Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  Bhutto was encouraged in his anti-Indian stance by the response he received from the nation. The more intractable the position he took, the more popular he became. Persistent propaganda by a series of regimes against ‘Hindu India’ (Pakistan still refers to India as ‘Bharat’) had conditioned the minds of Pakistanis to such a degree that for them India was an embodiment of evil. The controlled information media had shut out the truth about India and fed Pakistanis with falsehoods and exaggerations.

  School history books played up the wars between Hindus and Muslims, with the latter always emerging victorious. Mohammed Bin Qasim and Mahmud Ghaznavi, the first two Muslim invaders of India, were glorified for destroying kafirs. In fact, Pakistan’s history began with the arrival of Islam in India, ignoring Taxila and Mahenjodaro which were not only located in Pakistan but were also relics of the thousand years’ old culture of the Aryans and Hindus.

  The Hindu period was dismissed in a single sentence: ‘The Hindus were not much interested in history and we have a very few historical records of this period,’ was the reason advanced. Babur was described as changing the architecture of the Hindus because he ‘did not like it’, finding ‘the rooms so small that they were dark even in the daytime’. The Muslim buildings ‘were much larger and airy’. In one of the books it was mentioned that India was once part of Pakistan.

  After having spoken to Bhutto I met his press attaché, Khalid Hussain. He made every evening of mine meaningful because he invited Faiz Ahmed Faiz who regaled a few of us with poetry recitations and anecdotes. This was after the liberation of Bangladesh. He blamed nobody but regretted that one portion of Pakistan was no more part of it. He was then a member of Bhutto’s delegation. He was hurt by the stories of atrocities that he had heard from Dhaka. He recited to me the first couplet of the poem that he wrote after his visit to Bangladesh:

  And will there be a spring when the green is all unblighted

  And how many rains must fall before the spots are washed clean

  Once he spoke in Lahore about radical Islam. As he was a leftist but not an atheist, he argued how Islam and the ideology of the Left, were on the same page. ‘Lal Islam’ is the phrase he used.

  What surprised me was Faiz’s contention that Pakistan would eventually become a ‘Red Islamic polity’. I asked him how he thought that Islam was ideologically anywhere close to Marxism. His reply was that ‘the Muslims of Pakistan would prove it’.

  On my way to Delhi, I stopped at Lahore. When I contacted the information department they inquired if they could be of any assistance to me. I asked them whether it would be possible to meet actress and singer Noorjahan. I loved her songs and had not seen her since I had watched her as Baby Noorjahan in one of her films. They located her at Model Town, Pakistan’s Bollywood.

  I was ushered into a room where two fat ladies were sitting who looked alike. My guide nudged me and pointed out Noorjahan to me. I sat next to her and felt awkward beginning the conversation. I opened with a general enquiry about the number of songs she had so far recorded. She became pensive and replied: ‘Na to recardo ka shamar hai aur na hi gunahon ka - ye aap log maaf kar dainge our woh Allah mian [There is no count of records or sins. You would forgive the first and Allah the other]’. She sang for me a Punjabi song which she had prepared to urge Pakistanis to join in the war against India. She meant no offence but communicated the mood of her nation.

  On my return to Delhi, Indira Gandhi called me to ask about my visit to Pakistan. She was aware through diplomatic channels that Bhutto was keen to meet her. She had even decided to send D.P. Dhar to Islamabad to prepare the ground for talks. What she was keen to learn from me was whether India should first return the territory it had captured and the 93,000 prisoners of war it had taken.

  ‘Both,’ was my short reply. I explained that just as the Chinese, after defeating us in 1962, had returned our men and territory (China retained what it claimed belonged to it), they created such a situation for the men in khaki that they had to remain indoors for many days because they were jeered at by people who thought they had been cowardly and had given India a bad name. If the prisoners were returned now, I told her, they would be hooted in the streets of Pakistan. The longer the Pakistan prisoners were detained, I argued, the greater would be the halo surrounding them. (Bhutto had chided me that they would remain Muslim for whatever period we held them in jail.)

