SOME BANGLADESH QUESTIONS
New Delhi’s apparent reaction to the proposal for a Yahya-Indira summit seems to be considerably less than well-considered. There are a variety of grounds on which a “summit” can be declared undesirable, among them the probability that, against the background of General Yahya Khan’s statement of June 28, the Pakistani leader can have little useful to say at this stage. This however, is not the same thing as insisting that the Bangladesh issue is exclusively a matter for settlement between West Pakistan and East Bengal: If indeed this were so the claim that the issue is Pakistan’s internal affair would be difficult to refute. The presence of about seven million refugees on Indian soil and the considerations of security to which this gives rice are an assurance of India’s Inextricable involvement in the future of Bangladesh. Islamabad’s motive doubtless is to represent the crisis as one between India and Pakistan, but it can hardly be denied that this is in fact a vital aspect of the entire affair, one which New Delhi has no reason to deny or evade. The implication that negotiations between West Pakistan and East Bengal are the only means of securing a settlement is infinitely more damaging than the other possible implication that the problem is an Indo-Pakistan crisis. The point is certainly that an accommodation between West Pakistan and Mujibur Rahman is essential, but this does not relegate India to the sidelines. It has a direct and supremely important stake in both the substance of a settlement and the means by which it is achieved. One of the happy consequences of New Delhi’s admirable restraint has been the credibility it has acquired abroad on this issue; amateurish attempts to attribute difficulties in Bangladesh to Indian intransigence are unlikely to make any headway against the enormous stock of disapproval which Pakistan has earned for itself in most parts of them world, meanwhile New Delhi cannot escape facing up to the implications of its involvement: it cannot take refuge in suggesting that the crisis is one with which it is not directly concerned. The proposal for a summit, though unacceptable now, can nevertheless be seen as an acknowledgment that the crisis is not and has never been Pakistan’s domestic affair.
The answer is not, as high feeling suggests, to undertake a military adventure across the border. The enormous commitments which India would then be obliged to accept would be crippling: the responsibility to feed and protect seventy-five million people and beyond this to promote a Bangladesh Government whose claims to be considered as a viable entity are yet in doubt. World opinion would recoil unfavourably to such an extension of the crisis and the major powers can be expected to mobilize their pressure in support of an Indian withdrawal. Pakistan will almost certainly exploit which a situation to its advantage and regain a great deal of the ground it has lost abroad in terms of world opinion. New Delhi is already hard pressed by the burden of refugees; it has, consequently, neither the resources nor a justification for adventurism. Moreover, no government in this country can afford to assume that Pakistan will passively accept military intervention by India or that it will necessarily be successful. So much for demands for “strong” action that are too emotionally charged to be taken seriously. New Delhi cannot furthermore be blind to the awkward truth that the situation in West Bengal is not of a kind to encourage foolhardy ventures across the border even if it were assumed-as it is not possible to do-that such ventures are really in the interests of Bangladesh.
There remains the questions whether New Delhi is not justified in the circumstances in arming and training East Bengal guerrillas; this is a point which is not easily dismissed despite India’s reluctance so far to recognize Bangladesh. World pressure on Islamabad will be maintained and increased only so long as resistance in East Bengal proves effective in eroding Yahya’s military base in the East and in preventing the restoration of the economy. Most of the major powers are committed to withholding aid until such time as Pakistan is able to absorb it; it is surely New Delhi’s business, if it can, to ensure that this condition continues to hold good. However, only the East Bengal guerrillas are in a position to do something about it. Have they the necessary organization, the moral, and the leadership to justify Indian aid? If they have, a New Delhi decision to extend such aid is something to which no one, save Pakistan, can object. If they have not there is little New Delhi can do except to ask itself whether the open door policy which encouraged the refugees to pour in-however defensible on humanitarian grounds-was the right one in the light of the country’s interests. [Editorial]
Reference: Hindustan Standard 18.7.1971