Nation

Lahore: One recent morning the headline in most newspapers here read: Pakistan Humbles India. The Pakistan Times went a shade better and said: Pakistan Crushes India. The headlines had nothing to do with the war preparations going on in both countries, but referred to Pakistan hockey team's victory over India in the world cup semi-final at Barcelona.

In the absence of causes to beef up national self- confidence, the Pakistan press was seizing upon the hockey victory as a heroic feat. It reflected the current mood in the country when countless posters saying "Crush India" are pasted on car windows and walls everywhere. This week President Yahya Khan added to the war of nerves by saying a showdown with India was imminent. He was quite confident that China would give him full backing.

The day I arrived in Lahore, all India Radio had reported people were fleeing this border city. There was no evidence of this. On the contrary, bazaars were crowded and business was going on as ever. A young Pakistani doctor, asked how he estimated the prospects of a war, said: "Possible, but I can't believe it will come."

That was the general feeling even at Batapur, within hailing distance of the Indian border. This small town was the scene of heavy fighting during the 1965 war. But none of the 3,200 workers in the shoe factory which sustains the town had left the place and only a few had sent their families away. The Australian manager of the factory, who was here in 1965, explained: "This time we feel much better protected."

Preparedness for the worst is of course another matter. Numerous bunkers and trenches have been dug on both sides of the road which once connected Lahore with Amritsar in India. Peasants however were busy in the fields right up to the checkpost of Wagah. The picture was different further north towards Sialkot and the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The bulk of Pakistani troops appeared to be concentrated in this sector and local people said some border villages had been evacuated. But this was done voluntarily. It seemed obvious that, should war come, the action would be on the western side of the subcontinent rather than in the east where current troubles originated.

There are very large aspects to the present troubles in Pakistan and the entire Indian subcontinent about which nothing is ever said. Both press coverage and public speculations concentrate on what is readily visible-the genocidal war waged by the Pakistani Army against the people of East Pakistan; the independence movement there; the terrible plight of the millions of refugees who in the past several months have crossed over into India; revelations about the possible malfeasance, stupidity or just plain bumbling bureaucracy involved with the delivery of those shiploads of military hardware; the economic aid cutoffs recently voted through Congress, etc.

At the risk of seeming to lack compassion, I think the time is long overdue to mention some of the unmentionables They may give some clues as to what our government may well be contemplating within the closed chambers where all those top-secret papers are composed and contingency tactics mocked up. It may also reveal a possible way out of the present impasse. And if a way out is not found, the public must prepare itself for some really rude future shocks in the next few weeks.

There is, to begin, the background of unspoken emotional and psychological realities. For example:

(1) The subcontinent is beset by harsh tribal differences and enmities. At the time of partition, the two chief "warrior tribes" of the area, Punjabis and Sikhs (joint mainstays of the old British Indian Army), arrayed themselves on opposite sides and formed the mainstays of the Pakistani and Indian Armies.

Further, the Moslems of West Pakistan (fantasizing themselves as descendants of the Mogul conquerors) feel disdain for all the Hindus-those within their own borders (both "wings"), certainly, and also those in India. They make an exception, perhaps, for the Sikhs, whom they simply hate-a sentiment that is staunchly reciprocated. Further still, far down the line in subcontinental "tribal" esteem-on both sides of the borders-are the supposedly meek and energyless Bengalis. Both nations tend to disregard and look down upon their respective Bengalis, whether of Moslem or Hindu religion.

(2) The religious differences are well known, but the outside world is insufficiently aware of the crucial fact that these differences are reflected in rival philosophies of statehood. In principle, Pakistan is a theocratic state and India a secular one. In India, the Moslems are a strong and integrated minority, part of the socio-political mainstream; in Pakistan, it is not unfair to say that Hindus are a merely "tolerated" minority-as peripheral to the mainstream there as, perhaps, Jews are in Morocco or Protestants in Italy.

This difference causes certain unmentioned problems: India can barely tolerate the idea of Pakistan, based, as it is, on religion, and thus the antithesis of its own premise for sovereign existence. Pakistan, meanwhile, cannot accept for very long the idea that some of the subcontinent's 60 million Moslems are not included within its borders thus contradicting its premise for sovereign existence.

