In view of the recent war hysteria — largely a creation of Pakistan — it would be instructive to look back at what was delicately called the Tashkent Declaration, rather than Agreement. Through it, India and Pakistan ended the state of war after the intense clash 1965. For the first (and so far only) time, the leaders of the two countries, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Field-Marshal Ayub Khan, went outside the subcontinent to arrive at a truce that became possible primarily because of the untiring efforts of then Soviet prime minister, Alexei Kosygin. The Soviet Union is dead and Tashkent is now the capital of Uzbekistan. But the Taskent accord remains a landmark in the subcontinent’s history. Incidentally, the entire Tashkent drama was played out during the first fortnight of January 1966.

Kosygin had first suggested Shastri-Ayub talks at Tashkent as early as on September 4, 1965 when the India-Pakistan war was confined to Kashmir and the Chhamb-Jaurian sector that straddles the international border in Punjab as well as what was then called the Ceasefire Line, since renamed the Line of Control. Both sides had ignored it. The indefatigable Soviet premier repeated his offer on September 18 when the war had spread to Lahore and Sialkot, and, in the words of Sir Morris James, then British high commissioner in Karachi, the Pakistan Army “was at the end of its tether” and the choice before Ayub was “an honourable draw or defeat”. Despite protests from his foreign minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Ayub opted for the UN-sponsored ceasefire operative and decided to accept Kosygin’s invitation. Shastri had sent his acceptance earlier.

... contd.