A history of India-Pakistan relations from 1947 onwards distils a 10-volume documentary compilation on the subject brought out earlier by the author based on wide access to the archives of the Ministry of External Relations. The real value of this work lies, therefore, in the empirical detail that is woven into the historical narrative and which can be read with profit by both lay person and expert.
The initial chapters focus largely on the Kashmir issue and shed light on the progress of military operations as also the accompanying diplomacy both bilaterally and in the United Nations. In this narrative the original reference to the United Nations followed from the “uncertain military situation in which India found itself.”
Similarly, a year or so later, Bhasin points out that Jawaharlal Nehru and New Delhi were “perhaps pushed into taking the initiative for the ceasefire by the disturbing news coming from the war front.” In this account therefore, the progress of the military operations was far from satisfactory. This is a useful corrective to subsequent views, including from Nehru himself that options existed for major military gains. It is of course also true that a great deal of the military advice from the then Commander in Chief was also based on British requirements and interests of how events in J&K should shape out as other studies of the Kashmir war based on the British Foreign Office archives have shown.
The book is valuable also in illustrating the thinking in the Ministry of External Affairs as it sought to balance relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. through the 1950s and the 1960s. Particularly interesting in this regard is the history of the Indo-Soviet Treaty of 1971 from its beginnings in 1969 when developments in East Pakistan were not still in the foreground but the China-U.S.S.R. split was. After the 1971 war, the ramifications of the POW issue and the consequent international pressures on India on this count also clarify that the negotiating space for India was not as much as is assumed in hindsight. On the Simla negotiations itself the author casts doubt on the version narrated by P.N. Dhar in the 1990s that agreement was reached following a secret oral understanding between Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mrs. Indira Gandhi. His more sensible suggestion is that Mrs. Gandhi ‘wanted to bury the past and move towards a new future’ and also was concerned about the consequences of the meeting terminating without an agreement. Similarly, there is a great deal of fresh detail on the trajectory of bilateral relations through the 1980s, 1990s and later.
The book is a valuable addition to the literature on India Pakistan relations.
India and Pakistan: Neighbours at Odds ; Avtar Singh Bhasin, Bloomsbury India, ₹599.