  We neither returned the territory nor the prisoners at the time but both were returned in due course. I felt that the generous step of returning both after the ceasefire would have gone down well with the people of Pakistan who had been fed on India’s squeamishness and ‘baniya-like’ mentality.

  My session with D.P. Dhar, who was looking after Bangladesh and Pakistan, lasted for three hours. His bright and conscientious officer, Ashok Chib, then heading the Pakistan division in the Ministry of External Affairs, was sitting with him. They wanted every minute detail of my visit to Pakistan. I told them that what struck me was Bhutto’s suggestion that the ceasefire line be converted into a ‘line of peace’. They pursued the idea with Bhutto at Shimla but found that he did not attach great importance to his suggestion. He said: ‘It was one of many.’

  The talks between Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began in Shimla on 28 June and ended on 2 July 1972. Indira Gandhi wondered why Pakistan had brought in the UN Declaration or Principles of International Law during the talks. She said that all matters between India and Pakistan should be bilaterally resolved without any direct or indirect third-party intervention. She argued that the subcontinent should refuse to be a pawn in the game of the great powers. Bhutto said that he too was not ‘going to rush around the chanceries of the world, because even after twenty-five years of doing so the world had not helped’. He assured her that the reference to the UN was never meant either to involve the international organization or any third party.

  Bhutto had in his team many intellectuals, including my friend Mazhar Ali Khan, the editor of Viewpoint, a weekly he published from Lahore. One person who attracted unusual attention at Shimla was the young and attractive Benazir Bhutto, then just around 17 years old. Bhutto had brought her along perhaps in a first attempt to groom her for politics. Subsequent years of Pakistan wrangling testified that he had exposed her to politics at the right time.

  Bhutto told Indira Gandhi that he had to get the POWs released and assured her that he would demobilize them. On Bangladesh, he gave an undertaking that Pakistan’s recognition would be formalized, when he met Mujib ‘by the end of this month’ (July). She told him that India had no hesitation in releasing the prisoners but the concurrence of this by Bangladesh was necessary as they had surrendered to a joint command of the Mukti-Bahini and the Indian army.

  Bhutto had told me earlier in an interview:

  We can make the ceasefire line a line of peace and let people come and go between the two Kashmirs. After all, why should they suffer? Let there be some free movement between them. Then one thing can lead to another. After all, simultaneously we hope that there will be exchanges of visits, of officials and non-officials.

  Indira Gandhi felt that Dhar, who was helping her during the talks, was not direct in his approach, often introducing other subjects. She therefore replaced him with P.N. Haksar, her principal secretary tracing his ancestry to pandits in Kashmir. It was given out that Dhar was not ‘feeling well’. It was probably Haksar’s straight talking that made Bhutto feel that the change from Dhar to Haksar was intended to convey a harder line.

  Bhutto’s officials would tell their Indian counterparts that if he returned empty-handed his position in Pakistan would be greatly weakened. A few non-officials accompanying Bhutto went further and warned India that the failure of the Shimla Summit would mean the beginning of Bhutto’s downfall and the return of the army. This disappointed the Indians, but both sides were so entrenched in their positions that it was thought that the best way out was a joint communiqué to break the news of failure as gently as possible. The co
mmuniqué read, inter alia:

  Both Mrs Gandhi and Bhutto discussed all major issues affecting the relations between the two countries. They also specifically talked about Jammu and Kashmir. They expressed the hope that a mutually agreed settlement of all outstanding issues would be possible and that the process of reconciliation initiated in the first meeting of the Heads of the Governments would continue.

  At the last minute Haksar spoke to Indira Gandhi and told her ‘to trust’ Bhutto who was down and out. India decided to accommodate Pakistan on the question of the territory occupied during the war. Besides being a gesture, it would convince Bhutto of India’s sincerity in seeking a durable peace, a status which Dhar had discussed with his Pakistani counterpart, Aziz Ahmed, in Murree.

  The reason for returning the territory was because New Delhi did not have to seek Dhaka’s concurrence to do so. The Indian army was also finding it difficult to remain in the desert territory which it knew it would eventually have to vacate. New Delhi’s stand in international forums was that after a conflict the victor should never be allowed to retain the fruits of aggression.

