“An appalling error has led to an appalling tragedy.” That was how The Sunday Times, six weeks ago, described the Pakistan Government’s decision to quell with bullets the democratically expressed wish of the East Pakistan Bengalis for a wide measure of autonomy. True then, the words are even more gruesomely true today. The horror mounts steadily, as disease grips the Pakistani refugees in India and the onset of the monsoon draws nearer. In the shadow of a tragedy of these dimensions, the pace of international efforts at aid and relief seem, and are, maddeningly slow. Nor does the conscience of the world appear to unduly disturbed by this human disaster. U Thant’s appeal for contributions towards $ 175 million, the amount calculated by India as necessary to sustain for six months the refugees from East Pakistan, has so far met with a mediocre response. Britain’s pledge of £1 million, made with commendable promptness, is the very minimum due from the ex¬-ruler of the subcontinent.

The problem is two-fold : how best to assess and meet the immediate needs of the refugees from Pakistan now in India; and how to bring about conditions in East Pakistan which will make it possible for the refugees, most of them Hindus, to return there safely. On the first point, one thing is clear : the main relief effort must be international. No single Government, least of all the hard-pressed Indian Government, can shoulder a burden of this size. It is therefore right that an international authority, in this case the UN High Commission for Refugees, should coordinate and administer relief. Unfortunately, like most large institutions, the UN is not noted for either speed or simplicity. Its machinery grinds slowly on, and meanwhile the cholera victims in India are dying. This is where private, voluntary bodies can work, such as, those in this country which formed themselves into a consortium for action after the East Pakistan cyclone last year. Impressively though they have acted, they have not yet received anything like a fitting response to to their appeal for private contributions in this crisis.

On the longer term prospect of enabling the refugees to return home - which means in practice withdrawal of the West Pakistan army from East Pakistan and a large measure of autonomy for the eastern province - there is a strong argument for withholding foreign economic assistance from Pakistan until the military rulers in the western wing see reason. This is the only substantial lever available against President Yahya Khan and his misguided advisers. It is one which, at the moment when the Pakistan economy is reeling under the impact of civil war, could really be made to bite.

Foreign aid to Pakistan is for the most part channeled through a consortium, so that the maximum effect would obviously be achieved if all the governments represented on the consortium were to act together. This is what the Indian Government is now apparently suggesting, privately, and its attitude is fully understandable. Naturally they have no wish permanently to absorb 4 or 5 million East Pakistan Bengalis, with all the possible political, social and economic repercussions.

The members of the consortium, among them Britain, need to give careful consideration to this idea of withholding aid. But in doing so, they should be moved not only by their natural feelings of disgust at the evil that has been wrought in East Pakistan, but also by consideration of the ultimate and realistic aim in Pakistan. The economic collapse of that country, in which ordinary people would be made to suffer for the follies of their non-elected military rulers, would serve no one, and certainly not India. Furthermore, it is hardly realistic to suppose that Yahya Khan would go back now to the position of mid-March, when he was hopefully discussing with the now proscribed and imprisoned Sheikh Mujib, a future constitution in which Bengali nationalism would be able to make itself felt. Indeed it is extremely difficult at the moment to see how and between whom the political dialogue between the two wings of Pakistan can be resumed, as one day it must be.

Faced with these imponderables, it seems better for the present to concentrate on the shorter-term aim of relieving India of financial responsibility for the refugees. Rather than wait for the slow process of collecting contributions from UN members, some - not all - of the aid which would normally go to Pakistan, should be directed to the UN refugee authorities for expenditure on the refugees. If, as the Indians seem to think, the British Government is opposing any cut at all in aid for Pakistan, then it is making a mistake and should think again. It is normally undesirable to use aid for political purposes. But it was never part of the original concept of aid for Pakistan that it should fuel a military machine that had turned on its own people. And merely to divert some money from Pakistan to Pakistani refugees in India is to use aid for the people it was intended for. That is a direct, simple and humane purpose. The size of the disaster, so numbing to one’s sensibilities, requires a direct, simple and humane response.