| শিরোনাম | সূত্র | তারিখ |
|---|---|---|
| ৬৪। ভারত | টাইম | ১২ জুলাই, ১৯৭১ |
TIME MAGAZINE, JULY 12. 1971
INDIA
When Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her new Congress party were returned to power last March, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, she promised an ambitious development programme that would change the lives of India's almost 600 million people. By last week, however, it was clear that the country's economy never robust was bogging down for reasons that are not of Mi's. Gandhi's making. More than 60.00.000 refugees have fled to India since the Pakistan Government based in West Pakistan began a savage campaign of repression and terror in East Pakistan, last March. The cost of feeding and sheltering the refugees and caring for thousands of cholera victims will total at least $400 million in the first six months. About 80% of the refugees from predominantly Moslem East Pakistan are Hindus seeking sanctuary in West Bengal and the Eastern Indian States, where their coreligionists are in the vast majority. What particularly worries India is that their chances of even returning home are diminishing. Last week New Delhi said that the Pakistanis were destroying the title deeds of properties owned by the Hindus in East Pakistan, So the Indians may have to accept, on a permanent basis, a Pakistani refugee population that could eventually reach 10 millions.
Little Success
The Indians are angry that they have received so little support on the refugee problem from either East or West. “The international community cannot run away from its responsibilities,” Mrs. Gandhi declared two weeks ago. “It will suffer from the consequences of whatever happens in this part of the world".
The most fearful consequence could be war. Reckless as it may seem many Indians were seriously arguing that the only solution to the refugee problem is for the Indian Army to drive the West Pakistan Army out of East Pakistan so that the refugees could return home. Mrs. Gandhi has rejected such talk, but it is growing in volume, even among members of parliament.
In trying to persuade other countries to provide emergency aid and put pressure on the Government to ease its repression in Last Pakistan, the Prime Minister has sent several of her colleagues abroad to explain India's predicament, so far with little success.
What the Indians really want is a political settlement between West and East Pakistan. This would amount to an acceptance by West Pakistan of last December's overwhelming victory by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League. In balloting for a constitutional congress, Mujib won 167 of the 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan. Since this showing would have given Mujib an absolute majority in the 313 scat
