Which one of the following statements about the Tashkent Agreement is correct?

Correct — B, It was an agreement between India and Pakistan. The Tashkent Declaration was signed on 10 January 1966 by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and President Ayub Khan of Pakistan, and it ended the war the two countries had fought in the autumn of 1965. The two sides agreed to pull their forces back to the positions they had held before 5 August 1965, to restore diplomatic relations and to renounce force in settling their differences. The Soviet Union's part in it is what makes the question worth setting: the meeting was held at Tashkent, then in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, and Premier Alexei Kosygin brokered the terms — but a mediator and a host is not a signatory, and the Soviet Union was neither. The agreement is also remembered for what happened next. Shastri died of a heart attack at Tashkent in the early hours of 11 January 1966, within hours of signing. The Bangladesh option belongs to a different war and a different document altogether: Bangladesh emerged from the war of December 1971, and the agreement that followed that war was signed at Simla in July 1972 by Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

• (a)It was an agreement between India and the Soviet Union. — Confuses the venue and the mediator with the parties. India's major agreement with the Soviet Union is the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation of August 1971, a different document five years later.
• (c)It was an agreement that led to the formation of Bangladesh. — Wrong war. Bangladesh was created after the December 1971 conflict; the settlement that followed it was the Simla Agreement of 1972. Tashkent closed the 1965 war.
• (d)It was an agreement between India and Mongolia. — A filler option with no basis. Mongolia has no involvement in the 1965 war or in its settlement.

The 1965 India-Pakistan war began with infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir and widened into fighting along the international boundary in Punjab before a United Nations ceasefire took hold in September. Neither side had achieved its objective, and the Soviet Union offered its good offices to convert the ceasefire into a settlement. The talks at Tashkent produced a declaration restoring the pre-war lines, and it is the last major India-Pakistan agreement before the 1971 war reshaped the subcontinent.

The item is testing whether you can separate a venue and a broker from the parties to an agreement, which is a recurring examiner device — the same trick is available with the Simla Agreement, held in India but signed by two governments, and with any number of multilateral accords named after the city that hosted them. The chain of documents is worth holding in order: the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960, Tashkent in 1966 after the second war, Simla in 1972 after the third, the agreement not to attack each other's nuclear installations at the end of 1988, and the Lahore Declaration in 1999. Reading the option list here, notice that (a) and (d) both propose a partner other than Pakistan while (c) proposes the wrong war, so all three errors are of the same family — the question rewards knowing one date and one pair of names.

• The Tashkent Declaration was signed on 10 January 1966 by Lal Bahadur Shastri of India and Ayub Khan of Pakistan.
• It followed the India-Pakistan war of 1965 and required both sides to withdraw to the positions held before 5 August 1965.
• The Soviet Union hosted the talks at Tashkent and Premier Alexei Kosygin mediated, but the Soviet Union was not a party to the declaration.
• Lal Bahadur Shastri died at Tashkent on 11 January 1966, the day after signing.
• Bangladesh was created after the war of December 1971, and the agreement that followed that war was signed at Simla in July 1972.

• Treating the host country as a party. The Soviet Union mediated at Tashkent; it did not sign as a principal.
• Attaching Bangladesh to Tashkent. That belongs to 1971 and to the Simla Agreement of 1972.
• Dating Tashkent to 1965 because that is the year of the war; the declaration is from January 1966.

As a statements or single-fact item on who signed what and when, or inside a chronology of India-Pakistan agreements.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Tashkent Declaration of 1966 was signed by the Prime Minister of India and which one of the following?

  • (a)Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the Soviet Union
  • (b)Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan
  • (c)Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan
  • (d)Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan

  Answer(b) Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan — Kosygin mediated, Bhutto signed the Simla Agreement in 1972 and Yahya Khan led Pakistan during the 1971 war.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Tashkent Declaration, the armed forces of India and Pakistan were to withdraw to the positions they had held before which one of the following dates?

  • (a)1 January 1965
  • (b)5 August 1965
  • (c)22 September 1965
  • (d)10 January 1966

  Answer(b) 5 August 1965 — the date used to define the pre-war lines. 22 September 1965 is the ceasefire and 10 January 1966 the signing.