Time

The first warning that a serious clash occured came in an announcement
over Radio Pakistan. India, it said, "has launched an all-out
offensive against East Pakistan without a formal declaration of war."
That charge proved to be false; it was not a full-fledged war -- yet.
On the other hand, it was certainly not a trifling skirmish, as Indian
spokesman at first euphemistically described it.

For months, border battles had broken out almost daily between troops
of the two nations. The conflict that finally erupted last week along
the 1,300 mile frontier was plainly big enough to raise the specter of
a mojor conflagration on the subcontinent. The presence of Indian
troops on Pakistan's soil escalated the dispute between the two
nations to the point where full-scale war that could erupt at any
moment -- a war that could also cause an uncomfortable confrontation
of the major powers.

Rigid restrictions on news coverage by both governments made the exact
shape of the conflict murky, but it was clear that battleshad occurred
roughly half a dozen sites along the borders.

At week's end, a combination of Indian regulars and Bengali Mukti
Bahni (the East Pakistani liberation forces, which oppose West
Pakistan's rule over the East) had captured portions of five areas,
totaling perhaps 60 sq. mi. of real estate. All along the border,
artillery exchanges and firefights kept the situation tense and
dangerous through the week. Scene of the biggest battle was a slender
salient of Indian that points sharply into East Pakistan some 20 miles
west of the Pakistani city of Jassore, an important railhead that
leads to key ports on the Bay of Bengal. Early last week, according to
a Pakistani general, one battalion of Indian regulars operating along
side a battalion of Mukti Bahni crossed the Indian border point of
Boyra. From there, camouflaged with netting and supported by tank and
heavy artillery, they thrust northeastward along a U-shaped front into
East Pakistan.

After the Indians and guerillas had moved about six miles inland and
seized the village of Chaugacha, Pakistani resistance halted the
advance. In the counterattacks that followed, the first tank battle of
the war broke out. In ten hours of fighting, Pakistani forces said
they destroyed eight Indian tanks and damaged ten others; they
admitted losing seven tanks. Next day, Pakistani forces called up an
air strike, sending four Sabre jets on Indian positions. Indian Gnats,
light weight jet fighters, intercepted the planes within Indian
territory, and shot down three of them. Two of the Pakistani pilots
who bailed out were caaptured by Indian forces.

CAPTURED MATERIAL

TIME Correspondent William Stewart paid a visit to Boyra last week.
"Refugee camps are scattered along the road, but there are no soldiers
in sight," he cabled. "In fact, not until we reach the small city is
there any sign of fighting. We sit down in a semicircle in front of
the briefer -- Lieut. Colonel C.L. Proudfoot. In blazing Bengal sun
there are three Pakistani tanks (U.S.- made Chaffees) and an old
assortment of captured material; American machine guns and Chinese
ammnition. Proudfoot explains that Pakistani tanks have been probing
the border near Boyra since Nov. 17. On the night of Nov. 20-21, he
said, a number of tanks were heard approaching Boyra. The tanks
reached and began firing on Indian positions. A squadron of 14 Indian
tanks (Soviet-made PT 76s) crossed into East Pakistan to outflank the
Pakistani squadron. The battle raged four or five miles into East
Pakistan. When the smoked cleared, three Pakistani tanks had been
trapped in India, and another eight were reported destroyed. The
Indians claimed a losss of only one tank."

The Indian and Pakistani accounts differed in a number of details.
Initially, Pakistani spokesmen in Islamabad told of 100,000 and then
of 200,000 Indian troops pouring across the border at half a dozen
points. Those figures were considerably exaggerated. Major General
M.H. Ansari, Pakistan commander in Jessore sector, told newsmen that
Indian guerilla forces had lost 200 to 300 dead and twice as many
wounded, but that they had managed to recover all the bodies; that
would be quite a feat under any circumstances. Ansari showed
journalists a letter stamped "14th Punjab Regiment" and an Indian
soldier's diary picked up in the course of fighting.

