New Delhi: It has been 46 years since India and Pakistan signed the Simla Agreement to settle all disagreements and difficulties between the two nations peacefully. The agreement sought to reverse the repercussions of the 1971 conflict. Relations between India and Pakistan had been difficult since Partition and had deteriorated further during the 1971 war, which also resulted in the formation of Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan. Six months after Bangladesh’s liberation, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and former Pakistan President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto met in Shimla on July 2, 1972, to sign an agreement outlining a framework for mutual dispute settlement.
The Simla Agreement, rather than the 1949 UN Security Council decision, would be the touchstone between the two countries for future discussions and conflicts. India agreed to hand over 90,000 prisoners of war seized from Pakistan. In exchange, Bhutto pledged — he offered Mrs. Gandhi personal guarantees — that he would come home and transform the Line of Control that divided Kashmir into an international boundary.
The agreement’s main implications;
- Both nations will have direct negotiations to resolve any conflicts and difficulties peacefully, with no intermediary or third party present.
- Transit facilities will be built so that individuals from both nations may travel.
- Business and commercial relations will be resumed as soon as possible.
- The lands taken by India during the 1971 war in Pakistan will be returned.
- Both nations will collaborate to advance science and culture.
- They must constantly uphold each other’s national unity, territorial integrity, political independence, and sovereign equality.
Some scholars say that Indira Gandhi should not have relied on Bhutto’s verbal guarantees and should have retained some influence. They claim that if she had pushed Bhutto to sign on the dotted line, transforming the LoC into an international boundary, the tortuous history of India-Pakistan relations would have been drastically different. Over the years, the two nations have seen constant strife and carnage — the Kargil war, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, decades of terrorism, and, most recently, the Pathankot and Uri assaults, as well as the deterioration of the Kashmir situation. Revisiting the Simla Agreement may serve to remind the neighbours of their inability to live true to the spirit of the historic agreement.
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