Ever since General Yahya Khan's armies invaded Easter Bengal in March 1971, The Red Mole has constantly and consistently argued that the shortsightedness of the West Pakistani oligarchy had opened up the road to the liberation of the entire sub-continent. We suggested that the repercussions of the invasion of Eastern Bengal could not be confined to that single province and that the reverberations would be felt throughout India and Pakistan. Events have not contradicted our analyses. The war fever which is building up in both countries: the sabre-rattling by the newly-discovered folkheroine of international liberalism, Mrs Indira Gandhi and the realisation by both Yahya and Bhutto of what is in store for them, give us a clear indication of the serious dilemmas which confront both the ruling classes in the Indian sub-continent today.
The Indian Bourgeoisie: Its Problems And Its Solutions From the very beginnings, small though they were, of the armed struggle in East Bengal, it was obvious that the indian ruling class would engage itself in a desperate attempt to.try and contain the struggle. The most immediate reason being to prevent the struggle from spilling over into West Bengal. Mrs. Gandhi's government therefore decided on a two-pronged strategy: politically they would contain the struggle by smothering the leading political force (ia. the Awami League) with an ideological bear-hug; by doing this they would also attempt to gain control of the military side of the struggle by controlling the supply of arms and stationing the Indian Army on the West Bengali side of the border. This strategy has been partially successful. The Awami League leadership in Calcutta has become a tail of the Indian bourgeoisie, but precisely because of this and because of its failure to project any concrete programme for the social emancipation of the Bengali masses, the League has begun to lose credibility and within its own ranks dissensions are beginning to appear at a fairly rapid pace. In particular the divisions between some of the fighting units of the Mukti Bahini and the Provisional Government" in Calcutta have reached such a stage that an open split seems unavoidable in the immediate future. Another important factor in the struggle is that the revolutionary currents are making more and more gains. Their military activities in Chittagong harbour as well as in the heart of Dacca itself have won them considerable sympathy and support. Also the fact that they are attempting to change the social nature of the Bengali countryside opens up a wide fields of potential support. All these pressures have their effect on the fighting units of the Mukti Bahini (Awami League's Army). The increasing strength of the left groups places the different Communist Parties in West Bengal in an untenable situation because what is required of them is not so much empty demagogy in support of Bangla Desh (which everyone and anyone in India can The imbalance of power $714mл infiftitti Total:
392,000 men ARMY: 360.000 MEN plus 1 independent armoured brig 1100$ The Red Mole 29th November 1971 Page 2 indulge in today), but concrete military and political help, which will have to include at some stage the extension of the struggle to Western Bengal. Given the internal dynamic of the CPI(M), the most powerful force in West Bengal, this seems unlikely, but what cannot be excluded is divisions and splits within its ranks, especially if it refuses both to abandon and discard its parliamentarist illusions and prepare its cadres and the Bengali masses for a clash with the Indian bourgeoisie. Despite the weaknesses at the subjective level the situation in West Bengal continues to become increasingly unstable and the credibility of the Indian ruling class is at its lowest. This confronts the Indian government with the task of providing a solution.
The 9 million refugees from the East are potential dynamite and while their effects on the Indian economy have despite the sensationalism of the bourgeois press, been marginal, their political potential could well provide the fuse to detonate the struggle in West Bengal and have a devastating effect on India as a whole. In that sense the problems they pose are not dissimilar to those which were posed by the Palestinian refugees in Jordan. Mrs. Gandhi understands this fact well and the last thing she wants is to be forced into a Hussein-type offensive against Bengal.
All these factors push the Indian bourgeoisie into one of two directions: either to pressurise the Big Powers to force a political settlement down Yahya's throat or a limited war to "liberate" East Bengal militarily and instal the "Provisional Government" in Dacca. But what the Indian government does not understand is that even the immediate success of either of these options will not represent a medium-term solution. The situation is far too advanced to allow compromises and somewhat shoddy compromises at that, to prevent the unfolding of a revolutionary process. The "Provisional Government" would remain exactly that even in Dacca. Thus the Indian government has no way out of the present impasse which could guarantee a period of unlimited stability for the ruling class it represents. Its problems are very real, but its solutions are false. The Indian masses will not allow it to govern in the same old way for long and since it knows none better it will resort more and more to repression and the establishment of a strong state.
