The Guns of September

Across Pakistan last week, patriotic banners adorned public buildings, guns boomed, and thousands thrilled at the sight of "enemy forces" being put to rout in mock battles. The occasion was the first anniversary of the outbreak of the border war with India--a conflict in which the shooting stopped only after Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin brought the two foes together at Tashkent last January.

Yet, as last week's Pakistani celebrations suggested, the Tashkent talks hardly brought true peace to the subcontinent. Each side is rebuilding its military forces while regularly accusing the other of bad faith.

Where Is Point X? India's Defense Minister, Y. B. Chavan, has warned Parliament that Pakistan was receiving 200 tanks and 125 planes, including supersonic MIG-19 fighters and 11-28 bombers, from Red China. In addition, Pakistan has recently acquired 90 Canadian-built F-86 Sabres from Iran. Indian officials insist that Pakistan has concluded a secret military pact with Red China. "We are pretty sure that they have an understanding to help each other up to point X," says one external-affairs aide, "but we don't know what point X is."

The Pakistanis are content to keep everyone guessing about their arrangements with Peking. They say that India has negotiated with Eastern Europe for 600 tanks, 400 heavy guns, 200 tank transporters, and elsewhere for 200 missile-firing supersonic aircraft and submarines, helicopters and antiaircraft missiles. Furthermore, Pakistan has accused India of using its Canadian-built reactor to build an A-bomb--a charge that India vehemently denies.

Hardly at Peace. Efforts to implement the Tashkent peace plan have foundered on the issue over which the border war erupted: Kashmir. The Indians insist that further talks be broadened beyond the question of control of the troubled state; Pakistan will discuss nothing but Kashmir. True to the Tashkent agreement, each side has withdrawn its troops a few miles behind the cease-fire line. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been restored, and Pakistani and Indian airliners once again overfly one another's territory.

But trade between the two countries has not been resumed. Denied access to Pakistani suppliers, Calcutta's jute mills have been forced to reduce output 25% , while some Dacca cigarette factories have closed down completely because no tobacco is being imported from West Bengal. Travel between the two countries is almost nonexistent, postal and telegraph communications operate far below standard, and rail, road and river traffic is severely curtailed in both nations. India and Pakistan may not be actively at war, but they are not at peace either.

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