HINDUSTAN STANDARD, JUNE 4, 1971
BETWEEN HOPES AND ILLUSIONS
By Pran Chopra
Like people who must settle down patiently to the long days of the loo, the refugees from Bangladesh must settle down to the six-months wait Mrs. Gandhi has been talking about. But after the heat of the loo comes a
pleasant monsoon. What lies at the end of the six months’ wait? Mrs. Gandhi’s speech in the Lok Sabha on May 24 is in some ways an advance upon her previous speeches. The fact that for the first time she spoke about Bangladesh, not East Bengal, would have signified little by itself. But it was heavily underscored by the tone of her speech which was altogether more serious more loaded with warnings about the consequences which may follow if no one pays heed to the plight of Bangladesh and the burden which Pakistan has thrown upon India. But she gave away very little about how much heed she thinks anyone is going to pay. The ominous note in her speech has been interpreted in two ways; that Yahya Khan is softening up under the pressure of events and a little thunder in her speeches will bring India some credit for what is likely to happen anyhow, or alternatively that the world is indeed taking “unconscionably long” to wake up to realities and she must prepare India which might follow. But the most likely interpretation is the least unlikable of the three: that while concern about the emerging realities is certainly growing within the Government variable rhetoric is the only answer we have found as yet. So far, we have not squarely faced the possibility that neither the foreseeable internal nor external pressure may prove sufficient for (he gentlemen in Islamabad and to ensure India’s security it can become necessary for the Government to take “all measures” about which Mrs. Gandhi spoke.
The pressure which India would like to see international sources apply upon Islamabad is mainly economic. It is firmly believed in New Delhi that West Pakistan will have to come to a political settlement with East Bengal or else give it up, if it is not allowed to defer its international repayment obligations and, beyond what was already on the way at the end of March is not given any further aid for the next six months or so. In that event, it is thought West Pakistan will not be able to wage even the limited scale operations which would still be needed to cope with such fighting capability as the Mukti Fauj is still able to muster the rest will be seen to by differences within the military junta in Islamabad and between the army and aspiring politicians who will want more power than embattled army commanders are usually willing to transfer to political hands.
This prescription is correct. But one does not see any pharmacy which is willing to dispense it. As far as India is formally aware and officially the only economic denial to which the aid giving countries find themselves committed is that all the foreign aided products in East Bengal have come to a halt and there is little likelihood of their being resumed for several months perhaps for two or three years. But this is less proof the displeasure of aid giving countries with West Pakistan than a physical consequences of the chaos prevailing in East Bengal. As soon as the army’s conflict with the Awami League began, life became too insecure for foreign governments to be sure about the safety of their nation’s working on these projects. All foreign staff were therefore gradually pulled out and it is believed unlikely that they will feel sale enough to go back there for some time to come. In the meantime, the aid meant for these projects will remain suspended. Beyond that and despite the whispered assurance dropped into waiting Indian ears there is no known denial of foreign aid yet; in fact soon after the fighting the Russians made it known that they were sticking to their agreement to build a steel mill near Karachi.
The picture may become a little clearer when the aid consortium for Pakistan meets in August; before that here might be only a glimpse of their attitude when the same countries meet as the aid India consortium, in July. But one obvious thing can be safely said: that by and large the other members of the consortium will take their cue in this matter from Britain and the United States and if the current political attitude of these two countries is any indication of what their future economic policy will be, then India should not expect too much in that quarter. The public and the authorities in both countries have been fully exposed to the gruesomeness of what has happened in East Bengal. The British and American Press has been remarkably frank; even those correspondents have been who were taken on a conducted tour through whitewashed scenes of the recent savagery. Their coverage has won praise from people in New Delhi who are not normally given to paying compliments to the Western Press. But even then official comment in Washington as well as London remains careful not to hurt anyone’s feelings in Islamabad, which only shows how hard they are on their idea that an anchorage in Pakistan, which mostly means West Pakistan to them, is very important for them, in their own interests.
