New Delhi: Names and associations die hard. A complex of ramshackle barracks in New Delhi's fashionable shopping area, Connaught Place, is still called the Theatre Communications Building in memory of the days after Pearl Harbour and the South East Asian command. But today the name would more aptly apply to Calcutta's Dum Dum airport: its theatre concerns more than six million dispossessed and there are all too few people manning the command. The airport is threatened as a communications centre by the large numbers of refugees camped in its environs but still there are American, British German, Australian, Canadian and Russian pilots. Giant transport aircraft like the American C-l 30s bring in tarpaulin and vaccines, milk powder and ten and ferry uprooted, sickly refugees fro East Pakistan to distant uncluttered areas in India's interior.

Red Cross volunteers, nurses are doctors seconded by Oxfam and CARE (Co-operative for American Relief Everywhere), personnel of the United Nations high commission for refugee medical and nursing staff from ever part of India rub shoulders every hour of the day and night. It is a scene of dedication and tenderness, of people concentrating on the immediate task some relief, some succour, in a desert of indifference.

Many people here are asking what exactly Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi had in mind when she said in the up per house of parliament, "we will have to go through hell to meet the situation". Most people believe India has been trapped and cannot disentangle itself. They accuse the government of having had no clear policy on Bangla Desh. Criticism ranges from one extreme to the other; some ask why New Delhi did not close the whole border to stop any refugees from entering and others assert that the Indian army should have marched into East Pakistan on March 26.

In Washington Foreign Minister Swaran Singh was closely questioned on the possibility of India going to war with Pakistan over the return of the refugees to a safe Bangla Desh. White saying a confrontation was not necessary he has not ruled out armed intervention. Correspondents of British newspapers on the border report the growing number of border skirmishes could lead to a conflagration. Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram said in parliament that some 78 personnel of the Indian Border Security force and civilians had been killed since the beginning of the turmoil in East Bengal. In bunkers on the border regular Indian troops can be seen billeted along with khaki uniformed men of Bangla Desh, volunteers presumably getting training in the use of weapons.

The Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi has been putting out stories stating that thousands of refugees have begun to return to East Pakistan. But according to Indian military intelligence which has been regularly intercepting messages between western and eastern Pakistan, a few reception centres were opened and some unwilling people held captive to impress the UN high commissioner for refugees who visited East Bengal last week.

Reportedly the Pakistan armed forces have followed a scorched earth policy and destroyed all villages in a five-mile belt along the border with India. This has prevented many from leaving Pakistan.

Yet, despite international caution politically, India has not had such sympathetic reporting in the Western press since the assassination of Gandhi and the death of Nehru. World opinion has largely been with India, though some nations have not expressed their convictions openly for fear of aggravating the present tensions. If public opinion has any influence America and Britain, even if they don't publicly do so, may well begin to whisper in Yahya's ears "We've had enough". But it is not at all certain the big powers will act decisively; and few of them are likely to welcome chaos in both wings of Pakistan.

Even if India's pleadings abroad fall on deaf ears observers here expect the collapse of Pakistan because of the intolerable situation it has created for itself in the eastern wing. General Tikka Khan has been quoted as saying, "We will reduce you to a minority." If, as some reports claim, a million have died at the army's hands, and eight million in all flee to India, his prediction could "come true"-in which case PPP (Pakistan People's Party) leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto could legitimately claim the office of prime minister of Pakistan. But still the west probably could not keep the east under control for long.

One immediate outcome of the tours around foreign capitals could be a decision by New Delhi to recognise Bangla Desh. This could entail open assistance o the Mukti Fauj (East Bengali liberation forces) without Indian troops actually taking part in the fighting. But his would not solve India's main problem-how to return the six million refugees in reasonable safety. The hawks n India favour a limited punitive expedition which would "liberate" some of the border districts of East Bengal, from which the bulk of the refugees have come. India has avoided war with Pakistan for three months; Mrs Gandhi's critics say it would have been cheaper than supporting six million people.

India is already facing an unprecedented crisis. Almost every kind of activity has been seriously affected by the refugee problem and the new tensions it has created in eastern India. The government of West Bengal is on the verge of declaring a state of emergency. There is also a proposal to arm the ruling communist party's cadres to help the police to maintain law and order in the event of a communal outbreak arising from the influx of refugees and their stories of atrocities against the minorities in East Pakistan. The talk in India's hardest-hit, overcrowded state is not whether war-but when.