Time

When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her new Congress party were returned to power last March, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, she promised an ambitious development programme that would change the lives of India’s almost 600 million people. By last week, however, it was clear that the country’s economy never robust, was bogging down for reasons that are not of Mrs. Gandhi’s making. More than 60,00,000 refugees have fled to India since the Pakistan Government based in West Pakistan began a savage campaign of repression and terror in East Pakistan, last March. The cost of feeding and sheltering the refugees and caring for thousands of cholera victims will total at least $400 million in the first six months.

About 80% of the refugees from predominantly Moslem East Pakistan are Hindus seeking sanctuary in West Bengal and the Eastern Indian States, where their co-religionists are in the vast majority. What particularly worries India is that their chances of even returning home are diminishing. Last week New Delhi said that the Pakistanis were destroying the title deeds of properties owned by the Hindus in East Pakistan. So the Indians may have to accept, on a permanent basis, a Pakistani refugee population that could 'eventually reach 10 millions.

LITTLE SUCCESS

The Indians are angry that they have received so little support on the refugee problem from either East or West. “The international community cannot run away from its. responsibilities”, Mrs. Gandhi declared two weeks ago. “It will suffer from the consequences of whatever happens in this part of the world”.

The most fearful consequence could be war. Reckless as. it may seem many Indians were seriously arguing that the only solution to the refugee problem is for the Indian Army to drive the West Pakistan Army out of East Pakistan so that the refugees could return home. Mrs. Gandhi has rejected such talk, but it is growing in volume, even among members of parliament.

In trying to persuade other countries to provide emergency aid and put pressure on the Government to ease its repression in East Pakistan, the Prime Minister has sent several of her colleagues abroad to explain India’s predicament, so far with little success.

What the Indians really want is a political settlement between West and East Pakistan. This would amount to an acceptance by West Pakistan of last December’s overwhelming victory by Sheikh Mujibur (Mujib) Rahman and his Awami League. In balloting for a constitutional congress, Mujib won 167 of the 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan. Since this showing would have given Mujib an absolute majority in the 313 seat constituent assembly, it would have led to his designation as Prime Minister of all Pakistan. India was greatly pleased by Mujib’s victory, since he has been conciliatory towards the Indians. This, in turn, would have enabled India to cut down on the heavy cost, of defending its borders with Pakistan.

But Pakistan’s President Agha Mohd. Yahya Khan was loath, to let Mujib attain power in the Central Government and he was even less inclined to grant greater autonomy to East Pakistan. The subsequent crackdown by Pakistan’s army, resulting in the slaughtering of hundreds of thousands of East Pakistanis has made a political settlement even more remote.

IDEOLOGICAL COUSINS

In the long run the Indians fear that they could be faced on their Eastern Border with an even more threatening force than the Pakistani army. There is a real danger that leadership of the Guerrilla movement in East Pakistan could pass from the shattered Awami League into the hands of the Naxalites, the ideological cousins of the Maoist extremists who have terrorised Calcutta and other pockets of Eastern India. What the Indians fear is an attempt to reunite India’s West Bengal with Pakistan’s East Bengal which have strong: cultural and linguistic ties that could someday transcend the religious differences.

GUN POWER

A tough young East Pakistani who calls himself a Naxalite told Time correspondent James Shepherd “For the moment common enemy (of both the Awami League and the East Bengali Naxalites) is the Pakistan army. The arms that India gives to the Awami League will find their way to the Naxalites, and eventually we will fight not only the army but also the bourgeoistic and feudal elements, contemptuous of democratic process.” The Naxalite said scornfully: “Now the Awami League leaders are seeing the truth of the saying that the political power grows out of the barrel of the gun.”

The problem is that many Indians, too, are thinking of gun power. Even Swaran Singh, India’s normally pragmatic Sikh Foreign Minister felt compelled to warn M.Ps. of the ruling New Congress Party during a meeting at week’s end. “Unless there is a political settlement, India will be compelled to take action on its own.”