In terms of real politic, the continuation of military aid to West Pakistan is supposed to buy us influence with the ruling junta, and help offset Red Chinese influence. (Ironically, the Red Chinese are also aiding the West Pakistani Generals.)
Yet the heaviest stream of refugees is pouring into West Bengal, which is not only India's poorest and most overcrowded State, but the most politically unstable. Between Calcutta and Bongaon on the border, some 50 miles distant, I saw scarcely a house that didn't have a hammer and sickle painted 011 it. Maoists, anarchists, and conventional Marxists attack each other and the less radical parties with violence as well as rhetoric. Strikes, demonstrations, and political assassinations are already a daily occurrence. West Bengal, even before the invasion of refugees, seemed about to explode.
By shipping arms to the West Pakistanis, we are partially responsible for pouring millions of hungry, sick and angry refugees directly into this tinder-box. This vastly increases the likelihood of a bloody upheaval on the Indian side of the border as well, in which the power of Maoist movements could only grow. Thus, even if one unquestioningly assumes the necessity to halt the spread of Chinese Communist influence, our policy seems idiotic. We hang on to the shreds of influence in West Pakistan at the cost of losing it in India. Worse, we pave the way for a bigger, bloodier and even more bitter Vietnam in Asia.
But there is a simpler, less political reason way our aid policy must be changed. On grounds of simple humanity, the failure of our Government to express official concern for the ravaged people of East Pakistan, its alliance with the undemocratic generals of Islamabad, and its cruel insistence on sending still more arms to the killers is morally repulsive.
The emergency in East Pakistan demands a more than minimal response. We need to pump immediate life-saving baby food, powdered milk, anti-biotic, ant cholera vaccines and similar supplies into India. But beyond that, decency and political realism both demand an immediate end to the arms shipments.
