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Joint declarations and `secret clauses'

Inder Malhotra

Rare is the international agreement India has been party to in the last 40 years that has not evoked the same suspicions as those evoked by the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.

IN THE ongoing debate on the India-America nuclear deal — at times a classic example of the dialogue of the deaf — an intriguing new element has entered. There is a sudden search for the "secret clauses" in the joint statement signed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush of the United States. Several MPs and others suspect, indeed insist, that these exist but are not being disclosed. Far from being a surprise, this is entirely true to type. Rare is the international agreement India has been party to during the last 40 years that has not evoked exactly the same suspicions not only in this country but also across the subcontinent.

The first time this happened was immediately after the signing of the Tashkent Declaration on January 10, 1966 by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Field-Marshal Ayub Khan, then President of Pakistan, a short few hours before Shastri's tragic death in the Central Asian city, then a part of the Soviet Union, now the capital of Uzbekistan. Hardly was the ink on this document dry when there was uproar in Pakistan about a "sellout" by Ayub and strident demands for immediate disclosure of the declaration's secret clauses.

No one exploited this sentiment more effectively than Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, at one time Ayub's Foreign Minister and principal protégé who eventually turned into the nemesis of the man he used to call "Daddy." Even at Tashkent, Bhutto had made no secret of his disapproval of the declaration. After returning home, he privately spoke against it even more harshly. Ayub first sacked him and then imprisoned him briefly. Once out of jail, Bhutto deemed discretion to be the better part of valour, and went away on an extended "lecture tour" overseas. But, sensing that Ayub was already on his way out, he came back and delivered the coup de grace to his erstwhile mentor. He would go from one public meeting to another and assure rapturous audiences that at an "appropriate time" he would disclose the Tashkent Declaration's "secrets." He knew, of course, that there was nothing to reveal.

But then, as happens in life often and oftener in politics, Bhutto fell into the pit that he had so successfully dug for Ayub. No sooner had he returned home after signing the Shimla Agreement with Indira Gandhi in July 1972 than his opponents pounced on him to demand the revelation of its "secret clauses." They also asked him how was the accord at Shimla better than that at Tashkent he had denounced as an "act of betrayal."

This paled, however, compared with the clamour in this country against "secret clauses" in the Shimla Agreement. Was it a "settlement or surrender?" demanded Indira Gandhi's critics. They argued that since she had let go a "golden opportunity" to dispose of the Kashmir problem once and for all, there must be some secret commitments by both sides, especially by Bhutto in the accord signed at the famous hill station. During the Emergency these allegations, along with much else, were suppressed. But they bounced back, with renewed vigour, particularly after Indira Gandhi was defeated in the 1977 general election and the Janata Party came to power under the leadership of Morarji Desai.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Foreign Minister in the Desai Government. He found it necessary to make a formal statement in Parliament, assuring an agitated House, that after making the most detailed inquiries and examining every scrap of classified papers, the Government had come to the conclusion that the Shimla Agreement contained no secret clauses. By then, it was known that Bhutto had verbally assured Indira Gandhi that "over time" he would "gradually" convert the Line of Control — into which the earlier Cease-Fire Line had significantly been converted — into a permanent border. But then as the Hollywood film producer, Sam Goldwyn, had famously remarked, "A verbal agreement is not worth the paper it is written on." In any case, this was not the only promise artful "Zulfi" had no intention of honouring.

The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was signed in New Delhi 11 months before the Shimla Accord was. As the sensational news broke, familiar shouts of "secret clauses" were duly heard.

No one, however, pursued the matter because the Bangladesh crisis was at its peak and was to escalate into a full-scale war soon enough. But after the Janata assumed power, it made as thorough an investigation into the possible existence of classified clauses in this treaty as it had done in relation to the Shimla Agreement. With the same result — that there were no secret clauses to be found. This caused some embarrassment to Morarjibhai who had declared that he would ask for a revision of the treaty with Moscow "if he discovered any objectionable secret clauses" in it.

Tailpiece

The most widespread comment on Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee's latest tantrum in the Lok Sabha is, "Mamatadi behaved exactly like herself."

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