NEW DELHI — Not until last Wednesday, six full days after the Pakistani forces surrendered to the Indian Army and East Pakistan became Bangladesh, did the five gray men of the Bangladesh government fly from their exile headquarters in Calcutta to their own capital, Dacca.

Since the Bengali nationalists had waited and fought nine months to gain control of their homeland, most observers had expected the Bangladesh Cabinet members to be in Dacca on the first day of liberation. Their delay seemed like procrastination —a mark, perhaps, of their uncertainty and insecurity in taking charge of the new nation. “They are good chaps,” said one high Indian official, “but they don't have Mujib's leadership qualities.”

Mujib—Sheik Mujibur Rahman remains the crucial missing man.

In moving him from jail in West Pakistan so he can negotiate with him, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the new President of West Pakistan, is simply buying time, in the view of many diplomatic observers here time to sell to the West Pakistanis the idea of freeing the Sheik and returning him to his people.

In the meantime, much of the burden of setting Bangladesh on its feet, reviving its disrupted economy, restoring its damaged communications system and keeping law and order will fall to India.

Some sadistic executions or those who collaborated with the Pakistani Army have already taken place, though the scale of this violence has been relatively minor, considering the wanton killings by the Pakistani troops and their civilian gunmen during the occupation, Diplomatic sources think the slaughter of Bengalis ran into the hundreds of thousands.

Although most of the 70,000 to 75,000 Pakistani troops that surrendered have been disarmed, their collaborators — primarily the non‐Bengali grouped under the name of Biharis — are still in possession of the weapons the Pakistanis gave them. Also still armed are most of the Mukti Bahini, the Bengali guerrillas outfitted by the Indians. Many of these youths have seen their families cut down by Pakistanis or by Bihari razakars (home guards). They are thirsting for revenge.

Indian officials say they will try to channel these elemental Bengali emotions into constructive nation-building pursuits, but they acknowledge that some concessions to the demand for eye‐for‐an‐eye punishment will have to be made. This probably presages a number of war‐crimes trials. Several civilians who served in a puppet government set up by the Pakistani Army were arrested last Friday.

In the economic and social sphere immense problems lie ahead. There is the need for development assistance to prime an economy that was marginal even in normal times. There Is the need for humanitarian assistance to help repatriate the nearly 10 million Bengali refugees who fled to India to escape the Pakistani repression.

As for the coming negotiations with Pakistan, New Delhi holds all the high cards. Though each side made inroads into the other's territory during the fighting in the west, the deepest thrusts were made by India. Indian officials have indicated that they will Insist not only on Sheik Mujib's release but on a redrawing of the Kashmir cease‐fire line in effect since 1948 and of certain other parts of the western border, so as to give India better strategic security. This demand is bound to make for difficult moments in the months ahead.