WASHINGTON, Nov. 23—The world is now on the verge of another pointless human tragedy. India and Pakistan are slowly but surely sliding into a war which can only result in unutterable misery, and in this situation it will be interesting to watch the so-called Great Powers at the newly reorganized United Nations.

Here is one case where the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain and France—have a clear duty under the Charter to work together against this madness, and an opportunity to do so without damage to their own national interests.

The United States Government is working hard through diplomatic channels to keep the present border clashes from flaring up into a major war, but its influence in both New Delhi and Karachi is weaker now than at any time in the last decade.

Moscow and Peking have also issued statements against settling the dispute by force of arms, without any visible effect, but a joint appeal by the Big Five in the Security Council is something else again. Singly, the big powers may not be able to halt this reckless nonsense, but together they could compel India and Pakistan to debate the question and maybe even to declare a cease‐fire in the meantime.

One argument for bringing Peking Into the United Nations was that this would finally bring all the major nations into the Security Council and give the world peace organization another opportunity to fulfill its original promise.

The Indian ‐Pakistani dispute is a clear case for urgent action under the Charter. Article I states that the purposes of the United Nations are “to maintain international peace and security, and to that end, to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace....”

The five permanent members of the Security Council were given this special status precisely because it was assumed that they had special responsibilities and the necessary authority to carry out this principle. Accordingly, if the U.N. is to make the “new beginning” everybody has been talking about, here is a good place to begin.

Aside from the U.N. treaty obligations, Moscow and Peking have sound national reasons for avoiding a war on the Indian subcontinent. Peking is backing Pakistan, though not to the extent that Moscow is arming India; but they have enough trouble with one another on the Sino‐Soviet border without running the risk of getting more deeply involved on opposite sides of an Indian‐Pakistani conflict.

The United States, Britain and France obviously have nothing to gain in such a war, but in the last quarter of a century all the Great Powers have drifted into the habit of ignoring the Charter and failing to cooperate for peace, even when it was in their common interests to do so.

Fortunately, with mainland China now represented at the U.N., there a quick and private channel of communication among the major nations. Also, President Nixon has established the means of direct communication with Premier Chou En‐lai in Peking, and the political advantages of stopping this war are obvious.

In fact, Mr. Nixon, thanks to his initiative in sending Henry Kissinger to Peking, is now in a better position to explore the possibilities of a Big Five appeal to the Security Council than any of the world leaders. It is easier for him to address both Moscow and Peking on this emergency than for Moscow to approach Peking or vice versa.

When the Pakistani Ambassador in Washington, Gen. Nawabzada Reza, was asked by reporters how imminent war was with India, he replied: “The war is on. It is not imminent,” and since New Delhi was at the same time claiming that the Indian Air Force had shot down three Pakistani planes near Calcutta, time is now the urgent question.

Other questions of who forced the refugees out of Pakistan into India, and how much military support is being given to the anti‐Pakistani Government forces in East Bengal can be debated later. The need now is for combined effort to stop the fighting and bring both India and Pakistan before the Security Council to show cause why they are once more threatening the peace of the area.

This is not the sort of appeal the Indian and Pakistani Governments can ignore, no matter how much their peoples are crying for blood. Prime Minister Gandhi is repeating the old discredited excuse that she does not know how much longer she can hold back her people, but she is not in a position to brush aside an appeal from the Big Five.

India has an arsenal of her own, and her organized military forces are undoubtedly superior for the time being, but she relies on the Soviet Union for many military supplies, and on other countries for economic aid, both of which can be cut off.

Here again, the forgotten principles of the United Nations are relevant, for Article II of the Charter states specifically that “all member states shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state... [and] shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.”

There is nothing out of date about these treaty obligations. They are binding on India and Pakistan as well as on the Big Five. They have simply been forgotten, and the time for the Big Five to revive them, with a good chance of success, is obviously now.