The best example of the contemporary Anglo-American attitude was provided by the British Government on May 25, While it was stated in the House of Commons that day that a special envoy of President Yahya Khan had been told of Britain’s concern over the “East Bengal situation” (whether the situation means the refugee exodus or the military terror or the suppression of the popular will was left carefully vague) it was also slated that Britain had welcomed the envoy’s emphasis upon President Yahya Khan’s “determination to seek an early political solution to Pakistan’s internal political difficulties”. In other words President Yahya Khan can decide for himself what would be the best “solution” for what his envoy euphemistically described as “internal difficulties.
Only a few days earlier Yahya Khan himself had made it abundantly clear that in his solution there would be no room for the Awami League though it had proved itself to be synonymous with the people of East Bengal. One of Yahya Khan’s resounding declarations was that we will deal “with Mujibur Rahman as we see fairly another that there would never be any negotiations with the Awami League; and yet another that he was determined to punish those Awami League leaders who had “committed crimes” and since he also said that Mujib had plotted to arrest him, the President of the country, he clearly implied that Mujib could also be treated as having committed a crime and dealt with accordingly. He did hold out the carrot that Awami League members of the National Assembly would be treated as having been elected as individuals, not as candidates of the League: therefore the ban on the League would not necessarily be extended to them as well and those who were considered to have been sufficiently reformed by their experiences since March 25 might be accommodated in the “political solution.” But other West Pakistani leaders have explained what the accommodation would be: by holding fresh elections in the light of “the changed political realities in East Pakistan” the status of a minority would be conferred upon the majority. With so much in common between them and Yahya Khan, and between Yahya Khan and the hard line generals who constitute the bulk of the military junta, hope should not be invested in an internal break up in West Pakistan unless difficulties arise in the wake of denial of foreign aid to the barbaric oligarchy.
Foreign governments have shown much greater understanding of the refugee problem on the Indian side of the border than for the political problem on the other side. Their response can be described as generous. So generous in fact that Indianfears of the purely economic aspects of the burden begin to seem unrealistic; after all, as against the three and half million refugees who have come already or the five million who may. We normally add fifteen million people to our population every year, and that without gelling any promises of any special assistance for keeping them alive. Given moderate efficiency in relief management the refugees can be confidently hopeful that they will still be alive at the end of six months or even as many years. But whether they will ever cease to be refugees is much less certain. From relief they must go either towards rehabilitation or repatriation; but prospects about one journey are as unsure as about the other and will remain unsure unless either the big powers change their policy towards Pakistan or India decides to act independently of them. In fact the more people talk about the problem on the Indian side of the border rather than the one on the East Bengal side, the less likely does it become that the refugees will ever be able to go back to their homes.
No matter how hard India presses for “credible guarantees” for the refugee when he goes back home, they will never be credible in his eyes if their implementation is left in the hands of Yahya Khan or any puppet-regime that he may yet be able to contrive in Dacca. This is especially true of the two million Hindus who have been driven out and those who may yet be; their sources of livelihood, especially land; which has already been seized and distributed by members of the Muslim League, will never be restored to them by a government which is hostile to the Awami League. That is, if they are able to go back in the first place. During the long and laborious process which Yahya Khan will be able to insist upon for shifting the refugee from the “Indian destitute,” the world will lose all interest in the problem and then only a thin trickle will be allowed to cross back into East Bengal. And yet it is happening every day that the political problem is King pushed into the back ground as everyone talks more and more about the economic and human problem of refugee relief; the contrast between Senator Kennedy’s latest statement, contained in his letter to Secretary of State Rogers, and his earlier statements is a warning light. If it is ignored, the political problem will remain unsolved in the end and therefore the human and economic problem as well. It is an enormous illusion that the latter can be solved while the former is forgotten. Either India must act in the contexi of the political problem or the aid giving countries must show much greater awareness an purposefulness than they are showing at present if the triple problem is not to become a permanent legacy for Bangladesh and India.