NEW DELHI.In a striking historical juxtaposition, Indira Gandhi won her landslide election victory just two weeks before the start of the blood bath in Bengal, dramatically underlining the contrast between the torment of Pakistan and a hopeful new phase of political stability in India.

The emergence of Prime Minister Gandhi to a position of authority even her father failed to achieve was not only an event of great promise for this country in domestic terms.

At a moment when the entire South Asian subcontinent could slide abruptly into a chain reaction of conflict, the fact that power in New Delhi is in strong hands has also made it possible for India to act with notable caution and moderation in the East Pakistan crisis. Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, has reacted bitterly to the Indian parliament's resolution expressing "sympathy and support" for the Bengali resistance fighters in East Pakistan, pointing to swollen army strength in West Bengal as evidence or interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. But the Indian response appears restrained when measured in the light or the political pressures here and of what New Delhi, with its easy access to East Pakistan along the lengthy West Bengal frontier, could have done.

ARMY PRESENCE

The army presence in Calcutta was enlarged to three divisions a full month before the fighting started, to cope with election turbulence.

The parliament resolution was designed to offer verbal psychological release in place of substantive action and was accompanied by a series of private meetings with opposition leaders in which Mrs. Gandhi successfully appealed for a free hand.

By all accounts, she neutralized the issue without making firm commitments on either military aid or recognition of an independent East Pakistan regime. Both the reports of foreign corespondents who have visited border areas and the best information available here suggest that so far there are no systematic or large-scale supplies of Indian weaponry going across the border. On the contrary, the greatest fear of some officials is that Indian profiteers and smugglers in Calcutta will gravitate toward the affluent West Pakistani authorities in Dacca rather than toward the hard-pressed Bengalis, making the most of acute food and fuel shortages.

The cautious Indian response has been governed not only by the self-evident dangers of military escalation inherent in the situation but also by domestic political factors and fear of getting caught up in a power struggle between contending Bengali factions through extending premature recognition.

One of the immediate reasons for the cautious Indian government reaction to date is that Awami League leaders in East Pakistan have indicated their desire to avoid excessive identification with India, which would play into the hands of West Pakistani propagandists, until Indian help can be blended with a larger international assistance effort.

This factor would obviously no longer apply in an independent regime is formed in the weeks ahead and New Delhi sees no further hope for even a transitional political settlement between Islamabad and Dacca. India might well decide on recognition under such circumstances, but it would do so with the same misgivings that have accounted for the go-slow policy followed until now.

What has basically given Mrs. Gandhi pause is a fear that continuing strife in East Pakistan could gradually erode the internal stability achieved in the election and give a new lease to the very forces defeated at the polls.

One of the most significant aspects of the voting was the setback suffered by the Hindu right wing and the united support given to Mrs. Gandhi by the 65 million Indian Moslems. Now the Hindu right has the most powerful anti-Pakistan issue in years as well as a weapon for stirring up suspicion against Indian Moslems as secret allies of Pakistan.

With Hindu extremists gloating over West Pakistan's situation, some Moslem leaders have reacted by maintaining a silence that has been conspicuous at a time when Indian politicians generally are vying for pro-Bengali honors. Moslem newspapers such as Azad of Banaras have implied that a weakened Pakistan inevitably means diminished security for the Indian Moslems. The resultant response of the Hindu right ignores the fact that the victims in Bengal are primarily Moslems, too, since the rightist objective is to build up an anti- Pakistan atmosphere looking to an eventual war.

MILITARY RETALIATION

It is widely assumed here that recognition of an independent East Pakistan regime would lead to a rupture of diplomatic relations by Islamabad and possible military retaliation. Mrs. Gandhi's dilemma is that the recognition demand reflects both authentic sentiments of positive support for the Bengali cause on the part of some Indians and what is really an effort to provoke a breach with West Pakistan on the part of others. In any case, II the end result 18 a war this would not only strain the delicate communal fabric she has so carefully developed but would mean postponement of plans for a massive rural public works program and other economic priorities to permit support of an expanded military effort.

Perhaps the most far-reaching achievement by the prime minister in her election sweep was her defeat of regional parties on both the right and left. By separating the parliamentary elections just held from state legislature elections, in contrast to past practice, she pushed local issues to the side and was able to focus popular attention on symbols of national rather than regional patriotism. But just when regional forces were at bay, the East Pakistan upheaval has given West Bengal Communist groups and advocates of greater regional autonomy in other states a powerful new fillip.

In West Bengal, Mrs. Gandhi's state regime seems sure to suffer whether or not she sticks to her non-recognition policy. At present she is belabored for not helping the Bengalis enough, and this mood is being vigorously exploited by the Communists. Yet the establishment of an independent East Bengal regime could well prompt the West Bengal Communists to adopt a hardened autonomy, going beyond their present limited demands of the major share of taxes collected in the state to a more sweeping, specific program comparable to the six points of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

In time, a sovereign East Bengal could lead to a revival of the "United Bengal" idea proposed twice during the years immediately before and after the 1947 partition of the subcontinent by Bengali Moslem leaders, including two who became prime ministers of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Bogra and H. S. Suhrawardy. Two years ago, in the euphoric first days of the leftist United Front government installed in West Bengal following the 1969 elections, Communist leaders Promode Das Gupta and Hari Khrishna Konar made it clear in interviews with me that they had the idea in mind as a long-term possibility in they could consolidate their position in West Bengal and like-minded forces ever came to power in East Pakistan.

Hindu-Moslem tension and the provincial autonomy issue are both embodied in the perennial, unresolved Kashmir dispute. The triumph of autonomy in East Pakistan, even in a confederal setup, would turn a searing spotlight on Indian Kashmir policy, and full independence for Dacca would give a handle to Kashmiri nationalists at a time when the principal Kashmiri leader, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, has been more amenable to proposals for an autonomous status within the Indian union than ever before.

SHEIKH BANNED

Despite some mellowing in his position during recent years, Mrs. Gandhi banned Sheikh Abdullah from Kashmir during the election period and has just extended the ban for another three months in a move barely noted by the Indian press.

Vulnerable as New Delhi is on Kashmir, however, it would not be correct to equate the Indian record in Srinagar with West Pakistani treatment of East Pakistan quite apart from the fact that Indian repression has never remotely rivaled the West Pakistani performance.

The two cases are superficially alike in that both India and Pakistan have had to maintain costly occupation forces But India has also poured enormous sums into rice subsidies and development programs, in complete contrast to the colonialist economic approach of Islamabad to the Bengalis.