There was no disagreement over the essentials of the battle and its
dangerous significance. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi went before
Parliament in New Delhi and acknowledged that Indian troops had
entered East Pakistan "to repulse a Pakistani attack" near the border.
She also corroborated the report that India has shot down three
Pakistani Sabre jets. Mrs. Gandhi added that she would not emulate
Pakistani President Aga Mohammed Yahya Khan by declaring a national
emergency -- a move that was more symbolic that substantive for West
Pakistanis since their country had been under martial law since March
1969. But later that day Indian defence officials announced a
significant change in policy: henceforth Indian troops would be
allowed to enter the East "in self-defence."

DIPLOMATIC FLURRIES

The elements of this supercharged situation have become all too
famalier to the rest of the world:

1. a swiftly growing independence movement in the much exploited
eastern wing of Pakistan;

2. the ruthless crackdown by Yahya's tough West Pakistani troops
last March and a resulting exodus that sent nearly 10 million
Bengali refugees flooding into india;

3. a flourishing gurrilla movement that now numbers as many as
100,000 adherants, fervently commited to the creation of a
free Bangla Desh (Bengal Nation) in East Pakistan, and all
but openly aided by New Delhi.

Last Week's intensified fighting sent alarams through the world's
capitals, and there was flurry of activity in Washington. Moscow and
United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan as the big powers sought some
way to defuse the confrontation. On Thanks-giving Day, Richard Nixon
phoned Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath. The President discussed
the Indian-Pakistani situation with the British leader, as well as
their discussion to meet in Bermuda in December. U.S. Ambassador to
Moscow Jacob Beam visited the Soviet Foreign Ministry twice during the
week to urge the Russians, who had become India's chief sponsors, to
help stop the fighting.

Washington clearly did not wish to associate the role of mediator as
Moscow did at Tashkent in 1966 to settle the Indian-Pakistani conflict
over Kashmir. For one thing, the U.S. felt that it did not have
sufficient leverage with India. Beyond that, the White House
calculated that if it became deeply involved, there would be serious
repercussions from Congress, especially in view of the nation's
profound distrust of foreign entanglements in the wake of Vietnam.

Moreever, Washington has no blueprint for specific points of
settlement. It believes that any solution must be worked out by the
Pakistanis and the rebels, and that if mediation is necessary, it
should come from a neutral entity like U.N. Nor does the
Administration have any intentions of getting militraily embroiled,
even though Pakistan has bilateral and multilateral (SEATO and CENTO)
aliances with the U.S. The defence treaties, officials emphasized, are
directed only against Communist aggression.

For their part, the Russians sent a stern note to President Yahya
urging him to seek a political solution that would end the bitter
civil war in East Pakistan and halt the influx of refugees into India.
The Soviets have also used their influence with New Delhi to call for
restraints on India. Under the terms of a 20-year "friendship treaty"
signed in August, Moscow and New Delhi are obliged to consult when
either is threatened with attack. Since the Russian s are known to
want no part of a conflict that could bring China in on Pakistan's
side, they have thus suggested that India move with care.

China is believed to be no more anxious for a confrontation with its
socialist sister. Despite their pledge of support for the pakistani
regime in the event of an attack, the Chineese have told Pakistan's
generals that a political solution would be prefered. Though they made
a stinging attack against India in the U.N. two weeks ago, accusing it
of "subversion and aggression" in East Pakistan. Peking and New Delhi
were quitely negotiating behind the scenes to re-establish high level
diplomatic exchanges.

TODAY, NOT TOMMORROW

The solution, in the view of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike
Mansfield, is to bring the U.N. into the picture. "This is the time,
now, today, not tomorrow, for the Security Council to act," he said.
But the fact is that, even though all the big powers are anxious to
avert a conflict on the subcontinent, none are rushing to place the
issue before the U.N. Security Council for fear that they might prove
to be unable to agree. Lying in his hospital bed in New York City,
U.N. Secretary-General U. Thant confided to one of his aides last
week: "If I am suffering from a bleeding ulcer, it is atleast in part
due to frustrating efforts over the past eight months to do something
about the terrible situation in East Pakistan." Even Pakistan's U.N.
delegate, Aga Shahi, who was ready to bring the matter before Security
Council early in the week, quickly changed his mind. Consultations
with the Chineese delegation and soundings of Soviet intentions
persuaded him that the two Communist powers might not agree on a
cease-fire resolution. The Japanese, however, are working on a
resolution that they will introduce if the fighting continues.

