'I Urge You To Persuade Pakistan': Indira Gandhi's Letter To Nixon After Pakistan Attacked India In 1971

Last Updated:July 29, 2025, 23:03 IST

This comes amid the opposition's relentless questions on US President Donald Trump's claims of brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan during its military standoff

Indira Gandhi after her reelection as PM in March 1971; (R) Indira Gandhi and then American President Richard Nixon at an official ceremony during her visit to the US in November 1971. (Image: AFP/Archives/File)

A letter penned in 1971 by then prime minister Indira Gandhi to US President Richard Nixon has surfaced, in which she is asking him to “persuade Pakistan" to give up its “aggressive activities" against India two days after it attacked, triggering the Indo-Pakistan war that ended in the creation of Bangladesh.

This comes amid the opposition’s relentless questions on US President Donald Trump’s claims of brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan during its military standoff following ‘Operation Sindoor’.

While the central government claims that no outside party was involved in any kind of ceasefire, opposition parties have repeatedly asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to call Trump out for his “lies" if that was not the case.

“In this hour of danger the Government and the people of India seek your understanding and urge you to persuade Pakistan to desist forthwith from the policy of wanton aggression and military adventurism which it has unfortunately embarked upon," Indira Gandhi wrote in her letter to Nixon dated December 5, 1971.

The letter can be found on the website of the US Department of State’s Office of the Historian in an archival volume titled ‘Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971’.

“May I request Your Excellency to exercise your undoubted influence with the Government of Pakistan to stop their aggressive activities against India and to deal immediately with the genesis of the problem of East Bengal which has caused so much trial and tribulations to the people not only of Pakistan but of the entire sub-continent," she has written.

In fact, on Tuesday, during a debate on ‘Operation Sindoor’, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra even claimed that Indira had written to Nixon and countered him through successful diplomacy so as to lead to the division of Pakistan. She called her grandmother, the prime minister who imposed the draconian Emergency of 1975, a “great patriot".

Priyanka’s brother and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi later severely criticised the Centre and questioned its “political will" behind ‘Operation Sindoor’, which was a retaliation against Pakistan by the Indian armed forces following the Pahalgam terror attack.

Before that, even Priyanka launched a full-blown attack on the government over “lapses" that led to the Pahalgam attack. She took a swipe at Modi, saying leadership is not just about taking credit but also taking responsibility.

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