"Nobody can tell precisely what Yahya's strategists whispered in his car three weeks ago. Nobody can tell, but anyone can deduce. They appear to have thought that cutting off the head would kill Bengali nationalism: precisely the reverse. They appear to have forgotten about world opinion. They appear, most insanely of all, to have ruled India out of the military calculations, so that the uncontrolled border and aid seeping in has them as much by the throat as proliferation-diplomatic complications. To reiterate: the Bangladesh affair is not a second Biafra or the fruits of more interminable wrangling between Delhi and Rawalpindi. It arose simply when a well conducted, peaceful elections produced a result the army could not stand. Sheikh Mujib himself has not, in any, Certain sence declared Bengali independence. He was not asking essentially for more than the programme he legally fought and won the election on. Of course there are shades of grey; of course, responsibility for the carnage is shared. But influential and intelligent Pakistanis in the west can stop that carnage tomorrow if they add up the balance sheet aright and put their soldiers in economic chains. This is not a Sino-Soviet slanging match about Marxist technicalities. It is, at root, a simple matter; of freedom, of morality, and of humanity".
