Both Mrs Gandhi and President Yahya Khan have lately been sounding warnings about the increased tension along the border between their two countries. Both protest their own pacific intentions. If only, they say, the other government would see sense and stop behaving as it now does all would be well. By now the ebb and flow of anger between India and Pakistan has become so familiar that such warnings as these might be sceptically regarded; not so much real fears as statements made to rally home opinion.

When Mr Kosygin in Canada adds his fear that “acts of war are very possible” there is bound to be more attention. Are these two countries after all on the brink of repeating the clash of 1965? It would be much worse now if East Pakistan were to be the spark than it was then. It was after the 1965 war that the Russians moved in as peacemakers though with little more success than earlier efforts by other powers to compose relations between India and Pakistan. But the lessons of 1965 remain and both Mrs Gandhi and President Yahya Khan are well aware how much they have to lose if a clash occurred. Both are ready to suppress or contradict the hawks in their midst. But certainly the dangers persist.

Behind Pakistan's fear is the end of the monsoon and thus of more intensive guerrilla operations. Not that that means any real military threat, but if the eighty or hundred thousand Bengalis trained on Indian soil were now to be thrown into the battle the inevitable border incidents could lead anywhere. So President Yahya Khan's speech last week, while voicing fears of Indian aggression in some form, also plodded on with his policy of political reconciliation and a return to constitutional rule. Not in terms generous enough to win over any Bengali nationalist opinion, perhaps, but holding out some hope of further advance and giving the Indian Government grounds for thinking that a solution may not be inconceivable.

Mrs Gandhi's retort would be that her problem with the millions of refugees is much too urgent to wait on President Yahya Khan's plodding. He may have an opposition to contend with in advancing step by step to his political solution— Shaikh Mujib is no longer now condemned outright in the official Pakistan press—but she has a much more vocal one, including many sections of her own party who are ready for a righteous swipe at Pakistan if circumstances lead to it. If she does not get refugees moving back across the frontier soon she may not find it easy to shift them at all. So India must appear to be backing a war of liberation for East Bengal while claiming on the other hand to be exercising the utmost restraint against Pakistan. It is an uncomfortable attitude.

The Russian advice to President Yahya Khan has been that he must restore democracy in East Pakistan —which to give him his due he has shown himself willing to do. But the process needs to be speeded up. Even if it will take time before Shaikh Mujib can be released some credible representatives of Bengali opinion must be found. In Moscow recently Mrs Gandhi was told that the vital issue was peace in the subcontinent and not the independence of East Bengal. She would no doubt agree with that, but her difficulties must be respected. A point of compromise that will turn East Pakistan back to peaceful ways needs quicker concessions than Pakistan is making at the moment.