The protagonists in this conflict are two extraordinarily
strong-willed, even stubborn leasers. At 54, Yahya is a tough-talking
professional soldier who rarely shows any inclination for compromise
and exhibits his impatience at the drop of an epithet. "Stop reminding
me every day," he once snarled at Pakistani journalists when they
asked about his repeated promises of a return to democracy for his
country. "The people did not bring me to power. I came myself." The
stocky former army chief of staff, a Pathan who came to power in 1969
when widespread strikes and disorders forced President Ayub Khan to
step down, showed his quick temper last week during an impromtu speech
at a late night dinner in Islamabad. Lashing out at Indira Gandhi, he
said at one point: "If that woman thinks she will cow me, I refuse to
take it. If she wants a war, I will fight it."

CHILD OF THE NATION

The remark was not only ungallant, it was imprudent. For when it
comes to tough-mindedness, Mrs Gandhi is at least a match for Yahya
Khan. As the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, she was carefully
groomed for leadership and grew up an adored and beloved "child of the
nation." From her father she inherited a sense of grace under
pressure, but where he was the idealist, she is much more the
pragmatist. As one political commentator observed: "Her father was a
dreamer who did not act decisively. The people loved Nehru, but they
are impressed by Indira's ability to make decisions and make them
firmly and fast. " In elections last March. Indians gave Indira, who
like Yahya Khan is 54 years old, an overwhelming two-thirds majority
in Parliament.

HOSTILITY TO HATRED

Rome and Carthage in ancient times, Israel and the Arab countries in
today's world -- such are the parallels to the national enimity
between India and Pakistan that come naturally to mind. Behind their
hostility lies a legacy of Hindu-Moslem religious enimity that is as
old as Islam see Next: Hindu and Moslem: The Gospel of Hate. There are
many who believe that if India had held out a little longer for
independence from Britain without partition, it would have had its way
and today there would be one country on the subcontinent, not two. But
as Nehru confessed much later. "The truth is that we were tired men,
and we were getting on in years too. We expected that partition was
bound to come back to us. None of us guessed how much the killings and
the crisis in Kashmir would embitter relations."

But partition came, and what had been Hindu-Moslem hostility was soon
converted into Indian-Pakistani hatred. The very next year, the two
countries were at war with each other in the Vale of Kashmir. Even
today, Kashmir lies a festering wound between India and Pakistan.
Should all-out war come, there is no doubt that the conflict in East
Pakistan would quickly be dwarfed by far bigger and bloodier battles
in the wwest largely aimed at control of the fabled valley.

The issue stems from Britain's failure to make provision for India's
600 princely states when self-determination elections were held on the
subcontinent in 1947. As it happened, Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu
Maharajah, but its population was predominantly Moslem. When Pakistan
invaded in the autumn of 1948, the Maharajah promptly placed the
province under Indian rule. Once again, in 1965, it became the
battlefield for the rival powers.

Though both Pakistan and India began as parliamentary democracies,
they soon drifted along divergent political paths. Jawaharlal Nehru
lives to guide India into a role of world's largest democracy (pop.
547 million), but Pakistan's founding leaders, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and
Liaquat Ali Khan, died soon after independence and eventually the
country fell under military control. Since the military was dominated
by the Pathans, Punjabis and Baluchis of the West, it became
established policy to short-change the poorer, more densely populated
eastern wing, which before the refugee exodus began last March had a
population of 78 million v. 58 million for the West.

"MISCHIEVOUS AND WICKED"

The differences have also shaped both countries' foreign policies. As
Nehru created a policy of neutrality and sought to establish India as
the leader of nonaligned bloc of Third World countries. Pakistan
became a firm ally of the west. Then in U.S. in what former Ambassador
to India John Kenneth Galbriath calls the most "categorically
mischievous and wicked" action it has ever taken, began to build up
Pakistan as a military power. With India pursuing a policy of
calculated coolness toward the U.S.. Washington turned to Pakistan as
a potential ally against Communism: in return Pakistan provided
special facilities, including a base that was used for U-2 overflights
of the Soviet Union (Francis Gary took off from this airfield).

