ABSTRACT
Two great areas of culture existed from ancient times in the lands south and east of the Himalayas: the Indian and the Chinese. From their activities emerged European colonial empires in some lands and indirect domination, mainly economic but partly political, in others. Meanwhile the Soviet Union remained in the mid-1970s the only one of the great European colonial empires of the nineteenth century that was territorially almost intact. The foundation on which Indian identity had to be built was religious and cultural, and the same was true of Pakistan. The rulers and the army of West Pakistan were able to lead their people against the easterners until Indian superior force defeated them; but this did not mean that a single Pakistani nation had been created in the West. Soviet neo-colonialism was directed not only against the effective sovereignty of the states, but also against the culture and identity of the nations.
