AHC: "India" becomes independent as multiple states

[Mirza Khan]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it: rather than having British India develop "Indian" and "Pakistani" nationalisms, have each ethnicity develop its own nationalism, so that "India" gains independence as a dozen or so seperate countries with seperate official langauges. Ethnic nationalism must transcend religion-ie, Bengal and Punjab have to both be united.

Posted in pre-1900 because, as I understand it, pan-Indian nationalism had already been formulated and become dominant by 1990.

[Malta Shah]

Great political and cultural diversification and conflict bewteen the Indian Rajas?

Though I think the big thing was that the Europeans took over, if Europe had not gotton so heavily involved in the colonization of India, regional differences could have been created because it was only due to the perceived need to join up against the greater colonial power.

[Flocculencio]

Foreign rule was what created a pan-Indian identity, as was said earlier- on a subcontinent that size, the scale and variety of cultures exceeds that of Europe. An India which manages to resist colonisation would stick to ethnolinguistic boundaries for the most part.

[Midas]

Some thoughts:

(1) 'Insidious' trade-oriented colonization (like the BEIC or the French/Dutch/etc. verseions) that supports local monarchs against each other, helps rulers craft large states (Bengal, Hyderabad) but doesn't actually annex territories (like the Raj) would probably create a more fractured India.

(2) No colonization or failed colonization, with foreign powers expelled leads to a very different development of Indian borders- likely along ethnolinguistic, cultural and/or religious lines.

[reformedcpmuser]

Great political and cultural diversification and conflict bewteen the Indian Rajas?

Though I think the big thing was that the Europeans took over, if Europe had not gotton so heavily involved in the colonization of India, regional differences could have been created because it was only due to the perceived need to join up against the greater colonial power.

Foreign rule was what created a pan-Indian identity, as was said earlier- on a subcontinent that size, the scale and variety of cultures exceeds that of Europe. An India which manages to resist colonisation would stick to ethnolinguistic boundaries for the most part.

I agree with the above two posters. In order for a successful division of the Indian subcontinent into (relatively) peaceful ethnolinguistic states, the British colonization and use of English as a lingua franca must be butterflied away. One of the engines of the pan-Indian movement was (and still is, to some extent) English language and culture as a common medium. As much as the British nation was despised, their language was put to very effective use.

The hegemony of English as the lingua franca of the social and political elite has yet to soften. Post-independence legislation designed to encourage the use of Hindi in national level politics and regional language in regional governments has failed to a great degree. Many politicians still wish to read bills and debate in English. Post-colonial India has yet to place Hindi above English as the language of elite discourse. I wonder if there ever will come a time when Hindi can or will attain an ascendancy.

[tallwingedgoat]

So why is that Indochina didn't become a independent unified state? I think the history of the independence process had something to do with it.

[Flocculencio]

So why is that Indochina didn't become a independent unified state? I think the history of the independence process had something to do with it.

You have to remember that the colonial period in Indochina was a lot shorter than that in India.

[pompejus]

So what if we go back far enough and have an India divided by various colonial powers, like England, France, Portugal, the Netherlands and Denmark? Or would that be cheating?

[EvolvedSaurian]

Stating the obvious, but this would not be easy. The periphery, Baluchistan, Assam, Tamil Nadu, would probably be easiest, and there was a good bit of Bengali nationalism in play, but AFAIK the other Dravidian groups never really had the like. However, make these trends stronger, and equivalents will probably emerge, especially quickly in Maharashtra and Punjab, followed by Sind and Gujarat, branch off into Bihari and Orissan and Rajasthani nationalists and you're left with an 'India' that consists of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and you could probably split those off into large scale city-states. Long rambling sentence, argh.

The big problems are the princes, who would largely (Outside of Kashmir and Kerala) try to curb proto-nationalism by any means, and creating a national identity that transcends religious and caste boundaries, and tying together anglicised and, erm, native elements.

Start with Bengal. That is the key to India. Mixed population religiously, but also with a strong sense of Bengali-ness,

You have to remember that the colonial period in Indochina was a lot shorter than that in India.

