Washington Star/Evening Star

NEW DELHI. - India is clearing the decks for stronger measures than it has applied so far to deal with the situation created by the 6 million people, mostly Hindus, who are refugees from East Pakistan.

AS far as India is concerned, Pakistan is deliberately driving the refugees into India. There is continuing public clamor for the government here to take steps - including war - against Pakistan.

A state of emergency is being considered for the eastern states - Assam, West Bengal, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya - bordering on Pakistan. This measure, which gives martial law-like powers to the government, was adopted at the time of the India-Chinese Border War in October 1962.

Already New Delhi has armed itself with an Internal Security Act under which any person can be detained for six months without trial. The British government used a similar statute to detain members of the Congress party, who are now at the helm of affairs and who were then waging an independence struggle.

Also, West Bengal has come under the direct rule of New Delhi, and the state legislature has been dissolved. A central minister has been designated to look after the state's problems exclusively.

Nearly half a million refugees, out of a total of 6 million have been moved from the border to the interior, and most of the others are being removed from places right on the border. U.S. and Soviet transport planes are helping in this transfer.

The reasons for what looks like India's preparations for some action are many.

One, before Gen. Yahya Khan's recent broadcast there was a ray of hope that pressed as Pakistan was by the world powers, including the United States. Yahya Khan might make a gesture toward the Awami League which won 98 percent of the seats in East Pakistan in the elections for the National Assembly two months before the military action of the West against the East.

Instead, Yahya Khan called upon Awami League members to denounce their leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. At the same time he said he would disqualify from membership of the assembly those who had participated in "anti-national activities."

Two, despite the favorable response which India's foreign minister, Sardar Swaran Singh, reportedly aroused in the world capitals, including Washington and Moscow, to India's predicament in the wake Of the refugees' influx, there has been no visible 'effort to curb Pakistan. It is still, as far as India is concerned, hounding out the Hindu minority from its eastern wing.

Indian opinion remains shocked over the reports that arms have been shipped by the United States to Pakistan. The Indian foreign minister has said that "the attitude of the U.S. government, to say the least, is extremely callous."

Indians also feel the help received for refugees relief is woefully small - $40 million against India's expense of $400 million for the first six months.

Three, there is strong pressure within India, even from believers in nonviolence like Jayaprakash Narayan and J. B. Kripalani, that there is little left other than to take some strong action against Pakistan.

Narayan, who recently returned from an extensive tour of over a dozen foreign countries, says that if India acts against Pakistan, it will have to go it alone because no country was prepared to undertake any burden except, possibly, a share in relief for the refugees.

The Indian government has resisted successfully all the pressures so far. Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the prime minister, has said more than once that the solution to the problem created by the influx of 6 million refugees from East Pakistan is neither war nor the recognition of Bangla Desh.

Last week she told her party members that she would not be pushed to taking an "adventurous step."

The fact that she is taking certain steps to deal with the situation on India's eastern border itself indicates that she wants to at least mollify irritated public opinion.