Fake News, Forgery, and Falsification: Western Responses to Soviet Disinformation in Cold War India

McGarr, Paul M.

Abstract

This paper examines Soviet Cold War disinformation activity in India. It recovers the importance of nonaligned nations in the story of Cold War covert propaganda. Over the course of a decade, that began with the outbreak of the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, and culminated in the Indo-Pakistan conflict of 1971, India disengaged from the West, and tilted towards the Eastern bloc. In the process, New Delhi struggled to control diplomatic fallout from a covert propaganda conflict waged on its territory between the Soviet Union and the United States that, at times, threatened to imperil a strategic reorientation in India’s foreign policy. This article privileges the significance of hitherto neglected actors in the history of a secret Cold War episode in the subcontinent. India evidenced a concerned, if not always productive response to political warfare operations conducted by foreign powers inside its borders. Disquiet over the damage that the dissemination of disinformation and, in particular, the publication of forged documents smearing national governments could do to its relationships with international partners, ensured that India was never a passive player in the propaganda Cold War.

Citation

McGarr, P. M. (2021). Fake News, Forgery, and Falsification: Western Responses to Soviet Disinformation in Cold War India. International History Review, 43(1), 34-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2019.1662471

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 28, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Sep 12, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Aug 29, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 13, 2021
• Journal: The International History Review
• Print ISSN: 0707-5332
• Electronic ISSN: 1949-6540
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 34-53
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2019.1662471
• Keywords: India, Cold War, Propaganda, Forgery, Soviet
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2516332
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07075332.2019.1662471
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International History Review on 12 Sep 2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07075332.2019.1662471
• Contract Date: Aug 29, 2019