Also, there wouldn't be fears of one nationality establishing hegemony over the rest, as the Viets would have in Indochina. Nobody has a majority in India.

[Evan]

This might be cheating, but a number of the surviving princely states tried to stay separate even as India gained independence. Of course, without British support and with their people supporting India, they didn't last long. Still, maybe we could do something with this?

[Falastur]

This might be cheating, but a number of the surviving princely states tried to stay separate even as India gained independence. Of course, without British support and with their people supporting India, they didn't last long. Still, maybe we could do something with this?

Only one tried it as I recall, and if I remember correctly it lasted all of four days before Indian soldiers declared war and overran the place, saying that annexation to a unified India was compulsory rather than an alternative. Also, I'm not sure if its citizens had much part in the annexation (though they were probably part). It was more the actions of the Indian army. In fact, I'm not sure the Indian soldiers were even ordered to capture the princely state - I have half a mind that a colonel based nearby simply took it upon himself to annex the territory for India's sake...though maybe I'm starting to get caught up in flights of fantasy now...

At any rate, I believe that the annexation was somewhat legally questionable at best, but simply wasn't challenged by the international community because they had seen it as inevitable that all of India would unify and thus saw defending that one state as a pointless gesture - and probably militarily inadvisable-to-impossible.

[Evan]

I'm not sure how many tried it (though I seem to recall there were at least two), but I remember a lot of them wanted to.

Ah: Says Wikipedia: "Most acceded peacefully [to India or Pakistan], except for four: Junagadh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junagadh), Hyderabad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad_State), Jammu and Kashmir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir) and Tripura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripura)."

[Falecius]

I'm not sure how many tried it (though I seem to recall there were at least two), but I remember a lot of them wanted to.

Ah: Says Wikipedia: "Most acceded peacefully [to India or Pakistan], except for four: Junagadh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junagadh), Hyderabad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad_State), Jammu and Kashmir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir) and Tripura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripura)."

Tripura is extreme east. It is even debatable how much it is historically "india". It could play out as Sikkim, or, Bhutan, did. Hyderabad was the largest princely state, and the only one that ever had a real chance as a semi viable independent state, but it was surrounded by India on all sides. Junagadh never could hope to be a real issue. As for Kashmir, the problem is not settled today OTL.
It should be noted that post-colonial borders of Indian "nations" are going to be a mess similar to the African borders one, only worse, while in pre-colonial India things like linguistic and ethnic identity of the states never mattered much. The only option I see is the British doing that, forcibly.

[Joke Insurance]

Anyone care to post a map of what this could have looked like?

[Simon]

Hyderabad was the largest princely state, and the only one that ever had a real chance as a semi viable independent state, but it was surrounded by India on all sides.
Would having an earlier PoD of Hyderabad somehow gaining access to the sea, say a piece of land along the Krishna or Godavari rivers, of helped any? It'd mean that they're not surrounded by India so not completely unfeasible as an independent country. Of course the Nizam would still have to spend some cash on his military to ward off any possible Operation Polos on India's part but IIRC wasn't he the richest man in the world during the period?

[Ferreolus]

Would a less unified India become independent as soon as India did OTL? I imagine with many groups starting their own brand of nationalism without seeing the bigger picture, the British could continue to play their old game of divide et impera for quite some time.

[jycee]

Anyone care to post a map of what this could have looked like?

I'll give it a go. Just a quick sketch with the ones that have been mentioned maybe a few others. I know little of the topic but it seems intresting.

[jycee]

Alright how's this for a quick sketch. All the states that were mentioned are made independent and I added, Balochistan (if we divide India why not Pakistan as well) and the Maldives.

Rip it apart if you must. As I said I don't know much on the topic, but certainly interested to know about it.