Pakistan, however viewed the connection as insurance against India,
not Communism. After 1965, when the U.S. cut off military aid to both
countries. India turned to the Soviet Union and Pakistan to China.
With Russia's help, India has built itself into a military power far
superior to Pakistan. Its forces(980,000) outnumber
Pakistan's(392,000) by more than 2 to 1: its air and naval capacity is
also rated superior. If India were to fight Pakistan alone, there is
little doubt which would win.

Sharing neither borders nor cultures, Pakistan's divided parts,
seperated by a thousand miles of Indian teritory, make it a political
anamoly, at odds not only with India but with itself as well. As
Jinnah put it shortly after independence, there was little to hold the
country's two divergent wings together except "faith." It was not
enough. Last December, when the nation went to the polls in first free
elections in its history, East Pakistanis gave an overwhelming
endorsment to the Awami League and its leader, Sheik Mujibur Rahman,
51 who had pledged to bring the exploited wing greater automony.

The prospect of the political balance of power moving from West
Pakistan to the East was not acceptable to the generals. On March 25,
Yahya outlawed the Awami League, arrested Mujib, who is now being
tried for treason, and launched a ruthless repression that by one
estimate has claimed a million lives and has sent nearly 10 million
refugees flooding into India, most of them into the state West Bengal.
Awami Leaders leaders who escaped to India promptly set up the Bangla
Desh government in exile with headquarters in Calcutta, and some 130
Bengali diplomats subsequently defected from Pakistani missions around
the world. The rebels immediately began raising and training a
guerrila force that, by some estimates, now numbers 100,000 men.

Today India's worst fear is that many of the refugees will refuse to
go back to East Pakistan under any conditions. Nearly 8,000,000 of
them are Hindus, who were singled out by the Moslem military for
persecution. Pakistan, moreover, claims that only 2,000,000 Pakistani
refugees are in India -- a figure that corresponds to the number of
Moslems who have fled. This coincidence may suggest that even if there
were a settlement, the Pakistanis would refuse to permit Hindus to
return.

SWARM OF LOCUSTS

A confidential report recently to Mrs. Gandhi's cabinet concluded:
"The most alarming prognosis is that not even 10% of the Hindu
evacuees may choose to go back. If this becomes the reality, it might
be disastorous for West Bengal's economy, and this economic disaster
is bound to bring in its train serious sociopolitical problems of
perhaps unmanagable dimensions."

The dire forecasts are confirmed by a World Bank report released in
September. India's economic development, the report said, could be
seriously stunted by the cost of the refugees. That cost, expected to
reach $830 million by the end of the fiscal year in March, exceeds all
of India's 1971-72 foreign aid for development.

The setback came at a time when the country was just beginning to show
some economic headway. With a $50 billion gross national product,
India has begun producing all manner of sophisticated materials, from
complex computers to nuclear reacters and jet aircraft. But the
distance it has come is only measurable by the distance left to go.
Some 200 million people still subsist on 15c a day; more than half of
the 10 million government workers earn less than $25 a month. As a
Calcutta industrialist put it: "The refugees have descend on our hopes
like a swarm of locusts on a good crop."

Economic pressures are also building in West Pakistan. So far, the
Islamabad regime has been able to muddle through fairly well. The real
crunch will come in few months. Pakistan is spending almost 55% of its
fiscal outlay on the defence, and the cost of military operations in
the East alone runs to $60million a month. One observer estimates that
the 3,000-mile route around India that Pakistani planes must take to
supply forces in the East is the equivalent of a supply line from
Karachi to Rome.

In the light of all this, some West Pakistanis are privately beginning
to concede that it may finally be necessary to do what the generals
spilled so much blood to avoid: give up East Paksitan. A high Pakistan
government official admits that there is no more that "50-50 chance of
Pakistan holding together."

There were also indications last week that Yahya is beginning to feel
threatened by political opposition in the West. Charging that "some of
its leaders are in collaberation with the enemy and are trying to
foment revolt in West Pakistan," he suddenly outlawed the National
Awami Party, a labor-oriented leftest group that emerged as the
dominant provincial party in elections last December. The Pakistan
President has promised to convene the National Assembly later this
month. But with both the East's Awami League and the West's National
Awami League disenfranchised, the Assembly is beginning to appear
about as representative as President Ayub Khan's "basic democracy," a
scheme by which the former President's rule was sustained through a
handpicked electrol college of 120,000 educated Pakistanis.

