IT is a small desk, ornate but unexpectedly small. Forty-two years ago, it bore the weight of two hands that signed the 1972 Shimla Agreement. Today, that desk bears the lighter burden of two framed photographs — one of the Indian and Pakistani delegations in congress, and the other of their leaders Mrs Indira Gandhi and Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto signing a common document in the pre-dawn of July 3.

The desk in Shimla’s Raj Bhavan has been made the focal point of a mini-shrine to commemorate the event, just as the Shimla Agreement itself has become the source, the Ganga-dhara of India’s attitude to Pakistan vis-à-vis Jammu & Kashmir.

From the heights of that Shimla accord flowed downstream the Lahore Declaration, signed on July 2, 1999 by prime ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif. It reiterated “the determination of both countries to implement the Shimla Agreement in letter and spirit”. The letter of the agreement was public knowledge; its spirit remained amorphous, changing meanings into nuance.

Modi’s next steps at diplomacy will be of significance to Pakistan.

Signing it, both Mrs Gandhi and Mr Bhutto understood that Pakistan had conceded that the Line of Ceasefire had hardened into the Line of Control and that the undertaking to “settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations” precluded any reference to third parties, particularly the United Nations.

According to P.N. Dhar (secretary to Mrs Gandhi), “When Mrs Gandhi, after recounting their points of agreement, finally asked Bhutto, ‘Is this the understanding on which we will proceed?’, he replied: ‘Absolutely, ‘aap mujh par bharosa keejiye [you can trust me.]’

Each subsequent Indian and Pakistani government has chosen to treat that clause as a malleable Rubik’s cube, rotating it to yield different patterns of meaning. The Lahore Declaration has fared no better. Its clause — that both countries “shall intensify their efforts to resolve all issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir” — has given licence to numerous interpretations. Some political cynics assert that cross-border sniping is hoping to do just that.

The sanctity of all international protocols is underwritten by an enduring commitment to execute them, regardless of change in national governments. It is precisely because Nawaz Sharif was a signatory to the Lahore Declaration (and by association the seminal Shimla Agreement) and because he was involved directly in letter, in body and in spirit, that the Indian government finds his recent speech at the UN General Assembly so discordant.

Advisor Sartaj Aziz went a step further. He contacted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and asked him to retrieve the dust-laden UN Resolution 47/1948, which called for a plebiscite in Jammu & Kashmir. Realists would give this appeal as much a chance of success as the South Korean Ban Ki-moon being able to reunify the two Koreas.

Mr Sharif’s volte-face at the UN took place after his avuncular trip to New Delhi to attend Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony. It has been perceived in India as an almost Kargil-style betrayal of the bonhomie generated by his earlier heart-warming gesture.

Five months have passed. Much has happened since. Mr Sharif has been beleaguered by demands from his opponents at home to resign, while Mr Modi has received an invigorating mandate in the state elections in Maharashtra and in Haryana.

In Maharashtra, his BJP won 122 seats out of a total of 288. This was almost three times more than the seats the BJP garnered in 2009. In Haryana, he gained 47 seats out of 90, more than 10 times the BJP’s paltry four in 2009. Mr Modi is not one to gloat — at least not publicly. He has good reason to, though. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress has been trounced in both states, dropping in Maharashtra from 82 seats (2009) to 42 now. If worse could be worse, BJP commands a majority in the bulging wallet of India — Mumbai.

Fortified by these results, the BJP can expect to be supported ideologically by Shiv Sena which captured 63 seats, 21 more than Congress. But he that sups with Shiv Sena….

Mr Modi’s next steps at diplomacy are of vital significance to Pakistan. Extremists have been heard on Indian television channels demanding that Mr Modi should rescue the ‘oppressed people of Balochistan and Sindh’ from their brutal ‘masters’. Gen Musharraf was dismissed by one rabid anchorman as being a ‘coward’ for not answering yet another question about Kargil. And most frighteningly, voices that were once regarded as pro-Pakistan moderates are being denounced now as anti-Indian.

There is a sinister echo of a 1971 jingoism in the air. Saner ears prefer to recall the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration. They spoke of hope, of a “durable peace and development”, to enable both peoples “to devote their energies for a better future”.

The writer is an author and art historian.

www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2014