[PulkitNahata]

The Maldives is positioned wrong. And if there is no pan Indianism, then an entity like Bharat taking all the south is improbable. Also the existance of Pakistan is ignored. Junagarh and Hyderabad are impossible. Plus Balochistan is sparsely populated, it would either be annexed by Punjab or Iran. Plus all probability is that a Rajput Confederacy, a Gujurat Confederacy, Kingdom or Republic of Punjab (encompassing Sindh and the NWFP) are separate from Bharat. Bharat can mainly consist of OTL states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkhand.

[Socrates]

Stating the obvious, but this would not be easy. The periphery, Baluchistan, Assam, Tamil Nadu, would probably be easiest, and there was a good bit of Bengali nationalism in play, but AFAIK the other Dravidian groups never really had the like. However, make these trends stronger, and equivalents will probably emerge, especially quickly in Maharashtra and Punjab, followed by Sind and Gujarat, branch off into Bihari and Orissan and Rajasthani nationalists and you're left with an 'India' that consists of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and you could probably split those off into large scale city-states. Long rambling sentence, argh.

The big problems are the princes, who would largely (Outside of Kashmir and Kerala) try to curb proto-nationalism by any means, and creating a national identity that transcends religious and caste boundaries, and tying together anglicised and, erm, native elements.

Start with Bengal. That is the key to India. Mixed population religiously, but also with a strong sense of Bengali-ness,



Also, there wouldn't be fears of one nationality establishing hegemony over the rest, as the Viets would have in Indochina. Nobody has a majority in India.

Love to see a map of this.

[TurkishCapybara]

Alright how's this for a quick sketch. All the states that were mentioned are made independent and I added, Balochistan (if we divide India why not Pakistan as well) and the Maldives.

Rip it apart if you must. As I said I don't know much on the topic, but certainly interested to know about it.


You made it ASB, and you forgot Khalistan and Sikkim, and multiple other states.

[Dangimill]

Alright how's this for a quick sketch. All the states that were mentioned are made independent and I added, Balochistan (if we divide India why not Pakistan as well) and the Maldives.

Rip it apart if you must. As I said I don't know much on the topic, but certainly interested to know about it.

Those islands aren't the Maldives. What you labelled are the Nicobar Islands.

[Blackfox5]

The major obstacle is the way the Indian National Congress developed. Once it became solely about the establishment of a pan-Indian state, it will be hard to justify multiple states. certainly the critical time period is between 1885 with the establishment of Congress and 1920 when Gandhi became dominant.

Instead of Congress becoming the sole voice of Indian national aspirations, you likely need a variety of regional organizations. Maybe British policy changed after the Sepoy Rebellion to divide India. So instead of one raj, there are several. Or the British don't allow Congress to exist, but tolerate smaller, regional organizations. Or around the time of WWI, Britain puts together a credible dominion status plan for India, but on a more local level with certain regions of India getting the chance for self-governance sooner (which would enourage people in those areas to not support a greater India). Certainly, Muslim regions of India might prefer that to a greater India.

[Badshah]

Foreign rule was what created a pan-Indian identity, as was said earlier- on a subcontinent that size, the scale and variety of cultures exceeds that of Europe. An India which manages to resist colonisation would stick to ethnolinguistic boundaries for the most part.
Well, the Mughal Empire did create a Hindustani culture, and the Marathas were on the way to controlling the entire subcontinent had the British and French not intervened, so it would take more than that.

[Simon]

Maybe British policy changed after the Sepoy Rebellion to divide India. So instead of one Raj, there are several.
Well prior to the British government taking over in 1858 after the Sepoy Rebellion India was organised by the East India Company into three main Presidencies that they directly ruled. Apparently there was even a proposed idea for a fourth one as the Presidency of Agra in the north of the country. One option might be to have the four Presidencies run as independent colonies with the British Viceroy sitting above them and the Princely States running what in our timeline was the British Raj as some kind of federation.

