Four On the Road

Monday, Nov. 08, 1971
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Indira's visit to Washington this week comes at what many observers regard as the lowest ebb ever in Indian-American relations. Indians have been particularly outraged that the Administration has continued shipments of military materiel to Pakistan. As Indira rather bitterly put it: "As you know, everybody admires our restraint. We get the verbal praise, and the others, who are not restrained, get arms support." Such action, she indicated, amounted to condonation of "a genocide, a pogrom on people who tried to bring democracy into practice." She was referring to Pakistani President Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan's crackdown on East Pakistan's majority Apolitical party, the Awami League; the arrest of its leader Sheik Mujibur Rahman, now on trial for treason before a secret military tribunal; and terrorist tactics that by one estimate have claimed a million lives. In turn, Washington is likely to urge Mrs. Gandhi to reconsider her rejection of Yahya's proposal for a mutual troop pullback from the borders.

Temptation. Reports of an increasing number of border incidents last week underscored the urgency of a quick solution —which, however, is hardly in sight. Both sides traded charges of shelling across the borders. The Indian government said that five people were killed and 20 wounded when Pakistani mortar shells hit the Indian city of Agartala. At the same time, Pakistan reported that Indian artillery had shelled border villages in East Pakistan, killing 64 civilians in one day alone. Pakistan also claimed to have killed 579 "Indian troops and agents"—a euphemism frequently used for Bengali guerrillas. In Kashmir, 35 Pakistani and eight Indian soldiers were reported killed in border clashes.

With armed forces totaling 930,000. India appears to have a clear advantage over the 364,500-man Pakistani armed forces. Moreover, Pakistan has 80,000 of its men tied down in East Pakistan, 1,100 miles from main supply bases. The heaviest troop concentrations on both sides are now along the India-West Pakistan border—including the disputed Kashmir region—where Pakistan has marshaled forces of about 250,000 and India is believed to have a like number. What the Indians fear most, however, is that when the Pakistani army begins to feel pressure from the Bengali guerrillas, who are expected to number about 100,000 by next year, it may be tempted to go to war with India to elicit third-power or United Nations intervention. Not that India is free from such temptations. According to the Indian Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, a quick war with Pakistan would cost New Delhi less than dealing with the still swelling number of refugees and the inevitable social turmoil that they bring. That, of course, does not reckon with the other, more disastrous costs of such a war. 4. Nonaligner in Washington

"Zivela Yugoslavia!" Richard Nixon exclaimed exuberantly in Serbo-Croatian, as he threw his arm around Josip Broz Tito on the red-carpeted South Lawn of the White House last week. The Yugoslav President beamed with pleasure and replied with an equally enthusiastic "Viva America!"