  When Pakistan was informally sounded out, it was found that its priority was in fact territory. As Aziz Ahmed explained, most of Pakistan’s army was drawn from its five Punjab districts, and that Tikka Khan had personally found, after talking to the people in those areas, that they were more concerned about the loss of territory than the POWs. It was known that they were being well treated and in any event they visited their homes only once a year during their army career.

  In exchange for territory, India wanted to see whether Pakistan would agree to, (a) joint inspection teams to ensure that the war machinery in both countries was kept within reasonable proportions; and (b) adjustments in the international border after mutual consultations.

  Pakistan was keen to institute a self-executing machinery (mutual discussion followed by mediation and adjudication) to settle disputes if there was no mutually agreed settlement. India firmly rejected this. Aziz Ahmed again cautioned the Indians against the failure of talks. The Indian delegation said that they could only go on striving to save the talks. Bhutto was vehemently opposed to the two proposals of having joint inspection teams and agreeing to convert the ceasefire line into the international border. When he met Indira Gandhi for a farewell call on 3 July he said that he would be willing to sign an agreement provided these two proposals were dropped.

  India had included these proposals only as a bargaining counter and did not mind deleting them, but was determined to convert the new ceasefire line into a stable international border to which Pakistan was not willing to concede.

  New Delhi had for some time been wanting the UN observers on the ceasefire line to leave because their presence was tantamount to interference by a third party in the affairs of the subcontinent. A new ceasefire line, agreed to by India and Pakistan, would make their role redundant, and that was exactly what New Delhi declared after concluding the agreement with Rawalpindi.

  Bhutto agreed to respect ‘the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of 17 December 1971’, but added after this sentence in his own hand in the draft agreement, ‘without prejudice to the recognized position of either side’. India did not object.

  The agreement was signed at 12.40 a.m. on 3 July 1972 after almost everyone had assumed that the summit had failed. So late and unexpected was the development that no typewriter was at hand to prepare a corrected copy of the agreement, nor was the Pakistan government’s seal available, having been packed in a box and sent by road to Chandigarh with the other heavy baggage which could not have been transported by helicopter from Shimla. As the Pakistan seal could not be affixed on the document, India too did not affix its own.

  Haksar told me that there was an oral agreement according to which Bhutto accepted the ceasefire line as an international border, meaning thereby that Pakistan would retain the territory it held in Kashmir, called Azad Kashmir, and India the rest of the Valley, Jammu, and Ladakh. Haksar said that Bhutto did not want to be part of the agreement because he wanted to break the news in his own way. After having lost East Pakistan, Bhutto reportedly argued with Indira Gandhi that if he were to announce the acceptance of the status quo in Kashmir he would face a military coup.

  The oral agreement has been denied by Pakistan’s leaders, foreign office, and others. Every time I have asked even people at the top they have categorically denied its existence. New Delhi swears that Bhutto gave his word and Haksar confirmed this.

  It is possible that Bhutto did agree in Indira Gandhi’s presence but dropped the idea when close associates of his vehemently opposed it. I got a whiff of this when I visited Pakistan later. Some said that Bhutto was obliged to abandon the idea because he couldn’t sell it in Pakistan. My feeling is that even if there had been such an agreement it would have been akin to the Treaty of Versailles, a humiliating treaty which Germany signed after the First World War that led to the Second World War. Islamabad would not have implemented it because soon after the secession of East Pakistan, Bhutto, or for that matter anyone else, could not have persuaded the country to give up Kashmir which lent unity of a kind to Pakistan.

  At the end of the conference Indira Gandhi wrote a letter to Haksar appreciating ‘the manner’ in which he had handled ‘this whole delicate business of talking with the Pakistani delegation’. Dhar felt cut up because there was no mention of him in the letter.

  I thought India gained quite a lot at Shimla. For the first time it was agreed that the two countries would hold bilateral talks to settle their problems. This meant that the UN would no longer be in the picture in any future negotiations. Converting the ceasefire line into the Line of Control (LoC) was indeed an important concession on Bhutto’s part.