(3) We all "know" about the "fatalism" toward life in Asia. About the "grinding poverty"; about how the "people-hunger balance" teeters most dangerously there-the increasing production of grain and other basic foodstuffs, despite all efforts, being continuously outstripped by the increasing production of people. But unless you have personally immersed yourself in certain parts of Asia-have, for example, strolled along the back streets of Calcutta at sundown in summertime, or through downtown Dacca during the rainy season-you cannot understand how little difference there can be, truly, between life and death for so many Asians. And it is completely ironic, therefore, that the geographical cockpit of this present dispute encompasses both Calcutta and Dacca, undoubtedly the two most luxuriant cesspools of human misery on this planet.

Also, compassion aside, the East Pakistan refugees should be viewed in terms of living conditions they left behind them as well as those in which they now find themselves. We've seen photos of hungry, brutalized refugees living in cramped sections of sewer pipe in bare Indian fields. But we might also wish to see how the people down the road live-their new neighbors offering them succor. And what were their living conditions back home? There is a strong possibility that they have gone merely from misery to comparable misery. This does not, of course, discount for a single moment that most of them were fleeing for their lives.

(4) The disparity in both nations between what are generally known as "the ruling classes" and "the masses" also goes undiscussed. I'm not thinking so much of economic differences between "haves" and "have-nots" but of the psycho-emotional gulf between those inside the societal structure-whether rich, feudal, middle class (when that exists), intellectuals, professionals, technologists or officials - and those outside the societal structure -the peasants in their dusty villages and the urban proles in their soggy teeming streets. In both India and Pakistan, this disparity results in the existence of two virtually separate "nations" within would-be sovereign boundaries: an articulate, ambitious and often posturing "nation" of insiders (very limited in number, whether in politically, though not economically, democratic India, or in dictatorial Pakistan) and a seemingly acquiescent, plodding "nation" of outsiders. Moreover, it is futile to attempt to view this disparity between subcontinental "insiders" and "outsiders" in Western, or particularly American, terms. There is little similarity between, say, Richard Nixon backslapping through the villages of Middle America, or John Lindsay marching through the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Indira Gandhi, a finishing-school style Brahmin, sipping tea with members of a village panchayat down in the Ballabhgarh block, or Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a pretentious feudal landlord, firebranding through Karachi slums on behalf of his "People's Party." In short, Americans seeking a modicum of realistic insight to the subcontinent would do well to realize that those who profess to speak for the masses of Indians and Pakistanis are hardly representative of their purported constituents.

(5) As for the national characteristics, if compelled to set down what I consider to be the basic qualities of the masses in each country, I would suggest that the Pakistanis have a kind of pensive sullenness veneered over an inexorable drive to suicide (the latter, because of centuries of being brainwashed as "great warriors"); and the Indians show a seemingly meek passivity that covers a terrible frustration (because of the still stifling caste system). And deep underneath, in both cases: violence. It is a tremendous violence that must erupt some day-and probably with most savage effect, in each case, against their own people. And if I had to bet on which would rise up first and lop off the unsuspecting heads of their "ruling classes," I would choose the Pakistanis, who are the more manipulated of the two peoples.

(6) That other unmentionable in the subcontinental emotional climate is color prejudice. This undermines the posturings of some of our own simplistic thinkers, but prejudice based on color-lighter-skinned against darker skinned-is a dire fact of life in both countries. You have only to glance through the classified marriage ads in the daily newspapers=with their dozens of terms to denote exquisite gradations of skin tone-for the evidence. Or consider the attitudes of North Indians toward South Indians; or of Pathans, Punjabis and Baluchis of West Pakistan toward their darker-skinned Bengali national brothers of East Pakistan.

Beyond these factors is the entire range of political realities that we seem guilty either of passing over too lightly or of ignoring altogether:

(1) What is the real meaning of "Bangla Desh"--the Bengali independence movement? Behind the Awami League, behind Gen. Tikka Khan's onslaught against East Pakistan; behind the emergence of guerrillas and counter guerrillas, the signing of pacts and counter-pacts; the overt and covert maneuvers of the Indian and Pakistani Governments, looms the specter of the logical independent Bengal This would be made up not just of Pakistan's present-day East "wing" but also of India's present-day West Bengal "state." Thus, a possible new nation of some 125 million people and 90,000 square miles would straddle the inner reaches of the Bay of Bengal and comprise the broadest bridge to the Asian land mass. But a nation that neither India nor Pakistan would wish to see come into existence. Nor, for obvious strategic reasons, would India really welcome-any more than would the present Pakistani Government - the existence of an independent Bengal made up of the former East Pakistan alone. What that presages, then, is that India might welcome a Bengal incorporated with its own territory, a logical territorial addition to its present day West Bengal state. This is what Pakistan most fear, most suspects.

