Cold War and India's Partition

Catalog description

The course explores the crucial link between India’s partition and British obsession of Soviet control of Afghanistan. Recognizing India’s Congress leaders nonaligned posture & thus unwillingness to play the Great Game against the Soviet Union, the British used Islam to cultivate the Muslim League led by Jinnah. Jinnah promised military bases in return for American aid. How these political manipulations led to the Baghdad Pact is the central question—at the time opposed by both Afghanistan & India, and its reverberations today.