There's a good reason that we don't teach this in our history books - We don't want our countrymen irrationally romanticising this fact too much. (Though it was

There's a good reason that we don't teach this in our history books - We don't want our countrymen irrationally romanticising this fact too much. (Though it was a very important gesture of friendship). It was the height of cold war politics, and initially the Soviets too weren't too warm to India's overture towards it in the 1960's and preferred to court Pakistan instead because it knew the US was using it to open channels to China. (USSR and China at that time didn't share a good relationship). It was only after indian diplomats convinced the Soviets that Pakistan had firmly allied with the west, that they decided a closer friendship with India would be more desirable. The Indo-Soviet relationship reached the peak just before the Bangladesh Liberation war, when both signed the "Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation". It was the first time India had swung away so far from it's non-aligned policy of not siding with a world power during the cold war. Anticipating that the US (and maybe even China) would take some military action against India when they attacked Pakistan, Mrs. Indira Gandhi reached out to the Soviets who were delighted that the Indians were ready to "abandon" their non-aligned policy by signing the treaty. Article IX of the treaty said: > ‘In the event of either Party being subjected to an attack or a threat thereof, the High Contracting Parties shall immediately enter into mutual consultations to remove such threat and to take appropriate effective measures to ensure peace and security of their countries’. USSR cited this treaty to warn US and China that it bound them to come to India's military defence, even as Nixon was encouraging China to attack India and assured them of US support. (It's interesting that even as India was considering how to deal with the refugee crisis from East Pakistan, even the Soviets told them that it wasn't in favour of breaking up Pakistan). Later, when these treaties were renewed, this clause was removed. Ironically, today, Sino-Russian treaties include this clause. And that means, if India and China go to war, India may also have to fight the Russians!