to accept the status quo as a permanent solution to the Kashmir problem. However, he had several constraints in this regard which he spelt out as follows:
(a) His political enemies at home, especially the army bosses, would denounce him for surrendering what many in Pakistan considered their vital national interest. This would endanger the democratic set-up which had emerged after fourteen years of army rule. In this context, Bhutto repeatedly talked about his fear of what he called the Lahore lobby, though he never clearly explained what it was.
(b) He was anxious to obtain the support of all political elements in Pakistan in favour of any agreement that might emerge at Simla. He made this point at the beginning of the conference, while apologising for bringing with him an unusually large delegation, consisting of about 84 members, who represented the entire political spectrum of Pakistan. He wanted all members of the delegation to support and be committed to the outcome of the conference. He said there should be no dissenters in his delegation when he left Simla. He was probably thinking of his own negative role vis-a-vis Ayub Khan after the Tashkent Declaration in 1966.
Bhutto was very keen on the support of Aziz Ahmed, who led the Pakistan negotiating team. Ahmed was Pakistan's senior-most civil servant and carried great weight in the ranks of its bureaucracy. He also had the reputation of being a hardliner. Ahmed's support would secure Bhutto the support of Pakistan's officialdom, which constituted a very powerful segment of the country's political elite.
Aziz Ahmed was against enlarging the agenda to include Kashmir. But he yielded ground when the Indian side explained it was not insisting on an immediate and formal acceptance of the status quo, which they believed could be looked upon as the imposition of harsh terms by the victor in war. P. N. Haksar, who had assumed the leadership of the Indian team when D. P. Dhar suddenly took ill, felt that such a move might nurture a revanchist ideology in Pakistan. He reminded his colleagues of the consequence of the Treaty of Versailles and persuaded them against doing anything which could be the basis of another war. The Indian side therefore put their proposal in a low key and in an indirect manner by proposing that the name of the line dividing India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir be changed from the "cease-fire line" to the "line of control". Aziz Ahmed objected to this. He pointed out quite rightly, that the proposed change in terminology would mean a change in the status of the line. He put forth this view vehemently and said he was not prepared to accept the change in nomenclature.
* * *
In the afternoon meeting on July 2, which was to consider the third and last Indian draft agreement, Aziz Ahmed said: "This is our last meeting... Pakistan cannot accept that the ceasefire line has ceased to exist. That is the main reason why we are not accepting the Indian draft." For the Indian side this was a retreat from the statement made by Bhutto in his previous day's meeting with Indira Gandhi in the presence of officials. In that meeting, after Aziz Ahmed's remark that "We have agreed to everything except Kashmir", Bhutto intervened and said: "I have, in a way, agreed to Kashmir being resolved by peaceful means... As regards the Kashmir dispute, an agreement will emerge in the foreseeable future. It will evolve into a settlement. Let there be a line of peace; let people come and go; let us not fight over it."
The transformation of the ceasefire line into the line of control was the core of the Indian solution to the Kashmir problem. The de facto line of control was meant to be graduated to the level of a de jure border. Since no agreement was reached on this point, negotiations were called off and the curtain came down on five days of hectic negotiations which had begun with great hopes throughout the subcontinent. This was the afternoon of July 2. The Pakistan delegation was scheduled to leave Simla the next morning.
Soon, word spread that the conference had failed. Media men rushed off to announce the failure. In the midst of this enveloping gloom Bhutto asked to see Mrs. Gandhi and a meeting was fixed for 6 p.m. at the Retreat, where she was staying. When Bhutto came to see Mrs. Gandhi, he met P.N. Haksar and myself briefly and said: "You officials give up too easily". Mrs. Gandhi and Bhutto then met for an hour while Haksar and I waited in the adjoining room. Emerging from his tete-a-tete with Mrs. Gandhi, Bhutto looked pleased and said, "we have settled the matter and decided to give you some work to do before dinner." After we saw Bhutto off, Mrs. Gandhi briefed us on what had transpired.
