New Delhi: Relations between India and Pakistan are nearer breaking point than at any time since the Kashmir confrontation. India's defence minister, Jagjivan Ram, on April 27 went as far as to say in Agra that although India had no desire to go to war, "If a war was forced on her she would give a stunning reply."

The situation has been aggravated by acrimonious exchanges over the question of diplomatic representation, which have been gaining in intensity since the declaration of allegiance to Bangla Desh made by Pakistan's high commissioner in Calcutta two weeks ago. Pakistan demanded that India close down its high commission in Dacca-and that it remove the "illegal occupants" of the high commission in Calcutta. New Delhi said the second matter was Pakistan's affair, and that any injunction would have to be put through due process of Indian law; but complied with the second request though seeking assurances under the Vienna convention for safe conduct.

Now India claims its diplomats are interned in Dacca, after the closure. Pakistan denies this, with counter- allegations that Indians have infiltrated East Pakistan in large numbers-it claims to have captured several. One Pakistan newspaper even put the numbers of infiltrators in Rasjahi alone at 4-5,000.

Another incendiary issue is India's claims, formally made this week to the United Nations, that "massive military measures taken by the government of Pakistan against the people of East Bengal to suppress all of their human and democratic rights" were driving t-hem into India by the million. The charge went as far as terming the "military oppression and brutalities" as "amounting to genocide".

Whether it is an internal affair of Pakistan or not, India is being burdened with a huge influx of refugees, many of them infirm. Large numbers of women and children have fled the savagery of Pakistani artillery fire and aerial strafing. Crowded West Bengal is no place for such largescale migration. Latest estimates say that some three million have already crossed over and as the food situation deteriorates in East Pakistan more are bound to come. At least for this reason India cannot take the stand that what is happening there is none of New Delhi's business.

Ambassador Kenneth Keating of the United States who agreed with this view has been let down by his country. Following the US State Department's denial that Keating's statement represented the official US viewpoint, there have been reports that the ambassador is visiting Washington and perhaps quitting. The Soviet ambassador to New Delhi also has gone to Moscow for consultations.

Mrs. Gandhi, who has returned to New Delhi after a brief holiday, is still waiting for some big power initiative. She is unwilling to take steps which would be considered as capitalising on Pakistan's difficulties but she is under increasing pressure to act. Every political party in India, including the Old Congress, has demanded that India recognise Bangla Desh. The wave of popular sympathy for the freedom fighters is swelling.

Maulana Bashani has asked India to go to the immediate succour of Bangla Desh. Candidly, he has told Indians, "forget my pro-Peking past". All Bengalis, he said, were now united in resisting the "invasion" by Punjabi troops. And his appeal to China and the United States to stop shipment of arms to Pakistan-and to stop those already being used in the East -must have embarrassed at least Peking a little. There has been surprise in pro-Peking circles both in India and East Pakistan over China's anti-revolutionary stance. The Naxalites in India are disillusioned. And so are the Marxist-Leninists in East Pakistan.

The most incredible development in Indo-Pakistan relations, however, was provided by the official Islamabad report on the hijacking of an Indian plane before the civil war broke out. Pakistan wants the world to believe that it was all engineered by the Indian intelligence service in order to deny Pakistan overflight rights. This, of course, presumes two things: that Indian intelligence people are that intelligent and that India had advance knowledge of the carnage that Pakistani troops would resort to in East Pakistan.

The hijackers were hailed in Pakistan as heroes. Pakistan said they were not Indian nationals and, therefore, there was no question of their being returned to India. They were given every facility in Lahore to get in touch with their colleagues who were said to have masterminded the whole operation. And under the very nose of the military at Lahore airport, the plane was blown up along with the baggage and mail that it carried. And now Pakistan comes out with the story that it was all stagemanaged by India.

India's vacillation in the face of many provocations can be understood because increasingly the region is becoming an arena for big power politics. While egging Islamabad on to brutal repression in East Pakistan, Peking must have its eye on the longrange effect of the fratricidal war. This can only be chronic unrest in the east wing, providing an opportunity for extremists to assert their leadership. Along with continued lawlessness in West Bengal, there could be no more fertile area for a Mao brand of liberation.

This is not the view in New Delhi alone. Moscow also feels that Peking is taking calculated measures to encircle India by countries-Ceylon, Burma and Pakistan- which will toe the Peking line.

Mrs. Gandhi, who was expected to concentrate on solving some of the difficult domestic problems after having obtained a convincing mandate in the general election, now finds that the nation and the government are more preoccupied with the future pattern of political developments and the changing equation between the big powers and the smaller nations of the region.