The fact that India is not launching any major offensives in the eastern sector suggests the New Delhi wants to keep the war there as uncomplicated as possible. Though the two nations have tangled twice before in what is officially called the slate of Jammu and Kashmir, neither country has gained any territory since the original cease fire line was drawn in 1949. There are several reasons why New Delhi is not likely to try to press now for control of the disputed area.
The first is a doubt that the people of Azad Kashmir, as the Pakistani portion is called, would welcome control by India; in that case, India could be confronted with an embarrassing uprising. The second reason is that in 1963, shortly after India's brief but bloody war with China. Pakistan worked out a provisional border agreement with Peking ceding some 1.300 sq. miles of Kashmir to China. Peking has since linked up the old “silk route" highway from Sinking province to the city of Gilgit in Pakistani Kashmir with an all-weather macadam motor highway running down to the northern region of Ladakh near the ceasefire line, Should Indian troops get anywhere near China's highway or try to grasp its portion of Kashmir, New Delhi could expect to have a hustle with Peking on its hands.
Constant Harassment
Pakistan, on the other hand, has much to gain if it can wrest the disputed province, particularly the lush and fabled Vale, from Indian control, Strategically, the region is extremely important, bordering on both China and Afghanistan as well as India and Pakistan. Moreover Kashmir's population is predominantly Moslem.
Still, the war was also beginning to take its toll on the people of West Pakistan. “The almost constant air raids over Islamabad, Karachi and other cities have brought deep apprehension, even panic,” Time's Louis Kraar cabled from Rawalpindi: “It is not massive bombing, just constant harassment-though there have been several hundred civilian casualties. Thus when the planes road overhead, life completely halts in the capital and people scurry into trenches or stand in doorways with woolen shawls over their heads, ostrich like. Because of the Kashmir Mountains, the radar in the area docs not pick up Indian planes until they are about 15 miles away."
"Pakistanis have taken lo caking mud all over their autos in (lie belief that it camouflages them from Indian planes. In nightly blackouts, the road traffic moves along with absolutely no lights, and fear has prevailed so completely over commonsense that there has probably been more bloodshed in traffic accidents than in the air raids. The government has begun urging motorists only to shield their lights, but peasants throw stones at any car that keeps them on. In this uneasy atmosphere, Pakistani anti-aircraft gunners opened up on their own high-flying Sabre jets one evening last week. At one point, the military stationed an antiaircraft machine gun atop the Rawalpindi Intercontinental Hotel, but guests convinced them it was dangerous",
Soviet Airlift
In New Delhi, the mood was not so much jingoism as jubilation that India's main goal-the establishment of a government in Hast Bengal that would ensure the return of the