  Long after the conference, Dhar called me and left with me the files on his talks with Aziz Ahmed. I was then writing my book Distant Neighbours. When the book was later published, Dhar was upset because I had reproduced the different drafts which the two sides had submitted at the Murree meeting.

  Dhar said that he would have to face the ire of parliamentarians but I assured him that nothing of the kind would occur. If my reading of MPs served me right, I told him, not one of them would read the book or at least not to the end where the drafts had been reproduced. Many months later, Dhar told me that my reading had proved to be correct. MEA’s Ashok Chib told me that a distinguished scholar from America had inquired about the authenticity of the drafts. I do not know of the government’s response, if any.

  The files Dhar showed me had details of what happened at Murree where India and Pakistan first met after the 1971 war. The first two-day session was as calm as the climate in hilly Murree. The discussions were in English, although Dhar wanted to switch-over to Urdu to add a more informal touch. Aziz Ahmed frankly admitted that even if Urdu was the official language of Pakistan, he for one found it difficult to use, especially when speaking to Dhar who, like other Kashmiri Pundits, spoke fluent Urdu.

  A durable settlement was on the top of the tentative agenda that Dhar had carried from New Delhi, and he had been given a directive to include Kashmir. Aziz Ahmed had been told to give top priority to the POWs, the vacation of territory, and not Kashmir.

  In the opening speech Aziz Ahmed spoke about the need for a step-by-step approach, and also referred to reports in some Delhi newspapers that Dhar would ‘demand’ recognition of the ceasefire line in Kashmir as the international border. In reply, Dhar said that the past history of Indo–Pakistan relations should itself indicate that the step-by-step approach had not succeeded and that they could turn over a new leaf by discussing how they could achieve a durable peace. He contradicted press reports that he had come to dictate anything ‘here and now’. The two never produced a joint draft. Bhutto met them but he understandably took Aziz Ahmed’s side. He did however say that he wanted the ceasefire line as ‘a line of peace’, meaning thereby that there should be no cross-border firing or sniping.

  The Shimla
Agreement remained on paper as had the earlier pacts between India and Pakistan. The problem for Islamabad was that if it were to sort out its problems with India, then what excuse would Pakistan have to explain to its people its economic backwardness and other domestic problems.

  Looking back, the Shimla Agreement caused the two sides to fully realize the futility of hostilities. True, there was a misadventure by Pakistan in Kargil in 1999, but, this was the doing of the then Army Chief General Parvez Musharraf. There was no regular war despite the incident. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani announced in 2011 that the Kashmir problem could never be resolved through war. Both sides had to sit across the table to solve it. That has become Islamabad’s policy on the apparently intractable problem of Kashmir.

  11

  The Emergency and After

  Iwas in the Lok Sabha press gallery when Atal Bihari Vajpayee, leader of the Opposition, hailed Indira Gandhi as Durga, the goddess of destruction. The Jana Sangh had never wished Pakistan well, and indeed the party took a fiendish delight in the division of Pakistan, East Pakistan liberating itself from West Pakistan. Indira Gandhi acknowledged the compliment with a smile, behaving in the manner of a Roman emperor returning after a triumphant war.

  The Bangladesh war had undoubtedly heightened Indira Gandhi’s stature but also lowered the spirits of other political parties which felt demoralized. For a long time there was no protest even over serious government lapses. Also, the political parties were so distant from one another that they did not pose even a semblance of a threat to the government. So trivialized had politics become that Pilu Modi, a Lok Sabha member, would attract attention with the ‘I am a CIA agent’ badge he flaunted.

  Jayaprakash Narayan’s was the only voice that caught attention. He was not a member of parliament and stayed mostly in Patna, but whenever he spoke, people took notice of him. His Gandhian background and his refusal to accept any office in the government, even when offered by Nehru, had given JP, as he was popularly known, the halo of asceticism and acceptability. He criticized the ruling Congress for corruption, on the one hand, and regretted the inertia amongst the public, on the other. He believed that the time was favourable to awaken the people to the values and principles which he said the Congress was destroying and giving India the imprint of Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule.