by Kuldip Nayar
Bhutto, the foreign minister, was in sour mood from the very outset. While the Pakistani delegates greeted Shastri’s inaugural speech with loud cheers, Bhutto sat impassively with his arms crossed. After the speeches, Ayub Khan, at Shastri’s instance, walked to a private room reserved for discussions, Bhutto wanted to join them. Ayub Khan, however, gestured in the negative, making Bhutto visibly angry.
The meeting was brief, and Ayub Khan suggested a formal agenda for the talks. Shastri did not think this was essential because he could foresee what this would imply a discussion on Kashmir which he wished to avoid. However, Kosygin was able to persuade him to discuss Kashmir by arguing that Ayub Khan too had to cater to and mollify public opinion in Pakistan.
Shastri conceded and, as quid pro quo, Ayub Khan agreed to a discussion on a no-war pact. Obviously, Kosygin had done some arm-twisting in arranging this. Shastri was annoyed with me for having reported all this through UNI for which I worked, although I unofficially also looked after Shastri’s publicity.
News agencies have a continuing deadline, either breaking news or updating it and need to be the first off the blocks. This was at the back of my mind when I bought time, thrice a day, on Tashkent Radio to be able to read out my stories to my staff. They received my dispatches at the Post and Telegraph reception centre at Delhi and disseminated it quickly. As India and Pakistan had severed diplomatic relations after the 1965 war, all messages had to pass through London. This took a lot of time which a news agency could ill afford. My rival, PTI, was filing stories through Reuters, London. I had an advantage over them because my channel was instant, enabling us to reach our subscribers way ahead of PTI. However, the disadvantage was that my last broadcast was at 4 p.m. and I was unable to send any material after that.
The talks broke down on the very first day when Shastri and Ayub Khan met alone. Indian journalists surrounded Shastri who refused to say anything. I went up to him and inquired whether the talks had failed. I could read his face having worked with him for so many years. He asked me to wait. T.N. Kaul, the Indian ambassador in Moscow, rushed towards us and said that the talks had been successful and the two countries had never before been so close. Shastri looked towards me helplessly, not saying anything.
On Kaul’s information, I filed the story that the talks had been successful, but I was wrong. I expressed unhappiness at the briefing that Foreign Secretary C.S. Jha held. I complained that the government should not lie to us when it was unable to speak the truth. I named Kaul, who was present, for misleading me. The reality was that the Pakistani journalists had been told to prepare to return as the talks had failed.
Shastri’s reactions to my dispatches were always on my mind but I covered the Tashkent meeting with no thought of the All India Radio subscription or the government’s reaction. I was conscious that I had a lien on my government job, having taken two years’ leave, that ended in 1966, but that was just a technical issue because I had decided not to return to the PIB.
Shastri was upset with me, because he did not like the UNI coverage. He thought that I, being close to him, would be well-disposed to his government. My predicament was that I had to report what happened, not what Foreign Secretary Jha or Ambassador Kaul told us. My sources included the Pakistani journalists who were taken into confidence by their government. I must admit that the briefing by Altaf Gauhar, the Pakistan information secretary, was more accurate and comprehensive than ours. Indian officials told us what suited the government and therefore lacked authenticity.
Shastri told Ayub Khan that India would withdraw from Hajipir and Tithwal said provided Pakistan vacated Chhamb. Ayub Khan’s said that his forces would leave Chhamb if Indian forces withdrew from the entire Pakistani territory. Shastri pointed out that Chhamb was in Jammu & Kashmir and so were Hajipir and Tithwal and should therefore be taken up together and the rest separately.
Ayub Khan stuck to his point: both sides should withdraw from all territories they had occupied during the conflict. The talks between the two leaders were in Hindustani, a mix of Urdu and Hindi, although the Pakistan government claimed that the two spoke in Urdu.
The talks had reached a deadlock. Shastri told Ayub Khan, and later Kosygin, that India would be willing to withdraw from all the territories occupied by it if Pakistan were to agree to sign a no-war pact. Ayub Khan was ready to consider the suggestion.
Meanwhile, the talks on the preparation of an agenda at the ministerial level between Foreign Minister Swaran Singh, who had accompanied Shastri, and Bhutto, got embroiled in a discussion on Kashmir. Bhutto insisted on this discussion on the plea that no peace between India and Pakistan was possible until the Kashmir issue was settled. Swaran Singh said that the sovereignty of India over the state was not a matter for mediation, arbitration, or negotiation.
Swaran Singh expressed his willingness to discuss other matters which Bhutto believed ‘were peripheral’. India’s approach was that by resolving other problems first, there would be so much goodwill generated that it would be easier to tackle even Kashmir.
Under ‘other matters’, Bhutto mentioned the ‘eviction of Muslims from Assam and West Bengal’. In the 1950s India discovered that Muslims from East Pakistan were surreptitiously entering Assam and West Bengal for economic reasons. Many Indians were also inadvertently expelled in an attempt to control this influx and eventually the government had to set up special courts to examine appeals against expulsion orders. Swaran Singh readily agreed to a discussion on such subjects, but proposed that it be taken up in a discussion between the home ministers of India and Pakistan.
The deadlock between the foreign ministers, on the one hand, and between Ayub Khan and Shastri, on the other, caused Kosygin to once again shuttle between the Indian and Pakistani camps. Ayub Khan was willing to meet Shastri on the basis of a draft agreement which Pakistan had prepared and Shastri was willing to consider it. Therefore the two met again.
Ayub Khan brought with him a two-page typed draft that principally discussed the modalities for the withdrawal of Pakistani and Indian forces and the post-withdrawal steps. There was no mention of a no-war pact but there was reference to a renunciation of force. Shastri consulted Swaran Singh, and Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan sent his formal acceptance of the declaration within two hours of the conclusion of the meeting. Ayub Khan, however, went back on his word and communicated that the draft agreement was not acceptable.
In the Pakistani camp, Ghulam Farooq, the commerce minister, was agreeable; Shahabuddin, the then information minister, was half inclined, but Bhutto was dead set against the proposal and threatened to return to Pakistan alone and take ‘the nation into confidence’.
When Ayub Khan’s rejection reached Shastri’s camp, Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Union’s minister of foreign affairs, was with the Indian delegation. He admonished Bhutto who had called him over the telephone to communicate Ayub Khan’s reply. Bhutto said that when Ayub Khan agreed to renounce the use of force, India had had promised to show some concession on Kashmir.
Gromyko said, ‘It is a lie’.
The conference was virtually over so the effort now was to examine whether an innocuous joint statement was possible. The Indian spokesman was still waiting and said that the talks had reached ‘a delicate stage’. The Pakistani delegates were, however, quite outspoken and said that they were packing their bags to go home.
Kosygin once again tried to retrieve the situation. He told Shastri that the UN charter enjoined upon all members to use peaceful methods and that he should not specifically ask for the renunciation of force. ‘Then you will have to talk to some other Indian prime minister,’ said Shastri, whereupon Kosygin hastily withdrew his observation remarking: ‘This is what Ayub said.’
Kosygin asked Shastri to make some ‘concession’ on Kashmir. Shastri did not agree, not even to a statement that he and Ayub Khan would meet later to discuss Kashmir. Finding Shastri quite firm, Kosygin exerted pressure on Pakistan. Eventually, Ayub Khan relented and he and Shastri met for a
‘final’ session. Ayub’s typed draft stated that ‘all disputes between the two countries should be settled through peaceful means in accordance with the principles of the United Nations charter’. Shastri persuaded him to write in his hand ‘without resort to arms’ (copy on facing page). This document is in the archive of our foreign office. Probably, Ayub Khan’s handwritten assurance was what Bhutto referred to in his speeches as a secret clause of the Tashkent Declaration. At the back of Ayub Khan’s mind was the fear that the breakdown of talks would mean that Pakistan would have to rehabilitate thousands of refugees who had fled the areas under India’s occupation and from elsewhere.
