New Statesman

If ever there were a just war this is it. The people of East Pakistan voted almost to a man for the Awami League and some form of autonomy. The Awami League actually won a majority of seats in the Parliament of East and West Pakistan combined and which never met. It is impossible, had President Yahya and the West Pakistan Establishment honoured the results of the elections, that East Pakistan would have remained in association with West Pakistan so preserving an international identity for Pakistan. Once Sheikh Mujib was arrested and the West Pakistan army began its slaughters, all hope went of East Pakistan voluntarily remaining a part of Pakistan. This is not merely because of the barbarous behaviour of President Yahya’s troops. It is because there never was anything but vague religious sentiment to bind the Bengalis to West Pakistan.

As the world refused to assert the unquestioned right of the East Pakistanis to have their Bangladesh, it has no moral authority to criticise India for trying to set it up. The strongest part of the Indian case is not that they cannot afford to feed the 10 million refugees from East Pakistan but that they are championing democracy and fighting ruthless oppression. Eventually indeed they may not be altogether happy with Bangladesh as a neighbour since there are distinct possibilities that the Maoist in it may emerge as a very strong force (which makes Chinese opposition to it extremely rum).

When, and if, Bangladesh gets going it may well prove not to be a client state of India. To the mortification of its benefactor it may press, even with violence, for the absorption into it of that part of Bengal, including Calcutta, which is now in India. There is a great deal more racial and cultural affinity between the Bengalis on both sides of the old frontier than there ever was between the East and West Pakistanis. However, there is no law which decrees that victory in a just war will achieve what its promoters wanted. Whoever supposed that when Britain declared war against Hitler in defence of Poland that Poland would finish up a prisoner in the hands of the Russians?

The new Bangladesh government have said that they intend ‘a socialist and secular state’. If the ‘socialism’ turn out to be much more of the Russian or Chinese pattern than the British or Mrs. Gandhi variety it will be better for the East Pakistanis than being run by old-style and murderous colonialists from West Pakistan. We must therefore hope that the Indian army succeeds in occupying the whole of East Pakistan. Some sort of justice would be done. But then what happens next? Many Indians never accepted the idea of partition and some, by way of rationalisation. Choose to regard it as a malevolent device of the British. Such Indians are known to take the present opportunity to advance from the liberation of East Pakistan to the conquering of West Pakistan, thus creating once more a united India. The notion is mad. If the Indian army could (which is by no means certain) occupy West Pakistan another Bangladesh problem would arise in reverse.

The Muslims of West Pakistan genuinely fear Hindu domination and genuinely feel themselves to be alien from India and those who rule it. Reason does not influence their emotions. They would never give in. Guerrilla warfare of a crippling kind would last indefinitely and the 50 million Muslims who live in India today would cut up rough as well. Mrs. Gandhi should dismiss instantly any folly of this kind from her mind. It would lead to the complete ruin and chaos of the subcontinent. China or Russia or both would be unable to resist the temptation to walk into the vacuum. Assuming the freeing of East Pakistan has been accomplished, there has to be some form of acquiescence on the part of West Pakistan if the war is ever to end. Her army in the West is probably much stronger than most commentators concede. The loss of East Pakistan will be a blow to pride that West Pakistan will not accept unless there is a quid pro quo. Without it there will be no settled peace on the borders of West Pakistan and India - Delhi itself will always be in danger of attack.

Currently the Pakistan army appears to be making some headway in Kashmir. As a corollary to Indian victory in the East it would be fortunate if during this war Pakistan were able to occupy some of the Muslim areas of Kashmir. Then, part of the package deal for peace could be what India has always wrongly refused - a free referendum in Kashmir among the 2.5 million Muslims who are the majority. The Hindu population could stay with India. India had no moral case for her occupation of large chunks of Kashmir after Independence. If Nehru had not been a Kashmiri Brahmin she would never have done it. As a professed champion of democracy she should have been the first to allow the people to decide. The justice she is now seeking for the mass of people of East Pakistan she should now concede to the Kashmiris, enabling them to choose their own fate. This would ease the path to the pacification of the subcontinent.

When I was last in Kashmir in 1962 it was obvious that the Muslims loathed Indian rule. Even the members of the puppet government set up by the Indians cannot hide their uneasiness and distaste at Indian occupation. It might be that the Kashmiris would want a completely independent state rather than to join Pakistan; they have never been allowed by India to say. If justice were done in Kashmir, as we must pray it will be in East Pakistan, it would be far easier to reconcile what remains of Pakistan to the new situation. West Pakistan, incidentally, would get on much better without East Pakistan, economically and politically.

For once the British government seem to be taking the right line. Our refusal to be stampeded by the Americans into a dishonest and hypocritical condemnation of India while abstaining from criticising Pakistan, leaves us (perhaps with France) as possible mediators when the time is suitable. Russia and China must have ruled themselves out by their grotesque attacks on each other and their obvious angling to gain selfishly from the conflict. Everyone in India and Pakistan knows that Britain would be saddened if the subcontinent became a wreckage. On this occasion there might be for a real opportunity for a non super-power, which cares for all parties in the tragedy, to be helpful.