SECRET PROPOSAL

Many Pakistanis fear that in the event of war, the odds will be
overwhelmingly in India's favor: even Yahya has called war with India
"military lunacy," Thus, Pakistan's blustery charges of invasion last
week were widely read as last ditch attempt about international
intervention. Should a U.N. peace-keeping mission be sent in, for
example, pressures from Indian side of the border would be greatly
alleviated, allowing the Pakistani troops to concentrate on subduing
the Bengali rebels. For precisely the same reasons, India is seeking
to avoid intervention -- on the theory that such relief would enable
Yahya to avoid a political settelement and thus prolong the refugee
burden.

The worst fear of diplomatic observers was that India and the Bengali
gurrillas, confident that they would win easily, were attempting to
provoke Yahya into a declaration of war. According to this theory,
which is held by number of U.S. State Department officials, Mrs.
Gandhi's Western jaunt was designed mostly to gain time while India's
military buildup progressed. When Pakistan's chief ally, Peking,
indicated that it really wanted no part of a war on the subcontinent,
the Indian decided to move. With snow falling in the foothills of the
Himalayas, making Chinese intervention even more unlikely, they
sprang. Their aim was twofold: to draw West Pakistani troops to the
border regions, making it easy for the guerillas to gain control of
the interior; and to goad Islamabad into declaring war so as to enable
India to attack in the west as well as the east, and thus settle the
issue of Kashmir once and for all.

Another theory holds that India's militant moves may in fact be
designed to force Yahya to reconsider an aborted peace proposal.
TIME's Dan Coggin learned that the secret proposal was made by
President Nixon to Mrs. Gandhi on her visit to Washington last month.
The President reportedly told the Prime Minister that Yahya Khan
appeared to be accepting the idea of negotiations with Mujib. If she
would remain "moderate" for the time being, Washington promised, it
would use its influence to persuage Yahya to sit down with imprisoned
Bengali leader and work out a solution.

There were two cheif possibilities under consideration by Yahya, both
posing the prospect of a refrandum for East Pakistanis to decide their
status after a two- or three-year cooling-off time. One proposal
suggested that Mujib be released and that he and his Awami League be
atleast partly reinstated during the waiting period. The other
involved keeping Mujib under house arrest in West Pakistan and making
no substantial political changes in the interim.

DANGER OF ESCALATION

Indira agreed to adopt a wait-and-see course. Only a week before,
Yahya had made a mildly hopeful remark that "if the nation demands his
[Mujib's] release, I will do it." Simultaneously, four appeals for
Mujib's release, all of suspiciously obscure origin, appeared in the
government-supervised press in West Pakistan. On her return to New
Delhi, Mrs. Gandhi appealed for restraint and patience.

In the meantime, however, several hard-lining West Pakistani generals
got the wind of the proposal and informed Yahya that they were opposed
to any sort of negotiations with Mujib. They argued that Pakistan's
unity depended upon maintaining the current policy -- in effect to
outlast the guerillas. The generals, moreever, also tried to convince
Yahya that Mujib should be executed after his treason trial is
completed. Yahya has apparently not yet made up his mind about the
Bengali leader, but observers have grown markedly more pessimestic
about his fate. "Mujib may well never get back to Bengal alive," says
one Western diplomat. In any case, India's new militancy posed grave
risks of dangerous new escalations the could get out of hand.

Late last week, Yahya took time out to attend the dedication
ceremonies of a new heavy-machinery factory outside Islamabad. The
President was in an ebulient mood. The factory had been built with
Chinese aid, and it seems good moment to underscore Peking's support.

Yahya thanked China "for renewing the assurance that should Pakistan
be subjected to foreign aggression, the Chinese government and people
will as always, resolutely support the Pakistan government and
people." Then it was China's turn. Peking's own special emissary, Li
Shui-ching of the First Ministry of Machine Building, spoke glowingly
of Chinese-Pakistani friendship, but he carefully avoided any mention
of the tension with India or of specific aid from Peking. Then, in a
surprising and symbolic gesture, he released a boxful of doves.

The message was clear -- peace, not war -- but whether the
subcontinent's bitter antagonists would heed it was very much in
question.