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South Asia in the Files

Partition-era archives, the 1971 war, and the bomb, as seen from New Delhi and Washington.

7 documents · 1748–1974 · 5 issuers

South Asian history is unusually scattered: colonial files in New Delhi, American cables in Washington, nuclear estimates in Langley. This trail pulls the primary sources together, starting with India's own archives.

  1. India's national archives online: colonial and Partition-era files.

    1. 1748 QA-0117
      NAI · Database

      Abhilekh Patal — National Archives of India online portal

      The National Archives of India's portal to millions of digitized pages: colonial Home and Foreign Department files, Partition-era records and transferred ministry files.

      Written 1748 Released 2015 Declassified India Bot-walled

  2. The Bose files, declassified in 2016.

    1. 1941 QA-0118
      NAI · Collection

      Netaji Papers: declassified files on Subhas Chandra Bose

      The government portal for files on Subhas Chandra Bose, declassified from January 2016 onward, including material on his disappearance after the reported 1945 air crash in Taipei.

      Written 1941 Released 23 Jan 2016 Declassified India Unreachable

  3. 1971: the Blood Telegram and Washington's tilt.

    1. 1971 QA-0056
      State · Briefing book

      The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971

      Documents on the Nixon administration's support for Pakistan during the 1971 crisis, including the 'Blood Telegram' in which U.S. diplomats in Dacca formally dissented over Washington's silence on atrocities.

      Written 6 Apr 1971 Released 2002 Declassified United States Live

  4. The State Department's full documentary record of the war.

    1. 1971 QA-0048
      State · Official history

      Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XI: South Asia Crisis, 1971

      The State Department's documentary record of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani war, including the Nixon–Kissinger 'tilt' toward Pakistan despite reports of mass killings in East Pakistan.

      Written 1971 Released 2005 Declassified United States Live

  5. From Smiling Buddha to Pokhran-II, through U.S. intelligence.

    1. 1974 QA-0055
      CIA · Briefing book

      U.S. Intelligence and the Indian Bomb

      Declassified U.S. intelligence estimates on India's nuclear program, from early capability assessments through the 1974 'Smiling Buddha' test to the 1998 Pokhran tests, which caught Washington by surprise.

      Written May 1974 Released Apr 2006 Declassified United States Live

  6. The 1960 forecast of which countries would go nuclear.

    1. 1960 QA-0033
      RAND · Study

      Diffusion of nuclear weapons to additional countries: the ‘nth country’ problem (RAND RM-2484)

      A 1960 RAND study, done for the Air Force, of how and how fast nuclear weapons would spread beyond the first nuclear powers.

      Written 15 Feb 1960 Released 15 Feb 1960 Declassified United States Live

  7. The legal record: every notification in the Gazette of India.

    1. 1922 QA-0119
      GoI Printing · Database

      eGazette of India

      The official Gazette of India: every notification, ordinance, appointment and rule with legal force, as scanned PDFs.

      Written 1922 Released 2008 Never classified India Unreachable