POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
New Delhi’s diplomatic offensive
How effective the offensive really is? Or, realistic? Do we actually believe that West Pakistan will eventually crumble, financially and from within? The P. M. said : We will have to go through hell to meet the situation. And RANAJIT ROY asks : Isn’t there hell already in West Bengal and Tripura? And great tension in Assam and Meghalaya?
Mr. Swaran Singh does not apparently subscribe to the facile conclusion drawn some time ago by the Prime Minister’s advisers that the expenditure on the war in Bangladesh would make Islamabad bankrupt in three months or so and that Pakistan would collapse as a consequence of the economic crisis. Returning from his visits to several important chancelleries of the world, the Foreign Minister has had occasion to speak more than once in Parliament. Not once has he deemed it proper to harp on the theme.
Unquestionably the war means a heavy burden on Pakistan’s economy. Any country engaging in war has to be prepared to suffer privations. India is certainly not at war with anybody. But General Yahya Khan has, by his policy in Bangladesh, eminently succeeded in putting a much greater burden on India than he himself is being called upon to bear. How many hundred crores of rupees India will have to spend on the “war evacuees”, as Mrs. Gandhi describes Bangladesh refugees, is difficult to assess precisely. An official estimate put the figure at Rs. 300 crores for the first six months. That estimate was based on the migration of a much smaller number of refugees than have actually come over so far. Hundreds of thousands more are on the way to India.
The Prime Minsiter has said that “We will have to go through hell to meet the situation.” Brave words, indeed. What do these words signify? Is not there hell already in West Bengal and Tripura? Maghalaya is passing through great tension. So too is Assam. General Yahya has been able to upset many things in all the States bordering Bangladesh. In West Bengal and Tripura there is no aspect of life which is normal today. But the tenor of life elsewhere in the country does not seem to have been disturbed. Least of all, in the national capital. New Delhi. there is no sign of austerity anywhere.
Mr. Ajoy Mukherjee has said that one of the prime causes of his resignation was the inability of his Government to cope with the refugee influx. Accepting what he has said to be true, the biggest causalty so far in India of General Yahya’s war in Bangladesh is the grand Democratic Coalition Government of West Bengal. Despite all the blessings of the Centre, the Mukherjee Government jas not lasted. The Pakistant Dictator’s genocide in Bangladesh has thus created a political crisis in a very vital part of India. New Delhi imagines that it will be able to overcome the crisis through another dose of President’s Rule buttressed by the draconian preventive detention laws and the armed might of the Centre.
Mr. Mahitosh Purakayastha, Congress (R) M.P. from Cachar, wondered recently in the Rajya Sabha what the Government of India’s policy was in regard to Bangladesh. He pointed out that when emissaries were being sent abroad to explain India’s policy, even Congress (R) M. Ps were being kept in the dark. The Prime Minsiter was “astonished” by this criticism. She claimed with all vehemence at her command that “our policy is extremely clear”. Neither Mr. Purakayastha nor the country at large was the wiser by Mrs. Gandhi’s assertion.
At her meeting with leaders of opposition groups in the Lok Sabha on Monday. Mrs. Ghandi pleaded for “restraint” in public pronouncements. Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee’s unkind comment was that the Prime Minsiter was advising them to do what the Americans had advised her to do. The meeting was on the Bangladesh issue. At the end of it, Mr. Manoharan of the DMK caustically remarked that the discussion had confused me still more”. It this is the reaction of those who are in a position to discuss the problem with the Prime Minsiter, one can well imagine how the people in general must be feeling. It is time the Government of India takes note that frustration is fast gripping the country. Whether one likes it to be said or not, a feeling that everything is lost is widespread in West Bengal.
Nevertheless. New Delhi does have a policy. The policy is the outcome of the convenient theory that the world powers may be argued into a course of action that would restore democracy in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Judging by what has happened during the past three months, our belief in the essential goodness of these powers is almost fatalistic. We have endeavoured to get the international community on our side to compel General Yahya to hand over power to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of the Awami League which won such a resounding victory in the December elections in Bangladesh. We have been propagating this as the only rational way out of the crisis. We have also tried to convince the world that without fulfilment of this precondition the “war evacuees” cannot be expected to go back. The Prime Minsiter has said that “We cannot send these evacuees to Bangladesh to be butchered.”
Leaving aside the others who have made cntributions to our diplomatic war against Islamabad. Mr. Swaran Singh came back to New Delhi from visits to Moscow, Bonn, Paris, Ottawa, New York, Washington, and London, in that order, full of euphoria for a great thing done. The Americans it must be said, have a penchant for grim humour. The day the Foreign Minsiter landed at the New Delhi Airport the New York Times published the news that two shiploads of military hardware had left the USA for Pakistan well after March 25. It also became known that another ship would soon leave that USA with similar cargo. New Delhi now fears that more consignments of weapons may be sent to Pakistan.
Mr. Swaran Singh’s first reaction was one of scepticism. If arms had been shipped to Pakistan, he said. it was contrary to the impression he had been given in the USA. When the Pentagon is now proved to have told big lies to mislead the Americans themselves about the Vietnam War, we should not feel too much aggrieved that we have been administered a dose of the same medicine. We should be prepared to have further evidence of this type of the “success” we are said to have achieved through our diplomatic manoeuvers.
It is none of the USA’s job or for that matter of any other power to underwrite democracy in any part of the world. The sole objective of every power is to buttress its position in the world and serve its own interests. For this it relies primarily on its own strength. The Americans, in particular, have been keeping in office some of the most atrociously undemocratic regimes in the world: Pakistan occupies a key position in the USA’s world scheme. It would be too optimistic to ask for a different behaviour on the part of any of Washington’s NATO allies.
Our diplomats have gathered bouquets from all over the world for the “restraint” we are showing in the face of the grave crisis created for us by Islamabad. We have been praised for the “magnificent humanitarian work” we are doing for the evacuees. Of these there are seven million now, five million in West Bengal alone. The international community has offered us some crumbs to meet this humanitarian task.
If we are overactive diplomatically, Pakistan is not idle. The supply of American arms to Pakistan would show that Islamabad has not drawn a blank in the world. We seem to be convinced that there can be no solution in Bangladesh except in its emergence as a sovereign country. We may ignore the attitude of the Muslim countries as being motivated by religious considerations, despite the fact that the Muslims, have been butchered in Bangladesh as mercilessly as the Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. None of the powers, whether of Western or the Socialist world, seems to be eagerly waiting for a break-up of Pakistan.
General Yahya’s long-awaited broadcast on Monday has removed whatever expectation there was anywhere that world opinion would compel him to show consideration for the struggling people of Bangladesh open the way for a negotiated settlement and restore democracy in Pakistan. All the pressures supposed to have been generated by the world powers on Islamabad have been in vain. He will not make even the most insignificant concession to Bangladesh unless conspiring to set up a puppet regime is considered so.
The General emitted fire against India. In fact his broadcast was meant to reassure the West Pakistanis that he was not afraid of a war with India, if it came to that. It is reasonable to assume that in his comments on Pakistan’s relations with India or on the affairs of Bangladesh he could not have been so provocative unless his diplomatic information had convinced him that he could do so with impunity. He may be thinking that India’s difficulties have increased during the past three months and that he is much stronger in Bangladesh today than he was in April and May. How India reacts remains to be seen. It is quite likely that New Delhi would start another diplomatic offensive and try to utilise General Yahya’s announced stand to win over the world powers to our side.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 1.7.1971