'Let It Be War . . '

"Let It Be War . . ."

India and Pakistan were snarling and snapping at each other like mastiffs spoiling for a fight.

Among long-lying bones of contention between the two nations are the Kashmir territorial dispute and a bitter trade war (TIME, Jan. 9), but last week the rivals glowered over Bengal. In that northeastern region, divided between Pakistan's East Bengal and India's West Bengal, there has been more than a month of savage rioting. Though no one has yet computed total casualties and damage, a swarm of Hindu refugees has fled from Moslem terror in East Bengal (where 29 million Moslems live with 13 million Hindus), while Hindu mobs have struck back at Moslems in West Bengal (where 17 million Hindus live with 5 million Moslems).

"Shadow of Tragedy." "Barbarian neighbor!" barked the Indian press, charging Pakistan with a plot of annihilation against Hindus. Angry Pakistan headlines bayed: "Over 10,000 [Moslems] killed--harrowing tales of murder, arson and loot!"

Before New Delhi's packed, impassioned Parliament, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reviewed events in Bengal. "The country," he said, "has lived under the shadow of tragedy." Pakistan, he continued, had grossly exaggerated casualties in West Bengal: only 34 Moslems had died and 146 had been injured. But in East Bengal, "a kind of iron curtain" had fallen; behind it, charged Nehru, Pakistan authorities had incited riots in which 600 to 1,000 Hindus had perished while 43,000 had been hounded across the border into India.

The Prime Minister declared that he had failed to win Pakistan's agreement to a joint fact-finding commission. Then he solemnly warned: "If tragedies occur in Pakistan ... we cannot remain indifferent to them . . . Peace and good will are not going to come by superficial arrangement when these deepseated causes of trouble and conflict continue ... If the methods we have suggested are not agreed to, it may be that we shall have to adopt other methods. I am deeply troubled . . ."

"Machinations of Enemies." Pakistan's Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan blamed the disorders on "the machinations of the sworn enemies of Pakistan." His opposition to Nehru's proposed fact-finding commission was based on the official argument that such a commission would merely "entangle both governments in the barbed wire of controversy." Then, when Nehru suggested that both leaders tour Bengal together, as they had toured the stricken Punjab in 1947, he again refused. Previous experience, said Liaquat Ali, "did not indicate that such a move would have any substantial results."

Bombay's sensational Free Press Journal shrilly said what many excited Hindus seemed to be thinking: "Let it be war with Pakistan if Pakistan wants it that way."

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