KARACHI — One of the homilies of Mao Tse‐tung that should have impressed itself on the conventional military mind during the Vietnam decade compares guerrillas with fish swimming in a sea of the people. To the traveler in East Pakistan it is clear that “the sea” in which he is traveling belongs to the Mukti Bahini, the Bengali guerrillas fighting for an in dependent Bangla Desh, or Bengal Nation.

It is also clear that the Pakistani Army in the Eastern province is being led by officers who have learned nothing from Vietnam. Perhaps political warfare is just too difficult and untidy for the world's regular military, who prefer to believe that politics is bunk and God is with the big battalions.

In East Pakistan the big battalions are fighting a desperate battle of survival. Even in the cities, the foreigner quickly realizes that the Mukti are everywhere — in hotels, banks, shops, foreign consulates and businesses, and even in the Government offices. There is an overwhelming impression in the cities and the hamlets of East Pakistan that the Bengali people want independence and are prepared to fight the Pakistan Army to the death for it.

Statistically, the army is woefully outnumbered. East Pakistan has a population of some 55 million, excluding the 9 million or so refugees reported to have fled to India. The Mukti Bahini claim to have roughly 100, 000 fighters, and they are getting substantial help from India. Facing the guerrillas is a Pakistani force of about 70,000 regular troops, 30,000 or 40,000’ badly trained and ill‐equipped militiamen and a few thousand policemen imported from West Pakistan.

The watery countryside of East Pakistan is strikingly similar to Vietnam's Mekong River delta and at least as difficult for a conventional army to cover. Americans in Vietnam offset the guerrillas’ advantage to some extent by their vast fleets of helicopters, which can land large units suddenly on fast‐moving guerrilla groups. The Pakistan Army has very few helicopters and lacks the kind of water craft that would make up for the lack of roads.

Making matters still worse, the Indian Army is poised along the 1,350‐ mile border, firing several thousand shells a day into East Pakistan to make sure its presence is not forgotten. This keeps Pakistan's forces concentrated on the border instead of combing the countryside for the guerrilla enemy.

All the while the guerrillas go on cutting roads, bridges and waterways, sabotaging electricity, gas and petroleum supplies, sinking Government supply ships, assassinating officials and “collaborators” and forcing the Pakistani authorities to wall them selves in, both literally and psychologically.

The main Government response so far has been reprisal. At Shekharnagar, a village razed recently in punitive raid by the army, I saw rice and fertilizer stocks destroyed, fruit trees burned, religious shrines smashed and even the local school gutted.

Villagers generally suffer heavy casualties when the army comes, although they are learning tricks reminiscent of Vietnam — hiding underwater in the ponds while breathing through straws, digging tunnels under hearths, and so forth. The guerrilla leaders have a confidence verging on cockiness. “Most of us are amateurs,” college student turned guerrilla said. “But after all, guerrilla war is not so hard. Avoiding large enemy units, hit and run, ambush and sabotage, rapid movements in small groups— all those things come naturally after a while.”

As the young fighter spoke, a comely sari‐clad Bengali girl spread a table for him and brought him a breakfast of chicken, rice, poached eggs, papaya and coffee with fresh cream.

The army, referring to the guerrillas as “Indian agents,” issues communiques claiming increasingly heavy enemy body counts, sometimes numbering several hundred a day. These figures, like all others associated with the conflict, seem highly suspect.

Still, the guerrillas are suffering casualties. As time passes, casualties on both sides grow ever heavier, and feelings increasingly bitter. Killing by both sides seems motivated more and more by vengeance rather than tactics. However matters turn out, this is not a war in which the losers can expect much mercy.