(2) Overarching present hostilities is the sustained enmity between India and Pakistan. Whatever happens East Pakistan or across the borders in West Bengal, Bihar or Assam must be seen in context of the larger, longer running disputes between the two nations. As for example: the unresolved Kashmir situation; the very expensively and impractically resolved Indus Valley controversy of the 1950s; the bloody and unseemly squabbling over the Rann of Kutch, a 9,000-square-mile salt waste off the Arabian Sea. And-national pride, unwanted population and useless real estate completely aside-all this comes down to the basic dispute between the two opposing philosophies of statehood mentioned above.

(3) The "anti-Americanism" indulged in by both parties is a tactical gambit and, in itself, not a major consideration, despite all the sulphur and smoke. As in unfortunately too many places nowadays, the tendency on the subcontinent -when in doubt, distress or despair-has been to beat * America. During the 1965 installment of the Kashmir war (which I covered from the Pakistani side), the information arms of each government went to almost ludicrous lengths to convince its people that the United States was aiding the enemy only. The truth was that both sides were then being equipped militarily, to varying degrees; and Washington, for its own reasons, was giving both masx economic aid. And U.S. long-range strategy in the area whether "right" or "wrong," was not-and is not based on stupidity or wickedness or, certainly, the desire to win popularity contests.

(4) Of much more political substance than this beating on America is the long-range strategy followed by both nations vis-à-vis the three major powers. India's course is comparatively simple: since the border disputes started with China in 1957, it has become progressively anti-Chinese. And now, its relations with the Soviet Union and the United States emanate from a solidly anti-China base. Pakistan's strategy has been much more daring and plex. For the first seven years of the Ayub regime, d in 1958, it consisted, essentially, of two separate and concurrent policies. Policy number one took the time honored diplomatic line of making a friend of your enemy's enemy-in this case, embracing China, the avowed foe of India. And policy number two (firmly rooted in cold-war thinking) following the line of playing the three big powers one against the other, and reserving your ultimate warmth-if you had to make a choice - for the big power farthest removed from you geographically, and your ultimate chill for the power closest to your borders. For Pakistan, that meant friendship for the United States-as against China.

But these two policies (like our own various "contingency" plans," as in the Pentagon Papers) conflicted one the other. And, in early September 1965, during the second Kashmir War, the United States suspended shipments of arms to both sides and thus manifested a lack sympathy that Pakistan found disheartening (more important, it somehow came about that not a single oil tanker landed in a Pakistani port during the approximate fifty-day war period). It was then that Pakistan began to make serious approaches to China. And China reciprocated - by threatening openly to step in if India did not cease its attacks" on Pakistan. Thus Pakistan's policy number one would seem to have won out. Though "won out may be strong a term, because the then President Ayub's China approach (with a great deal of background drum-beating by then Foreign Minister Bhutto) was originally intended to throw fear into the heart of the United States. Andd indeed the policy, which has continued apace these past six years, more recently under President Yahya urged on by the same Bhutto, who has emerged as the leading spokesman of the Pakistani China Lobby), is still based to a larger extent than many people may realize on the self-deluding premise that Pakistan possesses greater strategic importance for the United States than does India. If forced to choose between the two, so this theory goes, we would choose Pakistan, which then could retire gracefully from its China commitment and adopt game plan number two. (A maneuver perhaps as easy to accomplish as retiring gracefully from within the coils of a boa constrictor.)

(5) Then, there are the disparate and often conflicting policies of the big powers themselves, all three operating in what they consider to be their own self-interests, which can, on occasions, supersede the self-interests of the two client states.

China has taken sides most obviously-for Pakistan and against India. It did this early, in the 1965 Kashmir War, thus setting all the diplomatic dominoes into motion. For a time, the USSR seemed to have the advantage because of the pious role in which it found itself as the peacemaker at Tashkent at the end of the 1965 hostilities. But now it too has made its choice-for India, against China, and thus Pakistan (a variation of the "enemy-of-myenemy" thesis).

