solidarity and integrity of Pakistan. We found that the reaction in India was almost instantaneous. There was at the time no problem of refugees, which the Foreign Minister of India has put forward this morning as an excuse for meddling in Pakistan's internal affairs.
The Indian Parliament adopted a resolution, moved by the Indian Prime minister herself, declaring support for the so-called Bangladesh. A vast and orchestrated campaign was set in motion radiating falschoods, half-truths and calumnics fabricated in Calcutta and other places in India. Accounts were published of pitched battles in East Pakistan. Tales were told of arbitrary executions and large-scale killings, and so on. It was said that University of Dacca was razed to the ground, that intellectuals had been singled out and put to death before the eyes of their families that the port of Chittagong was in shambles.
Let me quote the opinion of an Indian newspaper on the subject.
The Statesman of Delhi wrote on 4th August 1971, that many of the claims contained a measure of exaggeration, if not outright invention, that must have been clear even when they were made. Subsequent reports have shown that there was march wishful thinking both among those who made those claims and among the fasteners in India who accepted them without reservation.
The curfew was completely lifted in the city of Dacca since less than a week after the army initiated action. The University of Dacca-which had been used by the secessionist elements as an arsenal for strong weapon and explosives received from outside the country, nevertheless stands intact and has been functioning normally. The intellectuals who were reported as killed by Indian publicity media are alive and leading normal lives, as was stated in an advertisement which was published in The New York Times some months ago.
The objective behind the Indian agitation over the events in Pakistan is transparent and, indeed, self-confessed. The Washington Post of 2nd April quoted an Indian officials as saying that had not been reporting, it had been psychological warfare.
A foreign observer, Mr. Bruno D. Hammel, wrote, in the London Times of 17th April that the Indian Press:
“-seems to have lost all sense of responsibility. Wanting news, one got instead a mass of hysterical rumours. Statements of fact proved, nine times out of ten, to be unconfirmed and contradictory. Any report of atrocities. so long as it was inflammatory and without evidence, was sure of space”.
The Foreign Minister of India spoke of the great burden his country is being hi having to feed the Pakistani refugees. He mentioned the number as being over 9 million. He stated that they are still continuing to cross the borders in the thousands. He asked for some $ 800 million as the cost of their upkeep during the coming six months. This figure is astounding in itself, even if one were not to question the figure of 9 million refugees put forward by India, because, if I am not wrong, the total budget of the Government of India for the current year, for running a country of 500 million people, amounts to $ 4,000 million.
