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Pakistan and India

If Pakistan is “ very near war with India ”, as President Yahya Khan asserts, the responsibility rests on his own shoulders. He ordered the repressive army action against secessionist East Pakistan, and he does not appear to have made any positive attempt to curb the excesses by Government forces against the Bengali people. More than three months after the drive against the dissident Awami League, the army is maintaining its control by the deliberate use of terror. The position of the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi, in this brutal struggle is difficult, politically and militarily. At the end of June president’s rule had to be imposed in West Bengal, after the collapse of a shaky Congress coalition, for the third time since 1967. The state was almost ungovernable even before the refugees, now said to total about seven million, began pouring in from stricken East Pakistan.

The political parties, including Maoists and Marxists, have been urging that the burden of relief be eased by moving most of the refugees to other states. That course has proved impracticable. The refugees want to stay close to their own border, in case conditions permit their return to East Pakistan; and other states do not want them. Mrs Gandhi’s Government has done its best to care for these unwanted millions; but India’s resources have been unequal to the task even with such outside aid as has been given. India fears, also, that a policy of dispersal might weaken international insistence on the Pakistan Government’s ending the terror in the east.

Political pressures on the Indian Federal Government are growing—not only to recognise the Bangla Desh “ government in exile ” but also to take military action, if necessary, against Pakistan. In a recent report prepared by India’s Institute of Defence Studies, it was suggested that a portion of East Bengal could become an independent Bengali state, where the refugees, could be settled and a government set up. The report also urged action to secure international recognition of Bangla Desh as a means of enforcing a peaceful settlement of the dispute as a whole. President Yahya has said openly that measures of this nature could start a war with India; India is known to be giving some help to the Mukti Fauj, as the East Pakistan guerrillas are known. They have been granted sanctuary; and'it is believed that Indian covering fire has protected them during action against West Pakistani troops. At the beginning of the struggle arms brought into India were seized, against the risk that West Bengal extremists might acquire them. Almost all have now been returned to the guerrillas.

President Yahya says he is not looking for war. Neither is Mrs Gandhi. Should she yield to the demand that Bangla Desh be recognised, and consent also to military action against Pakistan, war would be inevitable. No assessment of the outcome is possible. Outside intervention is not thought likelyeven by China, which could certainly renew the harassment of India along the Himalayan border. If war came, India would be threatened on two ‘fronts—in Kashmir as well as in East Bengal. War might also encourage opportunist uprisings in West Bengal and elsewhere. Perhaps the most serious danger is that, while the partisan struggle continues in East Pakistan, Pakistan troops will be tempted to follow the guerrillas into Indian territory. Then, as the report prepared for the Government notes, India would drift into a war not of its own timing or choosing.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19710805.2.88

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32677, 5 August 1971, Page 12

Word Count
576

Pakistan and India Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32677, 5 August 1971, Page 12

Pakistan and India Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32677, 5 August 1971, Page 12