[8] The Indian victory in Bangladesh increased Indira Gandhi's status as premier in India, and she dealt heavily with the Kashmiri demand for plebiscite.
She also stated that it was inconceivable to accept Sheikh Abdullah's demand for the restoration of the pre-1953 relationship between Kashmir and India because "the clock could not be put back in this manner".
Scholar Sumantra Bose states that Abdullah, whose popularity since 1953 arose from his opposition to India, would not have agreed to such terms even five years prior to the Accord.
[18] In an interview with Sumantra Bose, Abdul Qayyum Zargar, a veteran of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference who had also been Mirza Afzal Beg's personal secretary, said that the terms of the Accord were "deeply unpopular" and "swallowed as a bitter pill" only because of Sheikh Abdullah's acceptance.
[19] According to Nyla Ali Khan, the critics of Sheikh Abdullah's "capitulation" to the Indian government forget the "pervasive power" of India in Kashmiri institutions.
[21] Sumantra Bose describes the development whereby Delhi framed Abdullah's return as "clever evasion" of the Kashmir conflict, instead of a "substantive solution".