Kalmyk Project

The Kalmyk Project was the name given to Soviet plans to launch a surprise attack on the North-West Frontier Province of British India via Tibet and other Himalayan buffer states in 1919–1920.

[1][2] A later plan considered by the Soviets had the raising a force of nearly 40,000 cavalry troops from Turkestan or the Urals and advance to India through Afghanistan, with help from Afghan tribes that rallied against Amanullah.

[4] That was to proceed under the cover of a scientific expedition under the Indologist Fyodor Shcherbatskoy, and it would arm the indigenous people in the North-East Frontier with modern weaponry before a regular supply could be arranged.

[5] The Kalmyk project may have been the brainchild of Raja Mahendra Pratap, who had led the Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition into Afghanistan in 1915 and later established the nationalist Provisional Government of India at Kabul in December that year.

He was close to Fyodor Shcherbatskoy and Sergey Oldenburg, intended to participate in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs planned expeditions to Tibet in summer 1919, and was privy to its designs for the region.