Pakistan remains determined to push a no-war pact on India. General Zia-ul-Haq has not formally rejected Mrs Gandhi’s proposal regarding a treaty of peace, friendship and cooperation on the lines of the Indo-Soviet pact of 1971, but he has put it on the shelf on the plea that it is premature. His foreign minister, General Yaqub Khan, has said that Islamabad has accepted in principle New Delhi’s suggestion regarding the establishment of an Indo-Pakistan commission and is prepared to discuss its composition and terms of reference at a “mutually convenient time”. He has thus left little scope for doubt that Pakistan’s first priority remains a non-aggression pact. There is some merit in the Pakistani proposition that a friendship treaty can only follow and not precede the creation of an atmosphere of mutual trust and goodwill. Indeed, Mrs Gandhi’s stance suffers from a basic contradiction. She cannot maintain that Islamabad’s rearmament programme with US assistance constitutes a threat to this country’s security and at the same time offer it a treaty of friendship. But the Pakistani position is equally inconsistent. Its leaders should be able to recognise the self-evident fact that the first prerequisite of a non-aggression pact is a mutually recognised common border which both sides regard as inviolable and that in India’s and Pakistan’s case there is no such border in view of the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.
The two governments faced this difficulty at the time of the Simla summit in the summer of 1972 and sought to overcome it by giving, except in name, the line of control all the attributes of an international frontier. Regardless of whether or not there was a secret understanding, Mr Bhutto advertised his intention to merge formally the so-called Azad Kashmir into Pakistan. If he had done so, Islamabad would have become directly responsible for the security of the line of control on its side and given up the pretence that “Azad” Kashmir existed as an independent entity. But he did not finally implement this proposal. General Zia has done worse. He has sought to misinterpret the Simla agreement to imply that it does not debar Pakistan from raising the Kashmir issue at international forums. He can still claim that he does not intend to use or threaten to use force to settle this problem. He may well be sincere in this protestation. But he is reviving an issue which has been the main source of conflict between the two countries and simultaneously seeking a no-war pact. This cannot make sense to most Indians. No wonder they are baffled. They just cannot figure out what Pakistan is up to. Perhaps the answer has to be sought in Pakistan’s domestic situation and its relation with the US. A no-war pact with India can lend a measure of legitimacy to the military regime and its rearmament programme and thus facilitate Washington’s task of supplying the necessary hardware.