having a recounting at all the Camps and it may be over by now, because it started some time before I left the country. It may be a little less, it may be a little more, but I don’t think there will be a great difference in the figures which we have given.
Now the question is: (1) about the United Nations observers, and (2) about the withdrawal of the troops. When we had asked the United Nations to look into this maller, we were told that it is an internal matter the United Nations cannot do anything. This was right at the beginning of the crisis. We kept on reminding them that it may be an internal matter, but its consequences are overflowing into India creating great problems, and the United Nations should take an interest. Now the United Natio observers want to come, not to deal with the cause of the crisis which is in East Bengal, but to see who is crossing over the border. They want to tell the refugees to go back. We are telling the refugees, to go back and if some more people will tell them, well, they are welcome. But Indian society is an absolutely open one. All the journalists from your country, from Canada, from the U.S.A. from the United Kingdom, many other countries have gone there, both sides, to East Pakistan, to India, to West Pakistan; they are free to report; the Diplomatic Corps is free to go where it wants to go. We have had Parliamentary Delegations also from both the AmericasLatin American countries, North America-Japan, New Zealand, the different counties of European the Scandinavian countries; all these people have been free to go, to report, to talk to the refugees. So it makes no great difference. And we have also 10 people from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. So it is no great problem if a few more people come from the United Nations or from anybody else. Of course, then there are the international organizations; there is CARITAS, there is UNICEF, there is CARE. “WAR-ON-WANT”, OXIAM, and some others. So it wouldn’t make much difference if some more were so come. But we do object, we object because these people are coming not to deal with the problem as a whole but to try to deal with a part of the problem. When we say to the refugees. as I have been consistently saying, that India cannot keep these refugees as a permanent burden, they must go back to East Bengal, they can stay for a few months, if there are a few children who are orphans or few women who have no home, we could keep them, but we are not going to keep millions and millions of foreign nationals in our country, no matter what we are absolutely determined about it. Their reply is “we want to go back, but how can we go back when the massacre is continuing”, when every day-first there were 30 to 40 thousand, then the figure went up to 62 thousand everyday-now I am told that it has come down slightly, but it is still in the region of 16 to 20 thousand. But still so many people are coming with the same stories of barbarity, of horror, of murder, of rape. How can we ask the people to go back? And who will listen to us, even if we do ask? First, the condition should be created on the other side which should assure the refugees that they can go in safety and in dignity. This is what we have said to the United Nations.
Now, with regard to troops, it is Pakistan which first brought their troops to the borders; they came first on the Eastern border because they are para-forces. We have an agreement with them that they would not be troops, they would be only paramilitary forces-East Bengal Rifles, East Pakistan Regiment-on the side, and what we call the Border Security Force, on our side. Their people, i.e. this Regiment and the Rifles, have left the Pakistan service in March, as soon as this happening started, and they joined the
