Yahya Khan’s nightmarish dream world shows no signs of crumbling. It is a “matter of satisfaction” to this “simple soldier” (in his latest broadcast) that in the difficult situation his country has faced recently “the reaction and responses from an overwhelming number of countries has been of sympathy and understanding of the problems we are facing and trying to resolve.” If Yahya believes that, if Yahya can brush aside the nausea of all Western reaction, then he may truly believe anything: even the field reports of his generals in Bengal. His faith in what his aides tell him is touching, but tragically pathetic. He has no real plans now. The proposals he unveiled yesterday for a return to democratic government are a pathetic sham. If the aid givers of the world relent in their shocked disdain towards Pakistan it will not be because of an “expert panel” conjuring up slick formulae for subjugating Dacca once again.

Yahya’s present strategy is based more on boredom than anything else. Fiddle away for a while, make a show of liberal sorrow and gruff sentiment, and hope that a harassed “international opinion” will yawn and pass on to other problems. So we have the experts and their constitution for “four months or so.” Then we have a National Assembly stripped of the Awami League (which has a total majority in it) and all top leadership incarcerated, shot or exiled. Vague phrases blur even the powers of this castrated body, but significantly the President no longer talks bluffly of his longing to get back to barracks. Martial law continues indefinitely. If Mr. Bhutto wishes to rule in the West he must snuggle up to the military again. If anyone wishes to lead Eastern reconstruction he must stand in the shadow of Tikka Khan, a stooge in peril of assassination every time he shows his face. Yahya, in fact, can offer only the gauze of legality or autonomy to Bengal. He will be hard put to make it work for six months, never mind in six years. As independent reports now coming from inside East Pakistan make clear there is resistance and terrorism and galloping poverty; there is Bengali determination not to forget, not to jettison aspirations. The refugees will not come back en masse to face Tikka’s tender mercies. Politicians of character will steer away from collaboration. Those educated Bengalis who remain in the East will lie low.

And nowhere, in all the intellectual wasteland of Yahya’s master play, is the central question asked. Does Pakistan exist any longer? Does unity matter any longer? What precisely have the Punjabi legions achieved? In Islamabad’s book the regime snipped a budding plot between Sheikh Mujib and Mrs. Gandhi - a plot to wreck the pure State of Jinnah and deliver half of it into the evil hands of New Delhi. That, seriously, is what Yahya claims - the same Yahya who allowed Mujib to win an unrigged election, to bargain long and hard over a constitution; the same Mujib who waited quietly at his home for the army to take him away, who - far from leading a premeditated coup - was patently stunned when the generals attacked.

Defending the Sheikh and his scattered henchmen may, at this juncture, seem a redundant exercise. Too much blood, too many refugees have flowed since Mujib disappeared for Pakistan to be magically put back together again. Yet his reputation remains unsullied and important. He won an election. He did not, and has never publicly declared UDI. The excesses of his Bengali followers were precipitated by army action - not the reverse. He remains, just possibly, the one man who can persuade the five million who fled to return; and - equally vital - those Bengalis who remained not to wallow in communal strife. Mujib, in short, is Pakistan’s last chance of a little peace. Perhaps Yahya’s advisers, examining this new threadbare package, begin to realise it. Perhaps, the rich of Karachi and Lahore, groaning under the latest straitened national budget, begin to lose faith in their ludicrously naive leadership. But the time is late and the reality is nowhere yet to be found. Yesterday’s pronouncements should strengthen the Aid for Pakistan consortium and the World Bank in their resolve not to bend to blandishments or evasive promises. The stronger that resolve, the weaker the Rawalpindi regime appears.