CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 78 of 120

Correct — B, Lord Palmerston. In 1836 Palmerston was Britain's Foreign Secretary, an office he held from 1835 to 1841, and the direction of policy towards Russia was his. His hostility to Russian expansion is the settled fact about him: he distrusted the autocracy on principle and read every Russian move in Asia as a challenge to British power, and it was from London, not Calcutta, that the alarm about Russian designs on the approaches to India was sounded loudest. Lord Auckland, who took charge as Governor-General on 4 March 1836, is the tempting alternative because the policy was executed on his watch — it was Auckland who published the Simla Manifesto on 1 October 1838 and sent an army into Afghanistan. But the belief that Russian designs threatened India was a London judgement first, and the key assigns it to the Foreign Secretary who held that view throughout the decade. Author to the key here.

• (a)Lord Auckland — The strongest wrong answer. Auckland became Governor-General on 4 March 1836 and acted on the fear of Russian encroachment, publishing the Simla Manifesto in 1838 and launching the First Anglo-Afghan War. The key nonetheless credits the judgement to London rather than to the man who carried it out.
• (c)Lord Canning — Wrong by a generation. Canning was Governor-General from 1856 and became the first Viceroy after the Revolt of 1857; he was not in India in 1836.
• (d)Alexander Burnes — Burnes was a Company political officer and traveller who went to Kabul in this period and reported on Afghan affairs, and he was killed in the Kabul rising of November 1841. He gathered the intelligence; he did not set the policy or hold the office from which such a judgement was pronounced.

The rivalry between Britain and Russia over the approaches to India, later called the Great Game, shaped British frontier policy through the nineteenth century. Russia's advance across Central Asia and its influence in Persia convinced London that the buffer states between the two empires had to be kept friendly. The First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838 to 1842 was the first and most disastrous product of that thinking; the Second followed in 1878.

The item pits an office-holder in London against an office-holder in India, and the honest way to reason is by role. In 1836 Palmerston sat at the Foreign Office, where relations with Russia were made, and his suspicion of Russian intentions is documented across his whole career. Auckland was newly arrived in Calcutta that same year and would later act on the same fear. One limit should be stated plainly: the exact wording the paper quotes could not be traced to a primary source for this card, so the answer rests here on the offices held in 1836 and on Palmerston's documented view of Russia rather than on the attribution of the phrase. Note also the paper's spelling of tranquility with a single l inside the quoted phrase; that is how the booklet prints it and it does not affect what is being asked.

• Palmerston was British Foreign Secretary from 1830 to 1834, again from 1835 to 1841, and later from 1846 to 1851 — so he held the office in 1836.
• He held a consistently suspicious and hostile attitude towards Russia, whose expansion he saw as a challenge to British power.
• Lord Auckland's term as Governor-General of India ran from 4 March 1836 to 28 February 1842.
• Auckland published the Simla Manifesto on 1 October 1838, declaring against Dost Mohammad Khan and beginning the First Anglo-Afghan War.
• Alexander Burnes was the Company's political officer in Afghanistan and was killed in the Kabul uprising of November 1841.

• Assuming the Governor-General must be the source of any judgement about India's security; frontier policy in this decade was set in London.
• Placing Canning in the 1830s — he belongs to 1856 and after.
• Treating Alexander Burnes as a policymaker; he was the man on the ground who reported to others.

As a who-said-or-believed-it identification, or through the sequence of the First Anglo-Afghan War and the officials associated with it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Simla Manifesto of 1838, which preceded the First Anglo-Afghan War, was issued by

  • (a)Lord William Bentinck
  • (b)Lord Auckland
  • (c)Lord Ellenborough
  • (d)Lord Dalhousie

  Answer(b) Lord Auckland — Governor-General from March 1836, he published it on 1 October 1838 and sent an army into Afghanistan.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The rivalry between Britain and Russia over influence in Central Asia during the nineteenth century is commonly known as

  • (a)The Great Game
  • (b)The Scramble for Asia
  • (c)The Eastern Question
  • (d)The Continental System

  Answer(a) The Great Game — the contest for the buffer states between the two empires, of which the Anglo-Afghan wars were the sharpest expression.