POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
India did protest too much!
BY RANJIT ROY, It is time the Government of India realised that its credibility over the affairs of Bangladesh has slumped. The enthusiasm created by its pronouncements in the early days of the struggle in Bangladesh has largely disappeared and given place to a mood of despondency in the country in general and in the Eastern States in particular.
About two months ago—when General Yahya Khan’s terror had driven into India no more than a few lakh of people Bangladesh-we began proclaiming that unless the migration stopped and conditions were created for the return of the hapless refugees the consequences would be dangerous. The impression that was created was that India would be forced to take deterrent action.
The threat has been repeated time and again by our leaders. Our emissaries are doing the same abroad. Undeterred. General Yahya has been fulfilling his mission. Today, nearly six million people have sought shelter in the Eastern States. We are still changing the mantram that we first uttered two months ago.
Cold calculations have been made by people who should know that all the five million caste Hindus of Bangladesh will be forced out. Along with them, it is said, a million or two scheduled caste Hindus will come over. Together with several lakh Muslims, who have already sought shelter, and others to come, the total migration may ultimately be between seven and eight million.
The fear is that they might constitute a permanent burden on this country more especially on the hard-pressed impoverished, benighted West Bengal and Tripura. At the end of it, whatever may or may not happen to Bangladesh. West Bengal and Tripura will be prostrate. The Bengalis have not yet been made to pay the full price of independence India got through a compromise with the British in August 1947. Not long after partition. Mr. Nehru said: “Minotities in East Pakistan are certainly our concern to the extent that they have security and if they do not have security, measures will have to be devised to give them security.” Such statements have mocked the Bengalis for all the years of independence.
We have been speaking to ourselves and to other countries of the deterent, steps we may have to take against Islamabad. Has any country been taken in by the declaration? Indeed. Is Islamabad taking us seriously? Judging by the movement of troops from West Pakistan to Bangladesh, it would appear Islamabad calculates that there is no danger of an armed conflict between India and Pakistan. In fact, Islamabad may have been reassured by some foreign countries on this score.
Our intelligence seems to have let down the Government once again. Even in mid-April we were imagining that Islamabad would not dare weaken its military capacity in West Pakistan so as to strengthen it in Bangladesh. It was presumed that General Yahya understood that he had taken risk by transferring one and a half divisions behind the smokescreen of his political negotiations with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and would not take any more risk. But since march 25 he has taken two and a half divisions with full armour to Bangladesh where he now has a concentration of five divisions.
It was also presumed that, if General Yahya did decide to take the risk. New Delhi would be able to stall it by increasing its troop concentrations on the western frontier and undertaking a few manoeuvres. We do not seem to have done anything of the kind. The explanation that is given is that, even if we had done this, we could not have stopped Islamabad from carrying out its troop movement plan. It is now realised that General Yahya has been able to mobilise a formidable force in Bangladesh.
In the international field our effort is to involve the Western powers and the Soviet Union in the affairs of Bangladesh and in the provision of relief for the refugees in India. Islamabad, on its part, is not lying idle. It is convassing for economic aid as well as for relief materials for the impoverished people of Bangladesh. Whatever the amount of aid that may come one can be sure that the aid-giving countries and international agencies would send large contingents of “relief workers” and “officers” to both Bangladesh and the border states of India in the name of assessing the requirements and of distribution of relief. The presence of foreigners in strength will itself be a deterrent to a strong action by India against Pakistan.
Is it conceivable that through the good offices of foreign countries we would be able to ensure the return of the refugees of Bangladesh? The Arabs, supposed to be India’s traditional friends, have betrayed even their co-religionists in Bangladesh. Not one country, certainly none of the Big Powers, has so far even remotely indicated that it is for disintegration of Pakistan. All that they at best are interested in is a compromise between Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and General Yahya, which they call a political settlement in Bangladesh. New Delhi seems to know that the refugees, except for a sprinkling of the Muslims, would not go back if the Pakistan’s blood-thirsty dictator has any foothold in Bangladesh. What New Delhi is unable to decide is what to do. There is a conflict between the political assessment of the situation and the military problem.
What the Government of India does not apparently want to see is that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to send the refugees back even after Bangladesh becomes independent and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his followers are in power. It goes to the credit to the Sheikh that against impossible odds, he has fought communalism all his life. There is no reason what ever to doubt that he and his followers will continue to do so. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed, and other leaders have repeatedly assured the refugees that they will be received back in Bangladesh as full citizens of the country and that their property would be restored to them.
But, even with the best intentions in the world, the circumstances in Bangladesh, even after the West Pakistanis are driven out, may be beyond their control so far as the return of the refugees are concerned. Bangladesh’s density of population is among the highest in the world. The pressure on land is terrific. There is largescale unemployment and under-employment in both urban and rural areas. The vacuum General Yahya has created and is creating by driving out millions will be filled up in no time. As a matter of fact. It appears that this is being done on a planned scale with the help of the troops. Land or shops or other means of living from which the refugees have been thrown out are being handed over to those who are remaining there. To enable the refugees to go back to their old occupations will involve creating a new vacuum. This will be a formidable task for any Government.
Hindustan Standard 17.6.1971