Reports of correspondents who have been bundled out of Dacca; Indian reports of clandestine broadcasts from East Bengal; unruffled and authoritative military communiques from West Pakistan, add up only to a very rough outline of the situation in East Pakistan. The Army has control of the major towns where its strength is enough not to be contested save by romantic urban guerrillas - and Dacca is not full of those. What may happen in a countryside, the Army cannot fully to control - or what may already be happening - it is impossible to guess. And what the next move will be, or should be, now that the Pakistan Army has committed itself so determinedly against the forces of Bengali separatism, is even harder to forecast. The confused situation and the counter-currents of policy may take some time to be sorted out.

While these doubts remain every encouragement is given to agitation, rumour, open alignment, and various kinds of embroilment by interested spectators. India has naturally been tom between a prudent detachment and the most unrestrained commitment to the East Bengali cause. Mrs. Gandhi may find she has a difficult task if relations with Pakistan are not to become dangerously venomous. Undeniably all the emotions of the partition of 1947 are revived by the dispute that it is now being fought over. And in this context India’s involvement can begin with the natural Bengali sympathies of such a politically volatile city as Calcutta. There is much encouragement also for champions of anti-Pakistani sentiment to get into action, especially when the current political champion of West Pakistan is the strongly anti-Indian Mr. Bhutto.

India is a natural source of news about what is going on in East Pakistan which has such a long and uncontrollable border, and India can also easily become a main source of supply, beginning with the most innocuous things and ending in the classic role of a secure hinterland for a time when India’s relations with Pakistan were already disturbed by the incident of a plane from Kashmir having been hijacked. The Indians had imposed a ban on over-flights of their territory while their demands over the incident were not satisfied. Their impediment to the Pakistan Government, added to the openly expressed Indian attitudes, would encourage advocates of a tough line on both sides of the border. One reason to expect a cautious attitude to be taken by both countries is that the very uncertainties of the situation could create complications which each side would want to avoid.

A prolonged guerrilla struggle developing in the eastern province could expand the influence of those revolutionary parties in East Pakistan that look to China for leadership. Alternatively there is the long-term prospect that an independent East Bengal that had severed its ties with West Pakistan might want to foster closer links with West Bengal across the Indian frontier. The dream of a united Bengal would then certainly be floated, and India would have to face moves for secession in a state that had shown itself in the recent elections to be the prime stronghold of every kind of revolutionary political outlook. Such dangers exist irrespectively of any attitude adopted by China towards East Pakistan or any action by China in support of guerrilla - a long-standing fear among some circles in India. Mrs. Gandhi’s problems are hardly less than those of President Yahya Khan. Her caution yesterday shows that she is well aware of the dangers.