There is the undeniable fact that (the Kashmir problem) has led to wars between India and Pakistan. It is thus necessary to look at the problem in a wider perspective, historical and realistic and think in terms of the well being of the people of the subcontinent by examining a solution attainable in the present circumstances ..

A beginning was made at Tashkent in January 1966, with Lal Bahadur Shastri giving his consent to Kosygin putting it to Ayub Khan that the then existing cease-fire line with some adjustments might be made the permanent India-Pakistan boundary. Shastri gave his consent although he was aware that some minor adjustments might be needed to make the boundary conform to certain physical features and there might be some consequent loss of territory to India ... Kosygin returned after some time and reported that Ayub Khan had turned down the suggestion promptly.

Along with the Foreign Secretary, I accompanied the Ministers for External Affairs and Communications to Islamabad the following month to follow up the discussions at Tashkent, and we started with a call on President Ayub Khan. The latter's observations on the Kashmir problem are worth recalling. Neither India nor Pakistan, he said, could resile from the respective position they had taken, and the greater the effort made to find a solution the more it pained ..

The question of settling the Kashmir problem came up again at the 1972 Simla talks. The Indian suggestion to change the nomenclature of the cease-fire line to the line of control was accepted by Pakistan. In the words of P.N. Dhar, who has provided the best account of the exchanges during the talks, "the change was at the core of the Indian solution to the Kashmir problem: The de facto line of control was to be graduated to the level of the de jure border". Bhutto agreed to negotiate on the problems of Kashmir, provided hat the solution, if arrived at, was implemented in a piecemeal manner and in step with the overall improvement in Indo-Pak ties. The emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign state had brought out sharply  the inadequacy of religion as the sole basis of nationality. It also struck a deadly blow to the two-nation theory and to Pakistan's claim to speak on behalf of the Muslims of the subcontinent.

Bhutto was acutely conscious of this fundamental strategic shift and he stated this frankly in conversation with Mrs. Gandhi. Furthermore, Bhutto said that he was convinced by the 1971 events that Pakistan could not acquire Kashmir by military intervention. He did not want the dark shadow of the Kashmir problem to continue to loom over Indo-Pak relations. He was thus personally inclined to accept the status quo - that is the line or control as a permanent solution.

However, he proceeded to mention his constraints: His political enemies in Pakistan, especially the army bosses, would denounce him for the 'betrayal', And this could endanger the democratic set-up which had emerged after 14 years of army rule. Mrs. Gandhi was sympathetic to Bhutto's concerns and did not wish to appear as dictating terms to a defeated adversary.

She, however, elaborated the merits of the Indian proposal in the following terms: Neither country would be gaining or losing territory; it would not involve any transfer of population; and Kashmiris as an ethnic community would be left undivided. The line of control was thus to become an ethnic and linguistic frontier. At the time of the Kashmir division it was also an ideological frontier, being the limit of Sheikh Abdullah's influence. The line is also broadly a cultural divide - what is known, as 'Kashmiriat' does not extend to PoK.

Bhutto, after long and agonising reflection, said he had come to the conclusion that the Indian proposal was the only feasible one. For reasons he had already cited, he could not however agree to its incorporation in the Simla Agreement, but he would work towards its implementation in practice and over time. Mrs. Gandhi also agreed, as she was worried that formal withdrawal of the Indian claim to PoK would create political problems for her at home..

When he was taunted in the National Assembly for going back on his talk of waging a thousand-year war against India, Bhutto said frankly: " ... I cannot do it in the next 5, 10, 15 years ... I will not do it because I know it will be the end of my country".

Proceeding to talk of the futility of war, Bhutto said: "We may not have gained anything by peaceful means, but how much have we gained by war? The gain by way of war is that even we have lost half the country ... Let us forget the past, let us forget our follies, let us forget all the wrongs we have done. We live in the same geographical area; we cannot get out of the subcontinent ... Since we live here, let us find some way of living together, some modus vivendi ... I think we will be able to bring to the people peace that has been denied to them for centuries..

These last words are just as applicable to India as to Pakistan.                                       (Source: The Hindustan Times, 14 November, 1998)