It is unfortunate that Mr. Henry Kissinger should be visiting New Delhi before he has had an opportunity personally to assess the mood in Pakistan because only then he would have been in a position to engage in meaningful discussions with Indian leaders and officials. In fairness to this country he should return to India after he has met General Yahya Khan and his advisers in Islamabad. He can surely put off his trip to Paris by a couple of days if he is really serious about playing some role in easing the grave crisis in the sub-continent.
But whatever Mr. Kissinger’s brief and plans, Indian leaders and officials with whom he shall be conferring during his two-day visit should leave him in no doubt that America’s credibility here has suffered enormously in the past two weeks and that its present policy has revived bitter memories of the ‘fifties and the early ‘sixties when it armed Pakistan to the teeth in full awareness of the fact that the arms will be used against this country. In New Delhi’s view, Washington is displaying as complete a blindness about the motivations of the Generals in Islamabad now as it did then.
Handicapped
In the absence of a coherent and viable policy of its own, New Delhi will unavoidably be handicapped in the discussions with Mr. Kissinger. It has perhaps at the moment little choice but to concentrate on the continuing US military supplies to Pakistan and Washington’s deliberate attempt to differentiate its own position from that of the other members of the World Bank consortium in order to make it known that, on its part, it is willing to resume economic assistance to Islamabad by September-October. But Indian policy-makers should at least try to probe the assumptions and purposes behind America’s posture and see if they can influence it in any way.
As far as one can judge the US policy for South Asia rests on the twin assumptions that it is both possible and desirable, at least in the foreseeable future, to preserve the unity of Pakistan, and that there is no realistic alternative to the military junta headed by General Yahya Khan. The American approach does not provide for an independent or even a genuinely autonomous East Bengal. Consequently it takes it for granted that India will have to accept the burden of rehabilitating the refugees, whatever the number, and that it can at best expect some assistance from friendly countries in tackling this enormous task.
Mr. Kissinger is, of course, not likely to spell out the US “thinking” in such precise terms. He may in fact try to blur the issues by making it out that Washington favours a political settlement in East Bengal and the return of the refugees to their homes. But one must be very naive indeed to miss the entire drift of American policy.
The Nixon Administration would have been only too glad if The New York Times had not disclosed the truth regarding the continuing sale of arms to Pakistan and thereby exposed the falseness of the State Department’s public statements and private assurances to this country. It would not then have faced the problem of a massive credibility gap in India. The important point however is that in spite of the embarrassment, the US Government had not only refused to take any steps to enforce an embargo on the shipment of arms to Islamabad but confirmed that it will honour all orders which had been placed and accepted before March 25.
Loophole
This is a big enough loophole for channelling further supplies of arms to Islamabad. But even if it is accepted that the US authorities do not intend to engage in this kind of deception, it is incontestable that they are bending over backwards to keep themselves in the good books of the Pakistani versions of the Nazi gauleiters who call themselves Generals, Air Marshals and Admirals.
This approach flows out of America’s past assessment of the importance of Pakistan as a balancing factor against India in the sub-continent and, in co-operation with Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, against pro-Soviet regimes in the Arab world. Islamabad has, for instance, helped King Hussein in his struggle against the Palestinian guerillas and Teheran looks upon it as an ally in its plans for the Persian Gulf.
Also a number of Americans in key places have had close personal dealings with the military leaders in Islamabad since 1954 when the two countries signed a security pact and are inclined to come to its help. This would not have been the case if the US officials had not been obsessed with the alleged communist threat and had had the perspicacity to realise that Mr. Nehru’s non-alignment was not an euphemism for a pro-Soviet stance. But this is not all. Several other assumptions inform American policy.
First, while the United States like many others, is shocked at the cruel manner in which the Pakistan army has pushed almost six million Hindus out of East Bengal and is squeezing out the remaining ones by burning and looting their houses and shops, it assumes that these helpless people have a right to settle down in this country. Washington, it should be recalled, supported Pakistan in the past on the Kashmir issue precisely because successive US Administrations have subscribed to the two-nation theory. A logical corollary to it in America’s eyes is that New Delhi cannot justify going to war on the issue of the refugees.
Secondly, Washington has apparently convinced itself that Pakistan has for all practical purposes smashed the freedom struggle in East Bengal, that while the guerillas can harass the troops in places close to the Indian border, they cannot loosen the army’s grip on the population which is too frightened to co-operate with them and that the limited guerilla operations can therefore only increase the risk of famine and add to the difficulties of the common people. In this connection it would perhaps be appropriate to remember that the US is wholly allergic to the very concept of guerilla warfare and that the oft-repeated Indian argument regarding the possible rise of an extremist leadership among the guerillas will only strengthen its opposition.
Thirdly, it appears that if Washington has at any point been disenchanted with General Yahya Khan, it has now swung back to the view that he is its best bet in Pakistan. It seems to give full credence to the reports emanating from Islamabad that the hawks in the junta led by General Tikka Khan had forced General Yahya Khan to postpone the Constituent Assembly session on March l, to call off the talks with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 25 and to order the bloodbath. The Americans obviously draw the conclusion that since a change at the top in Islamabad can only be for the worse, they should not only put up with General Yahya Khan but also give him support by way of military supplies and early resumption of economic assistance.
Ironically, the US Administration cannot be enthusiastic about the transfer of power to whatever is left of the National Assembly because it profoundly distrusts Mr. Bhutto who commands a majority in the absence of members belonging to the outlawed Awami League.
Limited
Fourthly, since Washington has itself taken the position that its capacity to compel Islamabad to release Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and to concede the substance of his six demands is severely limited on account of the general ineffectiveness of the leverage that economic aid and military supplies give it, it follows that it will be content if the military junta ends or at least moderates its campaign of murder, loot, arson and rape and takes some steps to rehabilitate East Bengal’s economy.
If this is a reasonably accurate assessment of the thinking and rationalisation behind the US posture, it should be self-evident that Indian leaders will have to take a well-defined and tough stand in their talks with Mr. Kissinger if they are to disabuse him of the view that this country will slowly but surely acquiesce in the American scheme.
He must be told in no uncertain terms that New Delhi means what it has said from time to time – that it will not tolerate an arrangement which prevents the refugees from going back to their homes and enables Islamabad to continue to suppress and exploit East Bengal, that it will use all its resources to frustrate Islamabad’s nefarious plan to run the province with the help of non-Bengalis, that it does not accept the bona fides of men who have grown up on slogans of jehad and racial superiority, that it is convinced that they are totally incapable of ever treating the East Bengalis in a just manner and that they have not given up the mad ambition of humiliating India on the battlefield. After all, it was not too long ago that Field Marshal Ayub Khan talked of his tanks rolling into Delhi.
No American misses the opportunity of telling his Indian listeners that the Pakistani army’s outlook underwent a dramatic change for the better in September 1965 when it failed to live up to its self-image of being superior to the Indian army. But if that was indeed so, would it have acted in the extremely provocative manner it has in East Bengal? Surely the answer must be in the negative. The implication hardly needs to be spelt out.
New Delhi has for too long taken comfort in the certificates of good behaviour that well-meaning and not so well-meaning foreign dignitaries have been pleased to hand out to it. It is about time it wakes up to the grim reality that it is being invited first to acquiesce in the consolidation of the Pakistani military junta’s hold in East Bengal and then to discover virtues in it and support it indirectly by turning its back on those who are fighting for the freedom of their people.
The Times of India 6 July 1971