Historical Investigation

[Rahul Srivastava]

Hi everyone,

I have a topic in mind for the Historical Investigation. 'To what extent did the Simla Agreement of 1972 ease India-Pakistan relations after the 1971 War?'

Of course, I can mould that topic question to make it suit me better. But I needed help on how to go about developing an essay on this. To those who are experts on the topic, would you recommend that I go ahead with this. There is a lot of material on journals and magazines regarding that. I'm sure finding the material won't be a problem.

However, apart from that, what would you recommend? And what line of thought do I take in such a topic.

Thanks.

[alefal]

Hey there!

I am not an expert on this topic by far, but I could give you some tips as to how you should progress. As for the topic itself, it seem narrow enough, and is certainly doable in an IA. However, keep in mind that you must be able to analyse the topic thoroughly, and if you do have a lot of sources, you might want to narrow it down further. Remember that you only have about 6-800 words to actually analyse the topic itself.

Another thing, you should adhere to the structure that is used in the History subject guide. That is, section A (Plan of Investigation), section B (Summary of Evidence), section C (evaluation of sources), section D (analysis of the topic) and section E (conclusion). The sources you've used come at the very end, of course. You should write your IA in sections. I suggest you read the IA part of the History subject guide in more detail to understand exactly what this entails. Section C should be written as an OPVL analysis, whilst section D as a normal history essay. Section B should only include facts, and any facts that you don't use in section D should not be listed.

Remember that everything should be written in an entirely objective manner, you should not allow any of your own opinions characterise your IA in any way when you discuss historians' points of view.

Also read the pinned threads in this sub-forum, as they are really helpful.

Good luck!

[ak18]

I learned about this when I took SL History and it's definitely a doable topic. Like you said there's a lot of information available so your research wouldn't be lacking. However, you need to keep in mind that this agreement did not stop Indo-Pak relations from deteriorating as can be seen even till today. So maybe you could add in the end during your conclusion that the relations till today aren't as strong or peaceful as they should be.