HISTORICAL — Bloody strife between Moslems and Hindus had racked the Indian subcontinent for centuries before 1947, when India achieved independence from Britain and a separate Moslem state, Pakistan, was created in two parts, East and West, separated by more than 1,000 miles of Indian territory. India is predominantly Hindu, but has no state religion. Partition was followed by wide spread Moslem‐Hindu fighting. The partition also left areas of Kashmir in dispute and twice, in 1948–49 and in 1965, this dispute plus constant charges by both sides of religious persecution led to armed conflicts.

GOVERNMENTAL DEVELOPMENTS — India has retained an electoral form of government. Under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the New Congress party won a landslide victory in the last election. After continued turmoil in both parts of Pakistan, military rule has prevailed. Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan resigned; under Gen. Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, his successor and President, martial law was proclaimed.

MAJOR‐POWER INTERESTS — India and the Soviet Union signed a 20‐year friendship treaty in August, 1971. Pakistan has had backing from China. The United States, after a recent visit by Mrs. Gandhi, announced a suspension of arms shipments to Pakistan; last Friday, with the out break of open hostilities, a similar ban was placed on arms shipments to India.

THE PRESENT CRISIS — Relations between the two parts of Pakistan — the prosperous Punjabi‐dominated West and the largely Bengali, less developed East — have been strained almost from the founding of the independent country. East Pakistanis complained that they had little to say in Governmental decisions made a thousand miles away and complained they were treated as “second‐class citizens.” Then, in December, 1970, when Pakistan held her first national election in 23 years on the basis of a promised return to civilian rule, the East Pakistan‐based Awami League won 167 of the 313 National Assembly seats. When President Yahya Khan postponed the convening of the Assembly March 1, widespread rioting and strikes broke out in the East.

On March 25, the national army moved to crush the East Pakistani autonomy movement, which soon sought set up an independent state under the name Bangla Desh — Bengal Nation. The result, according to some observers, was hundreds of thousands of deaths; millions of Bengalis fled to India.

The Indian Government estimated that 9.5 million refugees were inside Indian territory, unwilling to return East Pakistan until their security was guaranteed. Indian officials, unable to stop the daily flow, said they found the burden of caring for refugees unbearable and began building up their own troops on the East Pakistani border and, simultaneously, helping the East Pakistani guerrillas.

Military build‐ups by both India and Pakistan along the East Pakistani border led to a series of infiltration and reprisal skirmishes and, on Friday, to what both India and Pakistan described as full‐scale war.

Although reports were fragmentary and contradictory, it has become clear that India's strategy is aimed principally at the conquest of East Pakistan and its political severance from the West. Yesterday morning India announced recognition of Bangla Desh. The Pakistanis were concentrating on attacks into Kashmir and western India.