Shastri wanted a separate and specific reference to the no-war proposal but agreed to a compromise when Kosygin made it clear to him that the Soviet Union would support any step that the Security Council took to implement its resolution on the unconditional withdrawal of forces by the two sides. (Later, Shastri confided to the Indian journalists that in the face of Kosygin’s stand, the Security Council would have gone to the extent of imposing sanctions against India if it had not agreed to withdraw its forces. ‘I didn’t have much choice,’ he said.)
Thus Kosygin, on 10 January 1966, got the two sides to sign the Tashkent Declaration (Pakistan refused to call it an agreement). Shastri and Ayub reaffirmed their obligation ‘not to have recourse to force and to settle their disputes through peaceful means’. The declaration also stated:
The Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan have agreed that all personnel of the two countries shall be withdrawn not later than 25 February 1966 to the positions they held prior to 5 August 1965, and both sides shall observe the ceasefire terms on the ceasefire line.
The Indian Foreign Secretary C.S. Jha told me that the agreement largely tallied with the draft they had taken with them from Delhi. The words, ‘all personnel’ were taken by the Indian side to include the armed infiltrators. The Pakistan spokesman at Tashkent, however, denied this interpretation, adding that the armed infiltrators ‘were not sent by Pakistan’ and that Rawalpindi did not accept the responsibility for evicting them.
Bhutto was more forthcoming, and briefed Pakistani journalists not to write in favour of the declaration. He said it was intended only to get Pakistan’s territories vacated. He began sabotaging the Tashkent Declaration from the day it was signed. It was alleged that Ayub encouraged him to do so. However, when Kewal Singh, Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, returned to his post in Rawalpindi, Ayub told him that the Tashkent Declaration must be honoured. It was, however, clear that Ayub was under pressure, particularly in view of the fact that the people were asking what they had gained after ‘losing thousands of people in the war’.
Pakistan was in a predicament. This was clear when the ministers of the two sides met at Islamabad on 9–10 February for a follow-up exercise. There was no agreement on normalization of relations, not even the resumption of direct flights between the two countries. Pakistan insisted on a ‘meaningful’ dialogue on Kashmir, thereby suggesting some ‘concrete’ concessions. The Pakistani ministers and officers privately told the Indian delegation that they would not be able to face public opinion if they were to normalize relations without getting ‘something’ on Kashmir.
I covered the conference at Islamabad. While waiting at the airport, I wanted to verify whether the airport had been damaged as claimed during the war. I found no evidence of even the slightest damage. Aware that I looked no different from other passengers, I asked a person standing nearby what damage had been inflicted on the airport. He was embarrassed and said that he was from the CID, assigned to keep an eye on me.
The Indian ministers met Ayub Khan before their departure for New Delhi. Swaran Singh, at his suave best, explained that they could make no progress because the Pakistani delegation was insisting on ‘concessions’ on Kashmir. Ayub Khan was rude to say the least ‘What do we do? You do not want to settle Kashmir. That is the basic issue.’ Swaran Singh quipped on the return flight: ‘How can they expect to get at the negotiating table what they were unable to win on the battlefield?’
However, all that Ayub sought was New Delhi’s permission for Pakistani planes to overfly India to enable Pakistan to maintain contact between the eastern and western wings. Once he obtained that, though Kewal Singh had to go to Indira Gandhi to obtain it after the refusal of the external affairs ministry, Ayub did not appear interested in implementing the Tashkent Declaration. By that time, Indian forces had vacated Hajipir, Tithwal, and the other territories they had captured during the war. Pakistan had now nothing more to gain from the Tashkent Declaration.
Once it appeared that even the Kashmir question could be settled at Tashkent itself. Kosygin requested Shastri to resolve the Kashmir issue there and then, and he agreed and spoke to Lt Gen. Kumaramangalam, then India’s chief of the army staff designate. Shastri told Kosygin that India would be willing to make some adjustment in the ceasefire line and give some territory of the state to Pakistan. (Before Shastri left for Tashkent, G.M. Sadiq, the chief minister of Kashmir, had also requested him to settle the Kashmir issue if possible.)
