Sir Olaf Kirkpatrick Kruuse Caroe, (15 November 1892 – 23 November 1981) was an administrator in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, working for the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

and the

Indian Political Service The Indian Political Department (IPD), formerly known as the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India, was a government department in British India. It originated in a resolution passed on 13 September 1783 by the board of direc ...

. He served as the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India during the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and later as the Governor of the

North-West Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ps, شمال لویدیځ سرحدي ولایت, ) was a Chief Commissioner's Province of British India, established on 9 November 1901 from the north-western districts of the Punjab Province. Followi ...

(the frontier with

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

). As Foreign Secretary, he was responsible for reviving the

McMahon Line The McMahon Line is the boundary between Tibet and British India as agreed in the maps and notes exchanged by the respective plenipotentiaries on 24–25 March 1914 at Delhi, as part of the 1914 Simla Convention. The line delimited the r ...

, which included the Assam Himalayan frontier (present day

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares ...

) within India. After retirement, Caroe took on the role of a strategist of the

Great Game The Great Game is the name for a set of political, diplomatic and military confrontations that occurred through most of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century – involving the rivalry of the British Empire and the Russian Empi ...

and the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

on the southern periphery of the Soviet Union. His ideas are believed to have been highly influential in shaping the post-War policies of Britain and the United States. Scholar Peter Brobst calls him the "quintessential master of the

" and the "foremost strategic thinker of British India" in the years before independence.

Early life

Born in London, Olaf Caroe was the son of architect William Douglas Caroe (1857–1938) and Grace Desborough Rendall (died 1947), daughter of John Rendall, barrister. He was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of ...

, where his maternal uncle Montague Rendall was headmaster, and entered

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the ...

in 1911 on a demyship, where he read classics. On the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Royal West Surrey Regiment, rising to the rank of captain. He spent the entire war in India, where he began learning Urdu and Pashto and acquired a desire to return to the country after the war.

Career

In 1919, Caroe joined the

, and soon moved to the

. He was influential in foreign policy and rose to be the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, serving in that role through the

. When he was deputy foreign secretary, Caroe is credited with getting the Government of India to reaffirm the

, which had been negotiated by a former Foreign Secretary Henry McMahon with Tibet in the Simla Convention of 1914. The McMahon Line ran along the crest of the Himalayan ranges east of Bhutan, and incorporated the present day

within the territory of India. For various reasons, the Simla Convention was not operationalised until 1935, and the official publication of the treaties of the Government of India, ''Aitchison's Treaties'', did not include it. Caroe obtained the British government's permission to revise the official Indian maps to show the McMahon Line as the new boundary and to include the Simla Convention in a revised volume of ''Aitchison's Treaties'' but to do so "unobtrusively". Caroe reissued the new volume in 1938, but still carrying the original 1929 date, and had the original volumes withdrawn. When the matter was discovered in 1963, it gave rise to accusation of a "virtual falsification" of the official records. Scholar Karunakar Gupta states that Caroe's zeal in operationalising the McMahon Line warrants it being renamed the "McMahon–Caroe Line". Caroe took a great interest in involving native Indian officials in foreign service and training them in diplomacy. Two of Caroe's officers rose to high ranks after independence:

K. P. S. Menon Kumara Padmanabha Sivasankara Menon Sr. (18 October 1898 – 22 November 1982), usually known as K. P. S. Menon, was a diplomat and diarist, a career member of the Indian Civil Service (British India), Indian Civil Service. He was appoint ...

, who became India's ambassador to China and Soviet Union as well as foreign secretary, and A. S. B. Shah, who headed Pakistan's Political Service and later went as ambassador to Egypt. After the war, Caroe was appointed as the Governor of the

(NWFP), on the northwest border of the Indian subcontinent, adjoining Afghanistan and Russia. He served in this role from 1946 to just before the

Partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: India and Pakistan. T ...

in 1947. Subject to accusations that he was too close to the

Muslim League Muslim League may refer to: Political parties Subcontinent ; British India *All-India Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinah, led the demand for the partition of India resulting in the creation of Pakistan. **Punjab Muslim League, a branch of the organ ...

, he encountered opposition from

Congress Party The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

politicians,Parshotam Mehra
The force Badshah Khan built (review of ''The Pathan Unarmed: Opposition & Memory in the North West Frontier'' by Mukulika Banerjee)
Tribune India 2 December 2001 and was replaced in mid-1947 by Rob Lockhart as governor.

Strategist

He wrote extensively after returning to Britain in 1947. His strategic ideas proved influential in the United States:

Works

* * ** * ''The Pathans 550 B.C.–A.D. 1957''. Macmillan and Company, London 1958 ** * *

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Caroe, Olaf Indian Civil Service (British India) officers Central Asian studies scholars Indology Knights Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India People educated at Summer Fields School 1892 births 1981 deaths People educated at Winchester College Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford British people of Danish descent Indian Political Service officers British people in colonial India