Let us lake the four problems posed by the Bengal situation in order. Barely adequate food supplies-about half of them contributed by the U.S.-are now being delivered in East Bengal. The question is distribution, and whether politics will come ahead of feeding people, either though the West Pakistan military forces not acting fairly or through interference by the guerrillas. Belatedly perhaps, outside nations have done the right things and no one can only pray that widespread famine can be avoided till the new rice crop in late December.
Guerrilla Threat
The same is true of the guerrilla movement. But India's support of the guerrillas and its resulting passionate rejection of U.N. observers in its refugee camps are understandable parts of a policy under which Mrs. Gandhi has so far courageously resisted pressures for outright war. But there is an element here of the same SCHADE FREUDE-that rejoicing in trouble and exploiting it—that Indians themselves so deeply resented from Pakistan when India was beset by China in 1962 and 1963. Moreover, readers of Neville Maxwell's brilliant book describing Indian border actions before that conflict will be aware that Indian military and quasi-military actions can be both tough and well-concealed, and like other people's, take on a momentum of their own. Mrs. Gandhi may not have anything like full control of the guerrillas, nor, indeed do the guerrillas will become progressively more extreme and out of control-and neither can hold back in Part for this very reason.
Thus the East Bengal situation is in large part beyond the reach of further help from outside. If, but only if both Pakistani and Indian authorities exert a great deal of restraint, the situation may remain barely tolerable.
The real question is whether outside nations can help both nations to act with restraint. In the case of Pakistan, the United States may have retained some leverage by not blocking small-scale military deliveries arranged before March 25. but the price in Indian-American relations has been fearful, and the impact of American efforts to moderate Pakistani behavior has not been visible. (By definition, of course, it cannot be).
The gut issue now is whether economic aid to West Pakistan will continue after the first of the year, when pipeline deliveries of commodity aid run out. Here there is a chance for the U.S. to do two things at once-get away from its exposed position of acting alone and transfer the effort to retain outside leverage in Pakistan to the economic rather than the military sphere. The vehicle would be the World Bank consortium to aid Pakistan and the sign of action a decision by the President to accept the upcoming Congressional ban on military deliveries. But at the same time, the President should override (as the bill permits) the accompanying ban on economic aid- solely to permit necessary commodity aid worked out by the bank. Perhaps the lesser point in all this is leverage on a dug-in-Pakistan Government; the larger one is that two terrible wrongs—the horror in East Bengal and the refugee camps-do not justify a third: economic collapse in West Pakistan.
The accompaniment to such renewed ban on economic aid to West Pakistan would then be a much larger effort than has yet been made to India to overcome the economic
