NEW DELHI, October 2. /TASS/. Indians, young and old, harbor genuinely warm feelings toward Russia, Indian writer, historian and researcher Achala Moulik said in an interview with TASS.
"There is genuine good will in India towards Russia - the only European nation which has neither offended or oppressed India. Patriotic scholars feel an affinity; ordinary people feel fraternity for a nation which had improved the lot of the common man," the writer stated.
Asked about similarities between the Russian and Indian worldviews, Moulik noted that peoples seem mysterious and incomprehensible when they live in different spatial and temporal dimensions.
"Nations seem mysterious and enigmatic when they live in different space and time. Science and technology have narrowed distances and shortened time so that people across the world can communicate more freely. The youth of today may have common values and aspirations. They have similar sartorial tastes and food habits but these are on a superficial level. The intelligentsia of different countries have their own outlooks. Sometimes an upheaval or an injustice brings them together - as saw the international outcry against the invasion of Iraq or the outbreak of Covid. Young educated Indians and young educated Russians appear to share similar dreams and aspirations," the writer concluded.
Achala Moulik is a recipient of the Pushkin Medal. She is known as the author of several novels and has long written extensively about Russia as a researcher. She previously published Commemorating India-Russia Friendship: Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation of 1971. She also introduced Indian readers to the history of Russian literature. Her best-known monographs include Silhouettes of Russian Literature: Pushkin to Yevtushenko and A Hundred Years of Lev Tolstoy and the Indian Connection. Last year, she presented her new book, The Thousand Year War: Russia and the West, which offers a unique perspective on the centuries-long history of conflicts initiated by the Western world against Russia.