a day. This means feeding a family of five for a dollar a day. If all of the $70,000,000 was used for food, rather than just the S 20,000,000 portion now allocated, it would still feed the refugees for less than two months. In addition, of course, there is the total social and economic disruption that is being caused by efforts to resettle these numbers. The average daily wage has fallen in some areas from 3 rupees to 1 rupee a day (13 cents a day). Having to cope with these new numbers represents a total disaster for the gradual but encouraging movement of economic development on the Indian subcontinent.
More than anything else, the resentment rises from the blatant genocide of the 10 million Hindus who were in Last Pakistan. How long officials will be able hold off retaliation against the much larger numbers of Muslims in India is somewhat doubtful. What hurts most is the obvious callousness and unconcern of the rest of the world to a tragedy involving much larger numbers of people than even the Nazi “final solution.” Americans must be made aware of both the realities and their own responsibilities to help, if possible, but at least not to aggravate tensions and prolong the crisis by supporting a repressive military regime.
CET: ckc
July, 1971
