Nishikant Dubey Reignites Simla Agreement Controversy with POW Letter Bombshell
BJP MP accuses Indira Gandhi of betraying Indian soldiers after 1971 war, shares emotional letter from Major A.K. Suri written from Pakistani jail

New Delhi, June 23: If politics is theatre, then today was a scene straight from Act II of India’s post-Independence power drama. The script: the Simla Agreement, once hailed as a diplomatic masterstroke, dragged back into the spotlight—not by a historian or a diplomat, but by BJP MP Dr. Nishikant Dubey, who used social media like a courtroom to indict Indira Gandhi for what he called one of Independent India’s great strategic blunders.
And this wasn’t an academic nitpick. It was a full-frontal assault on the very memory of the 1971 war’s aftermath, delivered with a blend of indignation, wartime grief, and sharp political calculation.
The Attack: A Question of Power Traded for Optics
Dubey’s central charge is pointed: in the wake of India’s decisive victory in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, Indira Gandhi squandered India’s leverage. Instead of using the upper hand to force a reckoning on Kashmir, or to secure the lives of missing Indian soldiers, she handed back 5,000 square miles of Pakistani territory and allowed 93,000 Pakistani POWs to return home, virtually unconditionally.
He doesn’t allege misjudgment—he alleges betrayal. Specifically, a betrayal of India’s armed forces in exchange for what he calls “family glorification.” In other words: a historic opportunity sacrificed at the altar of legacy building.
It’s a claim that has floated around the margins of military and diplomatic discourse for years. But this time, Dubey wasn’t just rehearsing a tired grievance. He brought a name, a face, and a letter.
The Letter That Landed Like a Punch
Attached to his second post of the day was a faded handwritten letter, dated June 16, 1975, from Major A.K. Suri, one of the 54 Indian soldiers long believed to have perished in Pakistani custody. The note, smuggled out of Karachi Jail, was addressed to his father. It offered no dramatic revelations, but its very existence tore a hole through the official narrative that those men were “presumed dead.”
It is here that Dubey’s critique cuts deeper. He reminds the nation that while Indira Gandhi was tightening her grip on power with the Emergency—declared just days after the letter was dated—families of these soldiers were being kept in the dark. No national outcry. No diplomatic pressure. No investigative follow-up.
What was supposed to be India’s finest hour, Dubey suggests, was also its quietest moral failure.
The Simla Agreement: A Legacy Under Fire
The Simla Agreement, signed on July 2, 1972, was presented to the world as a bilateral triumph. India refused third-party mediation and brought Pakistan to the table under its own steam. The ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir became the Line of Control, and both countries pledged to resolve disputes through dialogue, not war.
It was hailed as a moment of maturity in South Asian diplomacy.
But there’s always been a counter-narrative. That India, victorious and in a rare position of global strength, blinked first. That Indira Gandhi, seeking global praise, let Zulfikar Ali Bhutto walk away without settling Kashmir or accounting for Indian POWs. That her desire to look magnanimous to the West—especially amid Cold War realignments—overrode cold strategic calculus.
What Dubey has done is rip that counter-narrative from think tanks and veteran memoirs and place it squarely in the 2025 political arena.
Congress Responds — And Switches the Subject
The response from the Congress camp was predictably caustic. Party spokesperson Pawan Khera, never one to let a rhetorical jab go unanswered, dismissed Dubey as a “quack” peddling WhatsApp-level propaganda. He dared Dubey to “go to the PMO and have the Simla Agreement officially cancelled,” as if to mock the idea that serious diplomacy could be undone with a tweetstorm.
But then Khera pivoted, and smartly so.
If the BJP wants to talk about moral authority, he asked, where is Prime Minister Modi’s voice amid Israel’s cross-border strikes, U.S. airstrikes in Iran, and the ongoing crisis in Gaza? Why, Khera asked, is India—long a champion of non-alignment and peace—sitting out of these global reckonings?
In that moment, the Simla debate became a mirror for something much larger: the tension between legacy and current leadership, between the BJP’s constant rear-view warfare with the Nehru–Gandhi years, and the Congress party’s attempts to redirect the lens forward.
Memory Politics in the Modi Era
This is not the first time the BJP has challenged Congress-era foreign policy through the language of military grievance. Over the past decade, the Kargil war, China border issues, and even the Nehru–Mountbatten Kashmir files have all been re-litigated on social media and from parliamentary podiums.
But this moment feels different. Because this time, there’s a soldier’s handwriting on the table. There’s an old letter to a father. And there’s a real sense of injustice that transcends party lines.
Dubey knows this. That’s why he didn’t lead with stats or slogans. He led with grief—and anger.
What Now?
Whether this leads to real policy action—on either POW disclosure, or diplomatic pressure on Pakistan—is uncertain. The Missing 54 issue has long been an emotional landmine. Pakistan denies holding any Indian prisoners post-1971. India has never pushed the envelope hard enough. Most of the soldiers’ families have faded from public memory.
But one thing is clear: the story isn’t over. Not for the families. Not for the veterans. And not for a government that now finds itself cornered between symbolic nationalism and historical silence.
The Simla Agreement, once seen as the end of one war, is now being reframed as the beginning of an unresolved one—not with Pakistan, but within India itself.
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Raj Chaubey is a Reporting Fellow at Hindustan Herald, specializing in political and geopolitical news. As a student at Delhi University, Raj combines academic rigor with a commitment to investigative journalism, aiming to uncover the broader implications of current events. His daily articles strive to offer our audience a deeper understanding of complex political landscapes and their global connections.