Pakistan is pitching towards political chaos at a truly frightening speed; and bad luck compounds bad judgment. On one hand there is renewed confrontation with India over Kashmiri hijacking which provokes war nerves, bellicose rhetoric, and crippled air communication between the two wings of the nation. On the other hand, there are bubbles of residue of flood and election, a feud between East and West, and another between Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Mr. Bhutto. It is a mixture of all these elements which threatens disaster.

Sheikh Mujib, the victor from Dacca, has never seen much need to fudge his notorious “six-point” policy, a plan for Eastern autonomy which reduced Islamabad’s bureaucracy to an emaciated rump. He roused his intellectuals as well as the rabble with it; in strict democratic terms, he has a mandate for it; he will not contemplate a compromise on it, as yesterday’s ominous press conference makes clear. Perhaps a period of somnolent calm and backstairs dealing after the polls might have averted such intransigence. But the two strutting Kashmiri hijackers unleashed a barrage of crowing propaganda in the West that opened the wounds between Mujib (who cares little about Kashmir and less about the militaristic cost of the claim to it) and Bhutto, who depends on jingoistic scare-mongering for much of his support; this in turn has led to the snarls from India to the suspension of direct air services, and to the Sheikh’s new challenge. By openly declining to talk truce and openly spurning any reconciliation with Mr. Bhutto, Rahman invites retribution. He effectively says to President Yahya Khan and his generals : my people love me, so come and get me. He says it knowing that Yahya has too few troops in the East to dare such violence and that the Indian over flying ban makes reinforcement impossible. Sheikh Mujib speaks from isolation, seeking isolation, may be sincerely but more likely as a bargaining counter. All portents point to a messy struggle and the hapless, drifting tragedy of Pakistani separation - an upheaval which would redraw the map of Asia.

Such a scenario could still be torn up for it rests on phoney attitudes and flimsy beliefs. For all Mujib’s polemic, he does not want independence now and would be in a financial slough if he got it; opinion leaders in the East share this view; the Eastern masses’ enthusiasm for Bengali nationalism is recent, shifting, and logical nonsense (since there is no hint of reunion with the brother Bengalis of Calcutta). Mr. Bhutto, too, can trim to his heart’s content if he wishes; he has made so many promises of so many incompatible kinds that more shuffles will raise few eyebrows. Yahya has an alleged self-interest in disappearing from public life; if he is sincere he can let matters ride. Mrs. Gandhi should realise that her over-reaction to the hijack makes peace on the sub-continent a doubtful quantity once again; she must try to resist the facile mischief her own campaign chiefs demand.

In sum, there is room for manoeuvre. This is a profoundly damaging crisis which need not have arisen and could yet be blown away as the assembled cast contemplate appalling alternatives. It needs simply a spark of sense and reality; it is all the bitterer because at this moment and on past form, no spark may be expected.