NEW DELHI, Nov. 17 — At any other time in the past, the military clashes now occurring between India and Pakistan on their borders—some of battalion size —would immediately have begun a full‐scale war such as the two countries have fought twice before. But so far both sides have held back — India be cause she believes that her objective of a friendly, independent East Pakistan might be accomplished by military activity short of war, and Pakistan apparently because Indian forces are superior and because a total war would weaken Pakistan far more than the Indian‐supported Bengali independence struggle in East Pakistan has.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has asked the Indian Parliament—and her people—for a little more time to give the Western powers a chance to force Pakistan into a political settlement with the Bengali insurgents. How much time she wants she has not said.

Many commentators think she is talking in terms of weeks, not months. “India can not be browbeaten nor lulled into a false sense of security,” she told Parliament in her report on her recent three‐week mission to Europe and the United States.

Indian officials are pessimistic about the outcome of any negotiating effort. Reliable sources here report that in the talks Mrs. Gandhi and her staff held in Washington two weeks ago, Nixon Administration officials suggested various levels of negotiation be tween the Pakistani Government and representatives of the rebel movement called Bangla Desh (Bengal Nation), which operates most of the time out of Calcutta.

Compromise Doubted

The Indians reportedly re plied that the only man who could possibly negotiate for the Bengalis is Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the jailed leader of the East Pakistani independence movement who is on trial for treason. The Americans are said to have responded that President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, who has branded Sheik Mujib a traitor, displays anger at any mention of the Bengali leader.

That is where it was left, ac cording to the sources, with the Americans saying they would try and the Indians saying they hoped something would come of such efforts.

But the Indians do not think that even Sheik Mujib could sell anything less than full in dependence to his people—not after all the Bengali blood that has been shed since the Pakistani Army began its offensive last March to crush the secession movement.

Moreover, the Indians would insist, as would the Bengali nationalist politicians and fighting forces, that Sheik Mujib be briefed by them on the developments of the last eight months before he could sit down at any negotiating table. Since his imprisonment last March, Sheik Mujib—the title is honorary — has presumably been told nothing of what has happened in East Pakistan, such as the recent significant successes of the Bengali guerrillas fighting under his name.

According to many knowledgeable sources here, the Nixon Administration sees the best hope for defusing the situation in a settlement by stages. This would involve a period of autonomy for East Pakistan within the framework of Pakistan and then gradual progress toward independence. The British are said to share this view.

Arms Aid to Continue

But in the opinion of most diplomats here, any Bengali politician who discussed any thing short of total independence would be discredited or possibly killed, as the Bengali guerrillas are killing those in East Pakistan who are collaborating with the military government.

Because of the Indian pessimism about the efficacy of negotiations, Mrs. Gandhi's request for a little more time to await the results of the Western overtures may be largely for appearances. Authoritative information indicates that the Indians are not only unwilling to cut down their arms and artillery cover to the Bengali insurgents during this waiting period but also may even increase it.

Although many newspapers here had speculated that Mrs. Gandhi would take direct action immediately upon her return from her trip last Saturday—by declaring a national emergency for example, or by granting formal recognition to the Bangle Desh government and signing a defense treaty with it—she has chosen a more softly orchestrated course. “She couldn't go abroad on a trip billed as last try for peace’ and then declare war the minute she got off the plane,” one Western diplomat said.

It seems unlikely that Mrs. Gandhi will declare war at all if she can help it. Her apparent strategy is to keep escalating the pressure on the Pakistani troops in East Pakistan, through aid to the much improved and increasingly effective Bengali guerrillas, who have some of their bases on Indian soil.

India to Press Pakistan

The hope in New Delhi, it seems, is that the situation will become so untenable for the Pakistanis that they will abandon East Pakistan with out attacking India in Kashmir or attempting to seize a piece of Indian territory there in retribution.

Apparently, the idea Is to force the next move on the Pakistanis and put the onus on them for any decision to go to war.

The political, social and economic pressures building on India have forced a speed‐up in her timetable. New Delhi can no longer wait for classical guerrilla war to run its prolonged course.

Even with the flow of refugees from East Pakistan down to less than 10,000 a day, from an earlier average of 30,000 to 40,000, the refugees — than nine million India says — have squeezed the al ready strained Indian economy, raised the specter of communal riots and posed formidable political problems.

Mrs. Gandhi, who has al ready raised some minor taxes to help meet the refugee costs, cannot ask for the major tax increase she needs unless she can show the already dis affected Indian public some progress toward a solution.

For the same reasons, analysts believe, the Prime Minister must produce dramatic results in East Pakistan be fore she takes her New Congress party into the state elections next February.

“She's got to keep tightening the screws on the Pakistanis,” a diplomat said, “and hope that they crack.”