Mrs. Gandhi elaborated the merits of the Indian proposal in the following terms: It was the only feasible solution. An important feature of the proposal was that neither country was gaining or losing territory on account of war. It did not involve transfers of population from one side to the other. Kashmiris as an ethnic community were left undivided on the Indian side. The line of control was therefore largely an ethnic and linguistic frontier. In fact in 1947, at the time of partition, it was also an ideological frontier, being the limit of the political influence of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah and his National Conference party. True, there were some anomalies in this otherwise neatly etched picture, but these, Mrs. Gandhi pointed out, could be removed by mutual consent.
Bhutto resounded with feeling and apparent sincerity. After long reflection he had come to the conclusion that the Indian proposal was the only feasible one. But he could not agree to incorporating it in the agreement for the reasons he had stated earlier. He would, however, work towards its implementation in practice and over time. Mrs. Gandhi herself was worried that a formal withdrawal of the Indian claim on Pak-occupied Kashmir could create political trouble for her. She agreed that the solution should not be recorded in the agreement for the reasons advanced by Bhutto, but it should be implemented gradually, as he had suggested.
It was also agreed that the understanding would not be a written one. The insertion of secret clauses in the agreement was considered inconsistent with the desire to build a structure of durable peace. It was decided, however, that the agreement would be worded in a manner that would not create difficulties of implementation for Pakistan. This resulted in some last-minute negotiations which were carried on during the return banquet of the president of Pakistan on the eve of his departure for his country. Thus, some clauses included in the draft agreement had to be deleted to accommodate Bhutto.
The most important part of the agreement, sub-clause 4(ii), says: In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of December 17, 1971 shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognised position of either side. Neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations. Both sides further undertake to refrain from the threat or the use of force in violation of this line. The phrase "without prejudice" to the recognised position of either side was a concession to Bhutto to save him from domestic critics. The second and third sentences were assumed to prevent the abuse of this concession and to lay the foundation for a future settlement of the Kashmir issue.
* * *
Bhutto also knew that the Government of India had opened a dialogue with Sheikh Abdullah. He realised that India was in effect meeting the demand of separatist Kashmiris for representation at India-Pak negotiations on Kashmir via simultaneous but separate talks with Sheikh Abdullah. From his own sources and from reports in the Indian press he was aware of the probability of the Sheikh joining Indian mainstream politics. He knew that the ban on the Sheikh's entry into Kashmir was about to be removed. And when it was removed, three weeks after the Simla conference, the Sheikh told his audience in Srinagar that the tragic events of Bangladesh had proved how correct Kashmiris were in rejecting union with thecoratic Pakistan. The Sheikh's withdrawal of his demand for a plebiscite was expected to help Bhutto face the criticism of people at home.
* * *
Bhutto agreed not only to change the ceasefire line into line of control, for which he had earlier proposed the term "line of peace", he also agreed that the line would be gradually endowed with the characteristics of an international border (his words). The transition was to take place in the following manner. After the resumption of traffic between India and Pakistan across the international border had gained momentum, the movement of traffic would be allowed at specified points across the line of control. At these points of entry, immigration control and customs clearance offices would be established. Furthermore, Pakistan- occupied Kashmir would be incorporated into Pakistan. To begin with, Bhutto's party would set up its branches there, and later the area would be taken over by the administration. India would make proforma protests in a low key (This is what actually happened in 1974, when Bhutto made PoK constitutionally a province of Pakistan without much protest from India). It was thought that with the gradual use of the line of control as the de facto frontier, public opinion on both sides would become reconciled to its permanence. In the meanwhile, the opening of trade and commerce and cooperation between India and Pakistan would result in easing tensions between the two countries. When Mrs. Gandhi, after recounting their points of agreement, finally asked Bhutto: "Is this the understanding on which we will proceed? He replied, "Absolutely, aap mujh par bharosa keejiye (you can rely on me).
