Bengali nationalism is nourished in Britain by rice and curry, the staple fare of every High Street Indian restaurant, many of which are no more Indian than the Pakistan cricket team. The people of Bangla Desh, as they generally call their homeland, have made their distinctive contribution to the British way of life in the gastronomic field.

Events in East Pakistan have driven a wedge of bitterness through the Pakistani community in Britain. Bengalis, a minority within a minority, have been declaring their own domestic form of U.D.I. abandoning the previously all-Pakistan welfare and social organizations, which were almost too numerous to count, in favour of their own bodies which for the time being have a more militant edge.

The long struggle to build a united front against the hazards of racial discrimination, immigration control, and "Paki-bashing" has suffered a setback from which it may never recover.

There are thought to be between 150,000 and 200,000 Pakistani nationals in Britain, of whom fewer than half are Bengali and most of the rest are from Kashmir. They have concentrated their settlement in five main centres, east London. Bradford. Manchester. Birmingham, and Glasgow, each with its distinctive character and mixture of loyalties. East London, for instance, is overwhelmingly Bengali. Bradford predominantly West Pakistani.

Divisive prejudices run deep. They were submerged in the effort to face common difficulties in Britain, but have been rekindled by events at home. One Bengali, Mr. Abdur Raquib who was general secretary of the National Federation of Pakistani Associations until the civil war, paints a picture of his compatriots' talents and achievements which in every respect contrasts them favourably with West Pakistanis: more literate, better businessmen, overwhelmingly better represented in the professions: in short, the cream.

Mr. T. Ahmed, chairman of the League of Overseas Pakistanis, who is also from Bengal, gives a more modest judgment that Bengalis tend to be cautious and parochial, not good entrepreneurs, outstanding only as restaurateur. Unexcited by Bengali nationalism

Pakistanis in Britain are united by the Muslim religion but divided by language. Bengalis and West Pakistanis therefore communicate in English, and claim to be able to tell by his accent where a man comes from. In most cases, too, they believe they can recognize one another by facial characteristics. In religious worship, in social life, and in their selection of husbands and wives they almost invariably stay apart, but this in the past has been less because of national hostility than an absence of interconnected family relationships.

Urdu and Bengali, the two national languages, are also spoken by a significant proportion of the Indian population living in Britain, and there are signs of a realignment of groupings on linguistic rather than national lines.

The emergence of a Bengali movement in Britain that included East as well as West Bengal, Hindu as well as Muslim, is being talked about in Britain at the same time as the two nationalist movements flirt with each other across the boundaries of East Pakistan.

Although there have been demonstrations in favour of Bangla Desh and there will be more as the cricket tour proceeds (one has been announced for the opening match at Worcester today), the prospect of communal violence between Bengali and West Pakistani is remote in Britain. Some West Pakistanis have privately expressed their sorrow for events in East Pakistan. Mr. Raquib says, and the dismantling of Pakistan organizations into their Bengali and West Pakistan parts will, he expects, be accomplished amicably.

Meanwhile, the greater preoccupation of Bengalis in Britain is the fate of relatives and friends caught in the fighting, about whom there has been no news since communications were disrupted a month ago.