NEW DELHI, June 11.-Behind the problem of caring for the more than 5 million East Pakistanis now in India lies the fear that the refugee influx will spark new Hindu- Moslem killings.

No slayings connected with the refugees has taken place, but in offices here and in Calcutta the potential for violence is spoken of as a primary worry.

Hardly a month goes by in normal times without a violent incident-many, often small ones, sparked by religion, the divisive legacy that has not been worn away in the 24 years since India and Pakistan became independent.

The present situation, one observer said, can really be seen as a continuation of 1947 In that year over 1 million people were killed as the Hindu and Moslem communities were given the choice of becoming Indians or Pakistanis .

Despite efforts by Hindus to drive out Moslems from India and pressure on Hindus to leave Pakistan at that time, sizeable communities did not move. An estimated 60 million Moslems still live in India and 10 million Hindus lived in East Pakistan before March.

The refugees now leaving East Pakistan however, are almost entirely Hindus. Some Indian authorities accuse Pakistan of seeking to drive out all Hindus, thereby removing a minority population that was never sympathetic to the Pakistan central government.

Pakistani officials here charge that India invited the massive refugee exodus by issuing statements of sympathy with the insurgent Bangla Desh movement and welcoming all who chose to cross the border. In the early days of the East Pakistan crisis no one in New Delhi or elsewhere anticipated that so many would come; however, officials here believe that India had no better alternative than its present course.

At one extreme, India could have attempted to seal its long border with East Pakistan and tried to discourage refugees from coming into India. In addition to the immense military job this would have been, India's international image would have suffered greatly had Indian troops turned back ragged bands seeking shelter.

At the other extreme, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's government could have recognized the Bangla Desh independence movement and taken military action against Pakistan-which most Officials here believe would have led to a general war with Pakistan .

But as the number of refugees continues to grow and it becomes increasingly apparent to Indian officials that the Hindus are unlikely to return to their homes in East Pakistan, concern over Hindu-Moslem violence has grown here.

The Assam town of Shillong called a strike yesterday to protest against the refugees. According to reports reaching Delhi, the strike aroused the sympathy of almost all Shillong's people .

Indian villagers alone the East Pakistan border have many grievances against the refugees: They feel their jobs threatened and fear that their already low standard of living will be further reduced by increasing the population of their districts in West Bengal, which has 8 million Moslems among its normal population of 44 million.

District officers have been reporting that wages for a day's work in the fields have been reduced by up to 50 percent because refugees are willing to work for far less than the 49 cents a day a laborer used to get.

West Bengal, it is generally agreed, is the most potentially explosive area in India. Calcutta, its capital, was a center of Hindu-Moslem violence in 1947. However, the Moslem community throughout India has not expressed sympathy with the refugee problem, nor has it joined condemnations of Pakistan's actions in the east.

The Indian Moslems have not enjoyed the outpouring of anti-Pakistan feeling aroused in India since the East Pakistan crisis began more than two months ago.

There is concern that Hindu-Moslem violence in one Indian state could spread to other parts of the country. The Pakistan civil fighting and the consequent flow of refugees came just after Mrs. Gandhi had scored a triumph in general elections, greatly strengthening her position, but since the election so much of India's attention has been focused on Pakistan that the government has not taken advantage of its new power in terms of developing domestic programs.

Now, in an effort to relieve the pressure on West Bengal, Assam and Tripura which border East Pakistan, the government is concentrating on plans to disperse some of the refugees to other states. The United States has promised four C130 cargo planes which are scheduled to go into operation next week, flying refugees from Tripura to Assam where there is more room to build refugee camps. The Soviet Union has also promised four planes, but how they will be used has not been announced.

One initial attempt to move about 1,000 refugees by train from West Bengal to Madhya Pradesh ran into trouble, according to Indian press reports, when most of the passengers jumped off along the route-apparently reluctant to leave West Bengal where the language and customs are familiar to Bengalis from East Pakistan.

Despite predictions of disaster to West Bengal from overcrowding, lack of relief commodities and of shelter and the cholera, the refugee situation there has so far been kept under relatively effective control.

Officials hope that Hindu-Moslem hatreds can also be kept under control in the long period of adjustment that India faces as it must seek more than short-term emergency solutions to the refugee problem.