The Military Junta In West Pakistan: Its Total Failure And Its Isolation The most blatant failure of the military regime in West Pakistan has been its inabllity to crush the Bengali national movement. This failure has had disastrous consequences on the morale of the West Pakistani army and police units, who are involved in the fighting and repression, but more important it has led to a grave deterioration of the economic situation in West Pakistan itself. When one understands that East ployment levels in West Pakistan have risen phenomenally the seriousness of the situation. There have been a great deal of industrial strikes in the West and in some cases these have been accompanied by peasant struggles (particularly in the INDIA Defence budget sssssssssssssssssssssssssssSSSS (1970-71)
Armed force OF WHICH ARMY - 860,000 MEN Infantry 00000444444 divisions Hint infantry and 2 parachute brigades Armoured - Plus 2 independent armoured brigades diVisions Guns *722 **** Tanks Combat aircraft Bengal both supplied a bulk of the country's foreign exchange earnings and also served as a market for the sale of West-Pakistani manufactured goods, this is hardly surprising. The unemand when one also takes into account the fact that in colonial and semi-colonial countries a reserve army of the unemployed is a permanent feature of their economies, one begins to grasp North West Frontier Province and Sind) which have developed $1656mn 980,000 - 10 mountain divisions**** 3000 into a reality. 1450 II625 Tariq Ali 20.11.1971 as a result of the entry of capitalist property relations 1s into the countryside in the shape of the "green revolution" and other similar devices. Thus the external failures of the regime are directly interrelated to the mess which it has created internally and for which it has no cure. In this situation a war would not have the effect of providing a pretext for national cohesion (as it did in 1965), but would lead rapidly to the disintegration of West Pakistan. Mr Bhutto, who remains the ablest bourgeois politician in the country has understood this fact well. Also it must be remembered that as far as the Army is concerned they are already "at war" - against the Bengali masses. This war has up till now cost the Pakistan Army more casualties than did the entire Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. To fight a war on two other fronts today would destroy the Pakistan Army. A defeat for the army would remove the most stable prop of the West Pakistani state. The only meaningful option open to the Yahya regime therefore seems to be a negotiated settlement with Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, who somewhat conveniently at the moment, happens to be held prisoner in West Pakistan. Already several bourgeois political leaders have openly called for Rehman's release and Yahya himself has declared that if the "people" demand his release he (Yahya) is not going to stand in their way. If Yahya can pull off even a limited political compromise with Mujib it will preserve the status quo for another six months at best. It cannot even be excluded that dissensions will appear within the Army as many of the younger officers will not appreciate the subtlety involved in invading Bengal, losing hundreds of West Pakistani lives and then negotiating a settlement several months later There are also, of course, the problems which Sheikh Mujib wil confront if he accepts a compromise: the strength and size of the leftist groups and currents would develop overnight and there would be an open split inside the Awami League. Thus th future of the Pakistani bourgeoisie does not seem to be too hap Internationally both the United States and the Soviet Union at understandably from their points of view, more importance to India than to Pakistan. The recent right tum of the Chine has meant that Pakistan is not the only bourgeois state with which they have friendly relations and which they, as a result have to cultivate. New vistas of class-collaboration have been opened up for the Chinese bureaucracy and there are some indications that they would be prepared to eschew their previous differences with the ruling clique in India. The fact that Bhutto, who recently visited Peking as Yahya's personal envoy was sent back without any concrete promises lends further support to the above thesis. It is of course possible that finding themselves isolated both internally and externally some elements in the Pakistan Army would be prepared to take the risk in a lunatic 'do or die' war against India. If they do so they sign the death warrant of West Pakistan as a state and lay open the path to growing instability in the sub-continent. From every possible angle the outlook for the Generals in Pakistan is extremely bleak.
Ceylon: An Image of the Future?
The way in which both Yahya Khan and Indira Gandhi went to the aid of Mrs Bandaranaike's reactionary regime in Ceylon against the JVP gives us one indication of what they could do if they faced similar threats in other parts of the sub-continent. If a rebellion started in West Bengal we could easily see the Indian Army moving in to crush this resistance by employing the same tactics and the same language as that used by the Pakistan Army, but at the time of writing the aim of the Indian bourgeoisie is to prevent that from happening as its effect on the rest of the sub-continent would be electric. In order to prevent this it is even prepared to go to war against the Pakistani Army. If it does the task of revolutionary Marxists will be absolutely clear, both in Bengal and the rest of the sub-continent. They must fight against national chauvinism. They must declare that this war is opposed to the interest of the toiling masses throughout the sub-continent. In Bengal, the supporters of the "Provisional Government" could, of course, fight on the side of the Indian bourgeoisie against the Pakistani Army. Revolutionary marxists must criticise this course in unequivocal terms and project a viable alternative. The situation in both parts of Bengal makes that alternative much more concrete and real today than it could have been in 1965. All revolutionaries must struggle to turn the interbourgeois war into a war against the bourgeoisie. If this is done the idea of a united Red Bengal would begin to turn
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