Thread by @impuni

Interesting Read- 1971 A war won on the battlefield but lost on the table.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to Simla as the head of a defeated nation with nothing to bargain. 93,000 Pakistani prisoners were in India and the tehsil of Shakargarh

as well as large tracts of desert were under Indian occupation.

The Pakistani State itself was tottering & the only card Bhutto had was to play on the Indian need to have a viable Pakistan survive.Using his weakness dexterously,

Bhutto made sure that India could never drive a hard bargain.

All that Pakistan conceded at Simla was that it would not use force to solve the Kashmir problem and it would deal with the issue bilaterally. It is indeed astonishing that a militarily weak and defeated nation

promising 'non use of force' against another country ten times its size, being seen as a concession.

This naivete was to cause immense difficulties in the future. The acceptance of the disputed status of Kashmir was a major diplomatic blunder and India continue

The Simla Agreement was honoured by Pakistan till such time as the Indian troops did not vacate captured territory and the Pakistani prisoners did not return. Once these two short-term objectives were achieved, Pakistan found no reason to go on to implement the next step

-- normalisation of relations.

Improvement in relations and people-to-people contacts were never permitted by Pakistan and the hoped for atmosphere to tackle the Kashmir issue never built up.

Today after violating all the other clauses of the Simla Agreement,

Pakistan now harps on Article 6 that had provided for Indo-Pak talks at head of the government level to solve the Kashmir issue.

But the greatest blunder was to let the Pakistani army get away with its 'genocide' in Bangladesh.

There is massive evidence of Pakistani army brutality in Bangladesh. The evidence is from Pakistani sources itself, the Justice Hamidur Rehman Commission Report. Some of the testimony in that report makes very chilling reading, even 40 years after the event.

There is a mountain of evidence about Pakistani army atrocities. What did the Government of India do? We banned the short film made by S Sukhdeo, Nine Months to Freedom at Bhutto's request. The Pakistani army selectively targeted Hindus, members of the Awami League

and Bangladesh intellectuals. It was a well known secret that the bulk of the refugees (close to 70 per cent) were Hindus.

The playing down of Pakistani genocide let a Rogue Army escape the consequences of its misbehaviour.
India only stored trouble for the future.

The Nazis were tried for massacring the Jews, the Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein, Serbian militants, all faced international courts -- only the Pakistani army got away with murder, rape and loot.

Thanks to the magnanimity of Indira Gandhi . She lost the war on the table which was won on the battlefield .

India gained nothing out of Bangladesh war except Refugees.

#VijayDiwas2021