Swaran Singh mission faces dubious prospect
From J. K. BANERJEE, UNITED NATIONS, JUNE 12.—New Delhi has now sent its official and unofficial emissaries to foreign capitals after its attempts to influence foreign governments to look at the evacuee problem as a result of Pakistan’s action in Bangladesh, as India sees it, had failed. Foreign Minsiter Swaran Singh is on a diplomatic swing through Moscow and the Western capitals. At a lower level but with full cooperation of the Indian government Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan is also engaged in the same task.
To assess the prospects of India’s high level diplomatic drive, it will be necessary to know what India’s own view about the crisis is? What India wants in happen in Bangladesh? Is the problem for India purely humanitartain and economic? Is it realistic to talk about the return of the refugees to their homes when their ranks are being joined each day by hundred thousands more fleeing Pakistan?
Or is the problem purely and simply a political one? Can or will the refugees recross the frontier unless conditions have been created to persuade them to do so voluntarily?
On this point namely creation of suitable conditions within Bangladesh. New Delhi has never been clear. What kind of conditions? Under whose aegis? Normality of the cemetery guarded by an army of occupation?
Does New Delhi agree with the leaders of the Bangladesh Government that there can be no normalisation of the situation causing the refugees to retur except under conditions of independence? Or does it think in terms of a settlement between the Bangladesh representatives and Yahy Khan? And should there be no Bangladesh leader to make a deal with Yahya Khan, will New Delhi then co-operate with Islamabad to persuade or force the refugees to return home?
Of course the basic old question of all: does New Delhi want an independent Bangladesh? Or does it talk about the quick repatriation of the refugees and a political solution because it prefers Pakistan to remain in tact?
And finally does it concede the East Bengalis the right to decide about staying within Pakistan completely freely that is making the decision only after the West Pakistan troops had left for their own homes?
The answers to these questions naturally will decide what Mr. Swaran Singh will have to say in the European capitals and here in New York and Washington. Should he ask these capitals to, exert pressure on Islamabad? If so, for what purpose? For making up with Mujib?. Or for gracefully accepting the latter’s demand for independence? For the sixpoint autonomy? There is searcely any room for success if such is Mr. Singh’s purpose.
Or will he ask these powers to stop all economic and military aid to Yahya? If so, for what purpose? Could Mr. Singh suggest that such a ban would bring about Islamabad’s economic collapase or, at any rate, curtail its war capability? Since the result in either case will be Pakistan’s disiniegration, given the mood of the East Bengalis, it is hardly likely that any Big Power or even Bonn or Ottawa will stop aid and thereby hem Pakistan’s disintegration. Thus even the argument about stopping military and economic aid to Islamabad can only be made as a plea for pressuring Islamabad to make up with the eastern wing so that the refugee problem is solved and Pakistan’s territorial integrity preserved.
Under the circumstances, the only line of talks that remains open if India does not want the status quo ante is not to ask anyone to do something, but to give everyone fair notice that unless Islamabad rectifies the situation. New Delhi will have no option for economic, political and security reasons but to rectify it itself by taking suitable means including military intervention.
This is a line where there will be no danger of a rebuff or a tiasco. And it is the only one that is likely to have an international response. But India’s determination must be credible.
First fruit
The unambiguous reference to the danger of an India-Pakistan war by the Soviet Prime Minsiter Mr. Kosygin in his June 9 speech in Moscow, may be taken as the first fruit of Mr. Singh’s Moscow visit.
Specifically, Mr. Kosygin spoke of the “profound alarm of the world public opinion” by the increased tension” in India-Pakistan relations.
This judgment is borne out by two facts. Ever since early April when President Podgorny elated the Bangladesh leaders by charging Islamabad with repression, Moscow has been silent obviously in order not to burn all bridges with Islamabad already angry at the Podgorny letter. Mr. Kosygin’s speech is more important because it implies that should there be a war the blaime would lie squarely with Islamabad.
But more significant is the clear reference to the military operations in Bangladesh as the sole cause of the human tragedy, most poignantly reflected in the mass flight of millions of refugees into India.
the tension to “known events in East Pakistan”. Even those friends of Gen. Yahaya Khan. who endorse his action as necessary to pieserve Pakistan’s unity, do not deny that the present situation is the direct tosult of that allegedly necessary military crackdown.
Secondly Mr. Kosygin said that these known events created in East Bengal situation that “forced millions of people to have their hand, homes and property and seek refuge in neighboring India.
Since it is the conditions created by the unceasing influx of refugees into India, and not the attempt to suppress.
First, Mr. Kosygin related the independence movement officially regarded by New Delhi as Pakistan’s “internal” matter, is the sole cause of the tension between the two countries. Mr. Kosygin obviously identifies himself with India’s assessment of the origin and the present status of the crisis.
Mr. Kosygin of course did not say what Gen. Yahya Khan must do actually to persuade the refugees to return. Should be allow Mr. Mujibur Rahman to assume power in East Bengal? And to permit this to happen take his Punjabi military back to West Pakistan? Well, New Delhi too has not been more explicit about this than Moscow.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 12.6.1971