Now that full-scale war has developed on the Indian subcontinent we must keep the vital, underlying issues firmly in view. To see the quarrel between India and Pakistan in tweedledum-tweedledum terms is to be blind to all that really matters. It is irrelevant who first violated the frontier, East or West. The question that has to be asked is, which of the two countries is morally responsible for the war? Who started the trouble and whose brutish obstinacy has made war inevitable - Indira Gandhi or Yahya Khan?

The basic facts are not in doubt. Within the State of Pakistan, the more populous Eastern region has been exploited by the Western ever since independence. Islamic solidarity - on which Pakistan was meant to be founded - did not prevent that exploitation, nor has it prevented the emergence of a non-sectarian Bengali national movement in the East. That movement has found its most effective expression in the Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. When Yahya Khan, Pakistan’s military dictator, ordained free election throughout the country, to his apparent surprise the Awami League swept the poll in East Bengal with a demand for complete regional autonomy (though not for out-right secession).

If the elected representatives of Pakistan had ever been allowed to meet, Mujib would have commanded a majority in the Assembly and would therefore have become Prime Minister of the whole country. But that was not to be. After pretending to negotiate with Mujib, while bringing in reinforcements from the West, Yahya cracked down on the national movement in East Bengal and imposed a reign of terror. Mujib was arrested, taken to West Pakistan and put on trial for his life.

Meanwhile, vast numbers of terrified people fled from East Bengal and took refuge in neighbouring Indian territory. The Indian Government accepted, as a humanitarian duty, the task of providing them with means of survival, and this increasingly heavy burden has been carried by India for over eight months with only modest help from the outside world. Apart from the financial cost involved - quite staggering for a poor country - the social tensions have been almost unbearable, and it is doubtful if any other country in the world have borne them so patiently for so long.

We in Britain have only to recall the outcry that there was here when it was suggested that 200,000 East African Asians (fellow-citizens incidentally) might descend upon us. Yet what would 200,000 have been among 50 million, compared with seven million refugees (citizens of another State) in West Bengal alone, among a total population of 40 million, or the 1.3 million refugees in Tripura alongside a local population of 1.5 million? And we , after all, are a rich nation.

Providentially, the Indian General Elections was held just before the crisis broke in East Bengal, and Indira Gandhi was returned to power with a decisive mandate. Her leadership has kept India steady through an appalling, unprecedented ordeal. Her aim throughout has been clear. She has insisted that the refugees must go home, but at the same time she has done everything possible to avoid a direct confrontation with Pakistan. If war is now raging on two fronts, any fair-minded person must see that it is not her fault.

It has been glaringly obvious to her - and to anyone with first-hand knowledge of the situation - that the refugees would return only if and when the military regime in East Bengal was liquidated and power transferred to the people’s elect, more especially to Sheikh Mujib (I talked to hundreds of refugees in early October and can testify that they would not dream of going back on any other terms). Mrs. Gandhi has given Yahya Khan plenty of time to put his house in order. For months she has been holding out against extremely strong domestic pressure to go to war with Pakistan or to recognize an independent Bangladesh. She has been playing for time in the hope that Yahya would avail himself of the opportunity she was offering him to negotiate a face-saving settlement in East Bengal.

She has been supporting the Mukti Bahini (the guerrillas fighting for Bangladesh) but only to a limited extent. Limited because she is well aware of the threat to India that Bengali nationalism may one day pose, and does not wish to supply large quantities of arms which might at some future date be used against India. Limited, too, because she has always known that guerrilla warfare alone could not bring about a change in East Bengal anything like soon enough to met India’s desperately urgent need to be rid of the refugees. Lately, therefore, she has been making some use of regular Indian troops inside East Bengal, to increase the pressure on Yahya. She has done so most reluctantly and only as a last resort, having come to the conclusion that the great Powers either could not or would not force him to see reason. Yahya has responded with an attack in the West and Mrs. Gandhi is now faced with the general war that she has tried so hard to avert.

She deserves our unqualified backing. For Britain to adopt a patronising, mugwumpish attitude would be nothing short of an outrage. India is as much in the right in the present conflict as we were in 1939. It is hardly for us to tell the Indians that they should put themselves at the mercy of the UN. Did we bow to the UN over Gibraltar? Have we agreed to UN intervention in Ulster? Above all we ought to reflect that India’s cause is, in the broadest sense, our cause, for India is practically the only country in the Third World which has preserved and cherished our legacy of freedom. Democracies love to nag each other and to indulge in competitive self- righteousness. India has occasionally done so at our expense, and we have too often done so at India’s. Today we must resist the temptation.

Indira Gandhi is too far-sighted a statesman to have any expansionist aims. Her sole desire is to say goodbye to the refugees. But it is also true that, if she wins the war, it is not only India that will benefit. For one result of India’s victory would be the collapse of military rule and the triumph of democracy in both parts of Pakistan. It is no paradox, therefore, to say that India is fighting to bring freedom to all the people of the subcontinent, who are, in the eye of God, one people.