India's Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, deserves highest marks for her own restraint and the restraint she has imposed upon her generals.
But the fragile peace which still prevails among the surrounding powers is being bought at the price of the misery of the Bengal people.
The only faint hope we can see for a long-term settlement would be from a meeting of those countries with vital interests in the result. Prime Minister Chou Enlai of China has proposed to President Nixon a conference to consider the Vietnam problem. A conference which included China, Russia, India, and the United Stales could also do some quiet work on the side about Bengal and Pakistan.
The tragedy and the danger underline the need for a new “concert of the great powers". Nothing else has ever yet been invented which could manage a problem of such proportions and complexities.
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