In a well-researched TV programme the public broadcasting service system in Washington has said that Pakistan took the decision to go in for nuclear weapons in January 1972. If this information regarding the date is accurate, as it perhaps is, it is an important disclosure. It gives the lie to the American campaign that Islamabad decided to manufacture nuclear weapons in response to India’s underground nuclear explosion in May 1974. There can be differences of opinion on whether or not India’s test was peaceful in intent. But it cannot be said to have triggered the Pakistani decision, assuming, of course, that the date given by PBS is correct. Instead, the inference must be not only that Islamabad’s move had nothing to do with the Indian test, but that it would have continued its efforts even if this country had never conducted the explosion. This is, however, the less important of the reasons which make the PBS disclosure significant. It also shows that Mr. Bhutto came to the Simla summit with Mrs. Gandhi after he had decided to go in for the bomb. It would be a speculation to deduce from it that he signed the Simla accord, which all but resolved the longstanding Kashmir dispute, with the intention of buying time so that he could offset Pakistan’s inferiority in conventional forces with the help of the bomb and then confront this country. It would be even more of a speculation that Mr. Bhutto spoke of friendship to visiting Indian journalists and went through the motion of integrating the so-called Azad Kashmir into Pakistan in order to put New Delhi off its guard. But it is no longer possible to dismiss this suspicion.
It has now been fully established that Mr. Bhutto was the architect of the policy that led Pakistan to war with India in 1965. He was also opposed to the cease-fire and the Tashkent agreement despite the fact that it provided for evacuation by India of strategically important territory across the cease-fire line in Jammu and Kashmir. He quit President Ayub Khan’s government on that ground and played a leading role in bringing down the Field Marshal in March 1969. He won a landslide victory in what was then West Pakistan in 1970 mainly on the strength of his “ hate India” campaign. In other words, Mr. Bhutto was the worst India-baiter among Pakistan’s politicians. As such it was difficult to believe that in the wake of Pakistan’s dismemberment in December 1971, he would reconcile himself to the new power realities in the sub-continent; and recognise that a policy of friendship with India would best serve his country’s interests.
But India was willing to facilitate his task of restoring the shattered morale of his people and consolidating his own position in the hope that he would be able to bury the past and cooperate with it in ensuring peace in the sub-continent. It made significant concessions in Simla and afterwards in that hope. It not only withdrew its forces from 5,000 sq. miles of Pakistani territory, but also persuaded President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh to abandon the trial of Pakistani military men who had been guilty of barbarous crimes in his country. As it turned out, Mr. Bhutto did not integrate “ Azad” Kashmir into Pakistan and thereby convert the line of control into a de facto international border; he was slow to resume trade with this country; he sought to create two international platforms, one Muslim and the other third world, which he could use to downgrade the non-aligned movement of which India was a prominent member. He had his compulsions as subsequent events culminating in his overthrow in July 1977 showed. But it also appears in retrospect that he was pursing a two-faced policy and that once he had acquired the bomb, he would not have hesitated to use it in an attempt blackmail India.
Mr. Bhutto is dead. But his executioner, General Zia-ul-Haq, continues his policy. The General also talks of wanting to live in peace with this country and pursues nuclear weapons with the same grim determination. As in Mr. Bhutto’s case, New Delhi has been willing to lend him a measure of legitimacy by parleying with him not only on strictly bilateral issues, but also on so important an international development as the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. Only the General has not been as clever as Mr. Bhutto. He has raised the Kashmir issue at various international forums and whipped up an anti-India campaign on account of a couple of communal riots here in utter disregard of the spirit and terms of the Simla agreement. This has helped create a somewhat realistic appreciation of his intentions among Indian policy makers. Mercifully for this country, the woolly-headed Janata government has also yielded place to a hard-headed one. Mrs. Gandhi is not sentimental by temperament. Her stance is bound to stiffen if she becomes convinced that Mr. Bhutto had tried to take her for a ride. This does not mean that she should close the door on General Zia. But it does mean that she must examine his credentials with greater care than she did Mr. Bhutto’s at Simla. This is no criticism of her dealing with him. Many of us shared the hope (or illusion) that it was possible to do business with him.