NEW DELHI, Aug. 26—In the first round of diplomatic sparring and posturing after the coup d'état in Bangladesh, the Soviet Union and India took quite a negative view of the change in leadership. Now, they seem to have moderated their position, and so, apparently, have the Pakistanis, who at first could scarcely conceal their satisfaction.

Thus ended the first phase of a possible shift in international relations in the Asian subcontinent, a shift likely to have effects on both India and Pakistan and, through them, perhaps on their respective big-power allies, the Soviet Union! and China.

“What follows now is a long period of testing on all sides.” predicted an Asian diplomat with years of experience in the subcontinent.

Former President Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the colorful and charismatic leader of the Bangladesh independence movement, a folk hero who turned out to be a calamitously in effective administrator, was a fast friend of India and the Soviet Union, and both countries were influential in his government.

New Course Unclear

According to diplomats and other well‐informed analysts here and elsewhere, it is still too early to chart the course of the Government of President Khondakar Mushtaque Ahmed, the former Commerce Minister who took office a few hours after Sheik Mujib was gunned down in a firefight at his home early on the morning of Aug. 15.

During the three‐and‐a‐half years since the independence of the critically poor and overpopulated land that used to be East Pakistan, the Soviet Union helped its fledgling industrialization, and sent in military helicopters and pilots to fly them.

The Indians, whose defeat of Pakistan in the war of 1971 had guaranteed Bangladesh's independence in the first place, have kept up trade ties and trained the ruthlessly efficient troops of the Rakhi Bahini, Sheik Mujib's much‐feared personal military force.

Thus the first news of the coup in Dacca, a sultry, slum-infested city of awesome poverty 1.000 miles east of here, caused distress in both New Delhi and in Moscow.

Pravda, the newspaper of the Soviet Communist party, printed an authoritative commentary raising the question Whether “forces hostile” to the aspirations of Bangladesh's people might now exert “an influence on future developments.”

Warning by New Delhi

And an Indian Government spokesman warned that “we cannot remain unaffected by these political developments in a neighboring country.”

In New Delhi, a leftist group called the All‐India Peace and Solidarity Organization held a public meeting to pay homage to the overthrown leader, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared sent over a strongly worded personal tribute, expressing her “sorrow over his tragic death.”

“Sheik Mujib was recognized all over the world as a great national leader and statesman.” Prime Minister Gandhi declared. “People of India hold him in deep respect and affection as a friend of this country and champion of the cause of goodwill and cooperation in the subcontinent.”

But yesterday, after a meeting with the Bangladesh High Commissioner, or Ambassador, in New Delhi, Prime Minister Gandhi issued a much milder statement, saying that India “reciprocated the feelings of friendship and regard for Bangladesh.”

According to the official version of the meeting, the envoy from Dacca, for his part, recalled “the shared struggle and sacrifice of the two countries, for the independence of Bangladesh,” and promised “friendship, fraternity and peace” along the 1,500‐mile border that the two countries share.

Meanwhile, the Pakistanis and the Chinese, who were speaking favorably of the new government in Dacca right after the coup, have said much less in the days since then.

Surprisingly, Pakistan was the first country in the world to recognize the new regime, with a statement the day after the coup from President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto hailing “the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh,” apparently in the mistaken belief that Dacca had changed the name of the country, which, Sheik Mujib called “the People's Republic of Bangladesh.”

In a part of the world where the age‐old enmity between the Hindus of India and the Moslems of Pakistan has cost more than one million lives, it was an important distinction.

But Bangladesh Radio has repeatedly emphasized in recent days that it is still they “People's Republic,” not the “Islamic Republic.”

The Indian Government, delighted that the name was not changed after all, also stressed that it was all a mistake, as the Pakistanis fell silent on the subject.

But this afternoon, apparently attempting to conciliate Pakistan too, President Mushtaque Ahmed affirmed that he looked forward “to the establishment of normal relations with Pakistan.” According to the Government radio, he said that he hoped this was the beginning of “a new chapter in the relationship of the countries ini the subcontinent.”

Where, in all of this, has been the gain or loss to the United States, the country whose major presence in the subcontinent has been as the largest giver of much‐needed aid?

Predictably, there were charges right after the coup that the Central Intelligence Agency had engineered it. The Hindustan Standard, a Calcutta newspaper, expressed one popular view with a front‐page cartoon showing President Bhutto and President Ford exchanging a conspiratorial wink as they learned the news from Dacca.

But despite the United States' widely publicized “tilt” toward Pakistan in 1971, independent diplomatic analysts said it was difficult to see how the Americans could gain from whatever happened in Bangladesh, which with 75 million people in a land smaller than New England, is by many assessments the most economically hopeless country on earth.

The United States has given half a billion dollars in aid to Bangladesh, but against the problems of poverty and population official corruption and the annual floods that sometimes inundate half the country, Bangladesh has declined since independence, and the lot of the average citizen has got worse.

“Maybe the Americans will be encouraged by the new Government to go in there and do more,” said a foreigner with long experience in Dacca. He added: “But it seems unlikely. No matter what happens there, it is difficult to find anything encouraging about Bangladesh.”