India and Pakistan:
Over the Edge

Section: The World, Page 28, TIME, Dec. 13, 1971

Self-Determination

It soon became clear that India would make an all-out effort to ensure self-determination for Bangla Desh. India's desire to bring about an independent nation there has soon as possible stems from two factors. First is tremendous economic and social burden of the refugees who have sought sanctuary in India. Second is that in a prolonged guerilla war the moderate leadership of the Awami League would probably give way to more radical political forces, perhaps leading to a Peking-oriented government on India's border. A third factor, of course, is India's unspoken desire to weaken its neighbor by detaching a sizable chunk of its territory.

For several months, Indian troops and Pakistani forces have been engaged in almost daily border skirmishes. In the past two weeks, Indian forces, working with bengali guerillas, have stepped up pressures against Pakistan's troops in the east; in retaliation the West Pakistanis have been rampaging through Bengali villages in kill-and-burn raids slaughtering some 2000 people in the vicinity of Dacca alone.

Even while Mrs. Indira Gandhi was speaking to Parliament, India was launching an invasion of East Pakistan. In Rawalpindi, former Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who is slated to be deputy premier in a civilian government the Yahya is said to be planning, declared: "I don't see the Indian army just sweeping through East and West Pakistan in a matter of weeks. Either there will be a stalemate, or each side will take some territory from the other and then negotiate."

That may prove an optimistic appraisal, in view of India's numerical superiority. As far as troop strength goes Pakistanis are outnumbered by more that two to one in the east. In the west, both countries are reported to have about 250,000 men deployed along the border for an almost even balance. India's overall troop strength is about 980,000 compared with Pakistan's 392,000, but an estimated eight mountain divisions are on guard along India's borders with China.

In materiel, India also has the edge: of its 1,450 tanks, about 450 are Russian medium tanks, and about 300 Indian-made Vijayanta tanks. India has 625 combat aircraft, including some 120 MIG-21 supersonic fighters and eight squadrons of Indian-made Gnats. For its part, Pakistan has about 1,100 tanks, including 200 American Patton tanks, 255 Chinese T-59s, and numerous old American Shermans and Chafees of limited utility. Pakistan's 285 combat aircraft include two squadrons of Mirage III fighters and eight squadrons of American F-86 Sabres.

There were no estimates of casualties at week's end. But India claimed to have destroyed a total of 33 Pakistani aircraft. The Indian Defense Ministry admitted to the loss of eleven of its own fighters. As India seemed to be engaged primarily in a holding action in the west while aiming a quick knock out in the East. Pakistani ground forces claimed to have seized "significant territory" on India's western border. One of the Pakistani advances was in the Sialkot sector in Kashmir; India admitted loosing "some ground" on the Punjab border near Ferozepore.

Stray Cattle

Outmanned and likely to be outgunned, Pakistan's Yahya Khan may well have realized that he had only two options: negotiations or war, both with probable result of independence for Bangla Desh. Since negotiations without a war would mean going down without a fight, the generals might have decided to choose war; such a course would enable them to say that the breakup of Pakistan was caused not by faintheartedness but by superior forces.

Islamabad also figured that timely intervention on the part of the United Nations, which might be expected if war is declared , would enable West Pakistan to extricate its troops as part of a cease-fire. At U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, however, the big powers seemed paralyzed. With the subcontinent about to burn, the Security Council spent most of the week fiddling around with a debate over an obscure border dispute between Senegal and Portuguese Guinea involving some stray cattle. As one oldtimer quipped: "India-Pakistan is too important to get into the U.N."

With Russia lined up behind India, China supporting Pakistan and the U.S. also leaning sharply toward Pakistan, no one wanted to risk a session that would dissolve into a sulfurous shouting match. Nonetheless, at week's end, the 15-member Security Council met to take up the problem.

Preserving Leverage

In Washington , Secretary of State William Rogers cancelled a scheduled trip to Iceland. After huddling with state department advisers and conferring by telephone with Richard Nixon at the President's Key Biscayne retreat in Florida, Rogers announced his decision late last week to take the issue to the U.N. "The U.S. hopes that the Council can take prompt action on steps which could bring about a cease-fire, withdrawal of forces and an amelioration of the present threat to international peace and security," he said. But no one was optimistic about its outcome -- and rightly so.

U.S. Ambassador George Bush introduced a resolution calling for a cease fire, an immediate withdrawal of armed personnel by both sides, and the placement of observers along the borders. The proposal won eleven votes, with two abstentions (Britain and France) and two nays (the Soviet Union and Poland). It was the veto by the Soviet Union's Yakov Malik, who blamed "Pakistan's inhuman repression" for the conflict, that killed the measure.

In any event, the Administration's decision to get involved in the situation was belated at best. Seeking to preserve its leverage with Yahya in hopes of inducing him to restrain his troops, the U.S. managed only to outrage India, which felt among other things that it had become the pawn in the Administration's move to use Pakistan as the bridge for Nixon's detente with Peking.

Two Sides

At the week's end, the U.S. seemed determined to alienate New Delhi even further with a harsh State Department declaration that in effect officially blamed India for the war on the subcontinent and failed to mention the brutal policies pursued by the Pakistani military regime. "We believe," the statement said, "that since the beginning of the crisis, Indian policy in a systematic way has led to perpetuation of the crisis, a deepening of the crisis, and that India bears the major responsibility for the broader hostilities which have ensued," The statement was cleared with the President, one high official stressed.

Clearly, there were at least two sides to the conflict, and the U.S.'s blatant partiality toward Pakistan seemed both unreasonable and unwise. India has legitimate grievances: the cost of caring for 10 million refugees, $830 million by the end of March; the threat of large scale communal turmoil in the politically volatile and hard-pressed state of West Bengal, where the bulk of refugees have fled; the presence on India soil of large numbers of guerillas who could become a militant force stirring up trouble among India's own dissatisfied masses; and finally, the prospect of a continued inflow of refugees so long as the civil war continues.

To be sure, New Delhi is not above criticism. The Indians have seemed entirely too eager to convert the situation into geopolitical profit by ensuring that Pakistan would be dismembered. Whatever the motives, however, both India and Pakistan stand to lose far more that they can afford. As a Pakistani general, a moderate, put it last week while the conflict worsened: "War could set India back for years -- and ruin Pakistan."

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

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