From a diplomatic point of view, the United States is, for the time being; in the position of greatest maneuverability. Obviously, we would wish to stay on the present tightrope between the two adversaries as long as possible, and it is quite conceivable that President Nixon may hope to make a bold end-run around the subcontinent when he goes to Mao next year. But if we are actually forced to make a choice, we have indicated in telltale ways (largely developmental-having to do with the spread of our socioeconomic commitments, private-sector as well as publicsector) which we would choose. It would be Indiaagainst Pakistan-no matter how the situation may appear in the current headlines. I think that perceptive people in the diplomatic communities understand that this eventual choice hovers-and, also, that when it happens the United States will have been impelled to make it for other than "moral reasons" (i.e., the ferocity of the onslaughts against the rebellious East Wing Bengalis).

A realistic basis for Bengali "independence" exists, but it has always been lost sight of amid the turmoil of hostilities, past and present. It is the only kind of Bengal entity that both India and Pakistan might accept, and that also would be acceptable, if not highly desirable, to the three major powers. This would be an economic union of the two parts of Bengal-the West Bengal state and East Pakistan-that could come to grips with mutual problems of social and economic development.

Sharing the 90,000 square miles of dank, low-lying paddies, green hills and dense rain forest, spread over both sides of the Ganges and its tributaries, the 125 million Bengalis have many socio-economic problems in common. If they were permitted to attack these together in a realistic way, this enterprise could form, eventually, a "developmental bridge" between the two countries, and lead to similar joint arrangements in Kashmir and elsewhere.

By far the most important of the "unmentioned" realities is the area's long-mounting water resources dispute, having to do with the jointly shared Ganges waters. Not once, for example, in these past weeks have I seen in the press or heard any public official utter the words: "Farakka Barrage." Yet this is a life-or-death issue for all the Bengali people; it must be faced very soon by the two rival powers, and thus by the other interested powers.

Briefly, Farakka Barrage is a vast, damlike affair, under construction by India since 1961 some 10 miles from the East Pakistani border. Its basic purpose is to prevent the port of Calcutta from silting up, but it also puts India in a position to cut off the supply of Ganges-originated water to Pakistan. Meanwhile, the water is required to sustain ambitious and expensive complexes of irrigation and power projects on which the food production of both sides of Bengal depends.

The issue is much more involved, politically and technically, than I can explain here. Suffice to say that there is enough water for all concerned-if portioned out equitably. The Pakistanis, however, have gone on record several times (after a great deal of frustration) that they would resort to war before allowing India to complete Farakka and thus gain a devastating weapon for possible use in the struggle between them.

Originally, the project was scheduled to be in operation by July of 1971, but there were unexpected delays all last year, reportedly due to delivery of faulty canal machinery from Eastern Europe and to "gheraos" (a Hindu word for a kind of work-stoppage encirclement) conducted by Naxalites, the local Mao Communists. The barrage itself has been completed. Now all that remains is some additional work on the 60-mile Hoogley River Canal, leading north to Calcutta, and on the railroad line atop the barrage. If there are no more delays, the project should be in operation by the end of 1971. Thus another collision course to war is arising between the two neighbor nations -or a possible new and dreadful stratagem in an already existing war. (Whether or not India would actually be capable of "cutting off the water" and "starving out" the already direly beset East Pakistanis is beside the point; it is enough that Pakistan believes it capable of such cruel action.)

Meanwhile, a solution may be emerging here, one that is completely technical, but that could catalyze the dovoutly wished-for "political" solution. It would be incorporated into the above-mentioned Bengal Economic Union and would employ an imaginative water-resources technique that exists in basic prototype in the United States A large Midwestern chemical company has devised a computer program to measure the periodic moisture contents of various parcels of land, in order to prepare chemical fertilizer "prescriptions" for individual farmers Preliminary investigations show that the technique could be adapted to create a water-monitoring system that would make periodic readings of the water needs of all lands on both sides of the Ganges River complex (or on any waterways with shared sovereignties) and portion out the required amounts. Obviously, such a system must be operated by some impeccable entity trusted by both sides There is indication that the United Nations Development Program, or perhaps some specifically enfranchised, joint East-West economic unit, might qualify. This could perhaps help to defuse the present political situation and ultimately turn all Bengal into a land whose people-allowing them-would have a chance to survive. They do not have it now.

The plan for a "Computer Water-Monitoring System," based at Farakka and serving all Bengal, has been broached these past four or five years to various responsible parties, at the World Bank, the foundations, the State Department, etc., and has been set aside as "politically unfeasible." It might be even less politically feasible today Except that it just might work-and what are the altematives?

All these "unmentionable" realities-political and psychological-are most certainly under discussion in the various diplomatic back rooms of the world. They also may be discussed when Mr. Nixon meets Chairman Mao next year. If the world can wait that long.