One of Bhutto's aides, who was also very close to the Americans, fully briefed James P. Sterba (the New York Times correspondent) on the understanding that this leader had reached with Mrs. Gandhi. In his news analysis, which appeared within hours of the signing, Sterba, after referring to the inflexible positions of the two governments on the Kashmir problem, wrote: "these positions have been drummed into the minds of the peoples of each side to the point where any compromise would be viewed largely as a "sell out" in both countries. And for years, such a sell out would have probably toppled the rulers who agreed to it". Sterba added:
President Butto, Pakistan's first civilian leader in fourteen years, came to Simla ready to compromise. According to sources close to him, he was willing to forsake the Indian held two- thirds of Kashmir that contains four-fifths of the population and the prized valley called the 'Vale', and agree that a ceasefire line to be negotiated would gradually become the border between the two countries. The key word is 'gradually' (emphasis added)... President Bhutto wants a softening of the ceasefire line with trade and travel across it and a secret agreement with Mrs. Gandhi that a formally recognised border would emerge after a few years, during which he would condition his people to it without riots and an overthrow of his Government.
This was the understanding between the leaders of the two countries and this was the Simla Solution of the Kashmir problem. The agreement that was signed at Simla in the first hour of July 3, 1972 was the launching pad for an implementation of the Simla Solution. Some Pakistanis maintain that recent events in Kashmir have overtaken the agreement, while Indians insist that the dispute should be resolved through bilateral negotiations, as stipulated under it. This debate misses the crucial point that the Simla Agreement provided not only a mechanism for the solution of the Kashmir problem but also envisaged the solution itself.
The Simla Solution seemed the only way in which the political leadership of the two countries could resolve their conflicting claims over Kashmir. It is still the only way that remains open to them. To be sure, the aspirations of Valley Muslims need to be satisfied. The Indira-Abdullah Accord, which was an answer to this question, has come unstuck due partly to New Delhi's hamhandedness and largely due to the growth of Muslim fundamentalism in the Valley, as also because of the massive intervention of Pakistan, in flagrant violation of the Simla commitments. Had the Simla understanding been converted into the final solution of the problem, the Kashmir issue would have simply become an internal problem for India, namely one of altering the existing centre-state relations in a manner that would satisfy the Kashmiri demand for greater autonomy.
* * *
It was in the context of an utter disregard for the Simla commitments by Pakistan that I decided to make public the substance of the Simla understanding. I did this through a two- part article which was published in the Times of India in April 1995. Pakistani response to this came in an avalanche of statements and comments from the government, political leaders, columnists, and editorial writers questioning the veracity of what I had said. About the only person in authority who did not react was Pakistan's Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.
The expressions of disbelief in the existence of a verbal understanding between Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto were often accompanied by high praise of what Humayun Gauhar called Bhutto's diplomatic artistry. Writing on this subject in the Political and Business Weekly of May 15, 1995, Gauhar wrote:
If it took a private talk between Mr. Bhutto and Mrs. Gandhi in which he made certain commitments to her but which he was clever enough not to have written down in the Simla Agreement or on a separate piece of paper, then it was diplomatic artistry of the highest order. He would have known wn better than anyone else that such a private secret agreement, which is only verbal, was worthless. Face it Mr. Dhar, even if we accept what you say, Mr. Bhutto fooled your Prime Minister.
Gauhar explains the nature of Bhutto's artistry in Bhutto's own words. Three months before the Simla Conference Bhutto told Oriana Falaci, the Italian journalist: "Well, in politics you sometimes have to have light and flexible fingers... have you ever seen a bird sitting on its eggs in the nest? Well, a politician must have fairly light, fairly flexible fingers, to insinuate them under the bird and take away the eggs. One by one . Without the bird realising it."
Commenting on Pakistani rejoinders to my article, Alistair Lamb, the well-known author of several books on the Kashmir question (in which he has vigorously supported Pakistan's point of view), says: "Pakistani refutations of P. N. Dhar's claims (that Z. A. Bhutto did privately agree with the Indian Prime Minister that this was exactly the way in which the Kashmir problem would be settled, with the line of control being allowed to evolve gradually into an international border) have not to date been particularly impressive or convincing though circumstances have removed over the years any significance they may ever have possessed... Its essential veracity has been implied by Akram Zaki, former Pakistan Secretary General, Foreign Affairs". In India too my article was widely noted by the media and the predominant view was not very different from that of Humayun Gauhar, namely that India had lost on the negotiating table what its armed forces had gained in the battlefield.
Extracted from: Indira Gandhi: The Emergency and Indian Democracy,
P. N. Dhar, Oxford University Press, Rs.545.
