NEW DELHI, Dec. 17—The Indian Government's press policy during the 15‐day war with Pakistan made news itself. For India reversed the restrictive practices she followed in past wars and made a considerable effort to permit and assist war reporting.

Some accounts stressed the “almost nightmarish” difficulties that reporters faced. Nevertheless in this war the Indians were noticeably more helpful to the press than, say, the Israelis—who are themselves sophisticated in dealing with newsmen—in the six‐day Mideast war of 1967. And while press policy was not as permissive as that of the United States in Vietnam, it approached that standard.

The new Indian policy was intentional.

When India fought China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965, a few feeble efforts were made to allow journalists to approach combat zones. On the whole, however, Indian officials were uncooperative and uninterested.

Journalists were annoyed at that policy, of course, but so also were Indian military officers and some civilian officials. In the words of one officer, they thought it a pity that the performance of India's army had been obscured.

When war came again this year, the Indians were organized.

On the second day of the Indian offensive into East Pakistan, Western and Indian reporters were taken to the Pakistani village of Suadih, where a stiff little fight had just been waged.

Shortly afterward the press was taken to the city of Jessore, which had just fallen. Several other trips were also arranged in this sector and a number of foreign journalists heard and saw shots fired in anger.

Indian officers were expansive to a point of being almost garrulous in giving interviews.

There was a physical problem: The main thrust toward Dacca was made by troops who entered East Pakistan from around Agartala on the eastern border. Since the entire battlefield lay between them and Calcutta, it was difficult to arrange for newsmen in that city to visit them.

Reporters Visit Front

As the fall of Dacca approached, however, the Indians flew a group of foreign journalists consisting of news agency reporters, one daily newspaper correspondent and a two‐man television pool team to the area and then took them forward to visit forces bearing down on Dacca. These journalists entered the city with the Indian troops when it fell.

On the western front, India set up two press camps and conducted a number of trips to forward areas. Reporters were taken to the bloody battlefield at Chhamb while the Indian troops were still under mortar and artillery fire.

“You must go to the front,” said an Indian general when he learned that a conducting officer had been obstructive—and generals always win arguments in any army.

There was little military movement on the western front and it was thus somewhat difficult for newsmen to cover the situation there. In any conflict it is easier to arrange for journalists to follow an advancing army, as happened in East Pakistan.

On only two occasions in the six‐day war of 1967 did foreign journalists accompany Israeli combat units—and on one of those occasions the journalist was an unwanted stowaway.

Censorship Is Negligible

On dispatches filed from New Delhi, the Indians imposed no censorship of any kind. Nor did they impose general “ground rules” forbidding reports of certain sensitive matters, as the United States has done in Vietnam. One news agency reported the plan to drop Indian paratroops in East Pakistan before the news was officially released.

Censorship was imposed in the press camps on the western front but it was so slight as to be negligible. The only material deleted from the dispatches of one American in the West was the names of officers commanding forward units. This is what soldiers call “order of battle” information and it is commonplace to restrict it.

The daily press briefings in New Delhi and Calcutta were vastly better than those held during the 1962 war with China. Although tinged with optimism, they were reasonably coherent and fairly candid. It is now clear that when the Indians said they had taken a town, they had taken it.

A Friendly Atmosphere

Reports on the number of Pakistani planes and tanks destroyed may well have been inflated—they usually are in such situations. But India reported substantial losses of her own.

The atmosphere in the briefings was also good. The Defense Secretary, K. B. Lal, the senior civil servant in the Defense Ministry, attended several of them and became a popular figure.

Smoking his pipe at the reporters as an Oxford don might smoke at his students, Mr. Lal several times instructed his countrymen (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) not to be too optimistic too soon.

Indignation at the United States for its diplomatic stand and for the movement of a Seventh Fleet task force into the Bay of Bengal was high in India. But American reporters were treated with unfailing courtesy throughout and were subjected neither to verbal abuse nor to any special obstruction in their work.