ISSN:
0026-749X
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
Ethnic Sciences
,
History
,
Political Science
,
Economics
Notes:
Soviet writers have often claimed that there was no Russian threat to India. They have pointed, correctly, to the circumstance that no invasion attempt was ever launched and have stated that those projects which were canvassed were no more than the ideas of hotheaded generals and the like, were never adopted by the Russian Government and cannot be taken seriously. Further, they have pointed to the rejection of approaches made to Russian authorities by discontented Indians who sought Russian assistance in overthrowing British rule in India. Talk of the defence of British India, with its implication that there was a genuine Russian threat to be warded off, they argue, is more than misleading; it was a deception practised by nineteenth-century British rulers of India to disguise expansionist British aims in India and, beyond the Indian frontier, in the Persian Gulf, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkestan, and it is now a device employed by modern British historians to conceal the true nature of British imperialism in India and to blacken the reputation of Russia. They do not accept that British statesmen and military officers could genuinely have believed in the possibility of a Russian invasion of India; and they suppose that British historians are not so incompetent as to think that nineteenth-century Britons did believe that the threat was real.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X00009264
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