RETURNING home from a tour of Western capitals last
week, India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for the first
time began talking in terms of taking action over the
East Pakistan crisis. The refugees would have to go
home, she said, and India would give world leaders some
more time to put constructive pressure on Pakistan for a
political settlement. Pakistan hopes to swing world
support its way by emphasising, as it did again last
week, that Mrs. Gandhi has refused to hold summit talks
with President Yahya Khan. The Indian position is that
summit talks should be between Yahya Khan and Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman, the hero of the Bengalis.

In the face of such apparently irreconcilable positions,
the undeclared war on the borders of East Pakistan is
steadily escalating. US Secretary of State William
Rogers for one seems to expect the worst very soon. His
assessment may be based on the imperative need for India
to end the refugee problem which, in the circumstances,
can only be achieved "liberating" Bangla Desh. This
possibility, not to speak of growing impatience in
military as well as political circles in West Pakistan,
makes it equally imperative for the military government
in Islamabad to force a showdown and perhaps seek
compensation on the Kashmir front for the losses it
inevitably must suffer in Bengal.

China's seeming coolness towards the recent Pakistani
mission to Peking might have been expected to improve
the situation. Premier Chou En-lai followed it up with a
message of friendship to Mrs. Gandhi which,
significantly, was released by New Delhi this week.
However, the compulsions which drive India and Pakistan
towards the ultimate tragedy appear to be too strong to
be removed by such gestures from outside.

The complexities of the emerging confrontation are
examined in the following pages. The Review's
correspondent in Pakistan describes the Vietnamisation
of East Bengal. From New Delhi comes an assessment of
Indian calculations about the guerillas - who proved
their growing strength last week by sending gunboats to
attack a British freighter in the Bay of Bengal. A
specialist on communist affairs asks whether the
secessionist movement in East Bengal will encourage
similar movements in India. The plight of the refugees -
more tragic now because it has become a stale story-is
presented in poignant detail by Harji Malik. And what of
that perennial subcontinental thorn, Kashmir? From
Srinagar, capital of the state that could again become
the scene of a bitter war, comes a timely background
report by visiting correspondent Martin Stuart-Fox.