Kosygin conveyed to Ayub, Shastri’s offer of adjustment on the ceasefire line. The Pakistan president said he would consider it and reply later which he never did. Whatever be the difference over Kashmir, Shastri was so conscious of maintaining the spirit of the declaration that he told me at his farewell reception in Tashkent that even meeting Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, as he planned to do at Kabul on his way back to India, might well be an ‘anti-Tashkent act’ as Pakistan considered Ghaffar Khan a ‘traitor’.
I met Shastri for the last time on 10 January 1966 at the reception given by the Indian embassy in the prime minister’s honour. He said that the return journey would be early because Ayub had invited him to have tea with him at Islamabad.
Shastri asked me to ascertain the reaction of the Indian press to the Tashkent Declaration. I noticed some anxiety on his face. Some of it was understandable because two or three Indian journalists at the press conference held earlier in the day had been ‘rude’ in their questioning. They asked why he had agreed to hand Hajipir and Tithwal back to Pakistan. He argued that he could not retain the ‘fruits of aggression’, as Soviet Union, India’s best friend, had expressed it. One journalist went so far as to call Shastri anti-national. I had to intervene to remind journalists that they were addressing the prime minister of India. Shastri said he was in their hands. The dispatches they sent would formulate public opinion. What took place at the press conference weighed heavily on him.
When I returned to my hotel I found that the party hosted by the Soviets to celebrate the signing of the declaration had already begun. It meant a lot to them. They could not have afforded to fail because the eyes of the world were focused on Tashkent. Whisky was flowing like water at the party and there were pretty girls posing as interpreters. I did not stay there long because I wanted to retire to bed early as Shastri’s plane was scheduled to leave at 7.00 a.m.
That night I had a premonition that Shastri was dying. I dreamt about him dying. I got up abruptly to a knock on my door. A lady in the corridor told me: ‘Your prime minister is dying.’ I hurriedly dressed and drove with an Indian official to Shastri’s dacha which was some distance away.
I saw Kosygin standing in the verandah. He raised his hands to indicate that Shastri was no more. Behind the verandah was the dining room where a team of doctors were sitting at an oblong table, cross-examining Dr R.N. Chugh who had accompanied Shastri.
Next to it was Shastri’s room. It was extraordinarily large. On the huge bed, his body looked like a dot on a drawing board. His slippers were neatly placed on the carpeted floor. He had not used them. In a corner of the room, however, on a dressing table, there was an overturned thermos flask. It appeared that Shastri had struggled to open it. There was no buzzer in his room, the point on which the government lied when attacked in parliament on its failure to save Shastri’s life.
Our official photogra
pher and I spread the national flag, which had been neatly folded up near the dressing table, over the body, and placed some flowers to pay homage to him. I then went to meet Shastri’s assistants. It was a few yards away and one had to walk through an open verandah to reach it. Shastri’s personal secretary, Jagan Nath Sahai, told me that Shastri had knocked on their door at around midnight and wanted water. Two stenographers and Jagan Nath helped him walk back to his room. This was fatal, Dr Chugh said.
I heard Gen. Kumaramangalam in the adjoining room, giving instructions over the phone (a hotline between Tashkent and New Delhi) about the arrangements for the reception of Shastri’s body. After he had finished his call I took the receiver from him and gave the operator the UNI telephone number.
Sunder Dhingra, on late night duty, received the call. I told him to send a flash: ‘Shastri Dead’. This was after midnight when the newspapers had been put to bed. Dhingra began laughing over the phone and told me that I must be joking because he had just cleared Shastri’s speech at the evening function. I told him not to waste time and send the flash immediately. He still did not believe me and I was obliged to resort to some harsh words in Punjabi to get him to act. He then showed agility and rang up the newspaper offices in Delhi to inform them about Shastri’s death. Many papers stopped the press to include the news. It was a UNI scoop; PTI got the news much later.
Sitting in another room were the two leaders, Y.B. Chavan and Swaran Singh, and senior officials discussing who would succeed Shastri? When Swaran Singh asked me to join them, his first question was who the next prime minister would be. I told them what Shastri had himself said that if he lived for another three or four years, the next prime minister would be Chavan but if he were to die in a year or two, Indira Gandhi would be the prime minister.