[Joke Insurance]

Found this:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NE-72ZXux-g/S7V9fQDlkCI/AAAAAAAANbY/YaAvx8zzAyg/s1600/IndianRumpState.jpg

And this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SZeBLrm5ieo/TTNaFaeOhCI/AAAAAAAACsk/ExpWVbqBuOA/s640/rajiv.jpg

[Burton K Wheeler]

Dude, we asked you nicely to slow your roll. There's nothing inherently wrong with thread necromancy, but you've bumped a slew of threads, and generally with little or no added content. Since you were warned already, I'm going to kick you for a week, during which time you'll be unable to post. When you come back, please don't commit mass necromancy again.

[EAF602Whizz]

Those islands aren't the Maldives. What you labelled are the Nicobar Islands.

In this timeline they're the Maldives.

[Iori]

In this timeline they're the Maldives.

The actual Maldives have had their name for centuries if not longer; that's like naming Baffin Island Ireland and then forcing actual Ireland to change its name.

[Flocculencio]

In this timeline they're the Maldives.

As Iori pointed out the Maldives have had that name for millennia. The name comes from Tamil Malai Theevu/ Sanskrit Malai Deepu which mean the "Garland Isles", just as the Lahkshwadeep Islands to their North come from the Sanskrit/Tamil/Malayalam words for "One Hundred Thousand Isles".

[Grey Wolf]

Found this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SZeBLrm5ieo/TTNaFaeOhCI/AAAAAAAACsk/ExpWVbqBuOA/s640/rajiv.jpg

If that's a book, it looks interesting... What exactly is the title getting at?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Grey Wolf]

Well prior to the British government taking over in 1858 after the Sepoy Rebellion India was organised by the East India Company into three main Presidencies that they directly ruled. Apparently there was even a proposed idea for a fourth one as the Presidency of Agra in the north of the country. One option might be to have the four Presidencies run as independent colonies with the British Viceroy sitting above them and the Princely States running what in our timeline was the British Raj as some kind of federation.

Considering that the Indian presidencies extended their control over the Malay Straits, a colony on Sumatra and in the wars against the Dutch over Java itself, then maybe if they spread out thus far a reorganisation would make sense whereby each one has a more geographical focus, thus sundering the dominance of Calcutta?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[RamscoopRaider]

Have independence be the result of Britain losing a war with several competing foreign powers

Have the foreign powers give India independence but divide it up into separate ethnic states in doing so, for ideological reasons or simple to designate spheres of influence

Have said foreign powers last long enough and posses enough firepower to make things stick long enough to create a ruling class whose interests include keeping their states independence

Or just have Britain hold on long enough for independence to come in the form of being on the losing end of a nuclear war

[Kishan]

The linguistic states came into existence only in 1956 after the reorganisation of states by the Government of India. Hence states forming along linguistic borders at the time of independence does not have any chance. Further a pan-Indian nationalist feeling had developed in the early years of the twentieth century. Certain regions like Bengal had developed their own nationalism earlier in the nineteenth century itself. But such regional identities were limited to certain regions only.
Many people think that had the British not ruled, India would have remained split into many little kingdoms. Not likely. In the eighteenth century the Mughals were past their prime and on a downhill course. The Marathas were the developing power and their power had reached Delhi.The loss at the Third Battle of Panipat, though was a strong blow, was not fatal enough to halt their growth. It was the arrival of the British that blocked their path. If there was no foreign interference, Maratha Empire might have replaced the Mughal Empire.The Marathas could have established an empire covering the whole subcontinent.

[Socrates]

I once read that levels of insurrection were far, far lower in the Princely states than they were in the Raj controlled areas. How about having a second mutiny in the late 19th Century, causing the British to notice this, and decide to place the whole subcontinent under indirect control, to insulate themselves a bit more. If there were ten Hyderabads, things may have turned out differently.

[Flocculencio]

I once read that levels of insurrection were far, far lower in the Princely states than they were in the Raj controlled areas. How about having a second mutiny in the late 19th Century, causing the British to notice this, and decide to place the whole subcontinent under indirect control, to insulate themselves a bit more. If there were ten Hyderabads, things may have turned out differently.

The trouble here is that the regions where the British took over directly tended to be the regions without effective local aristocracies. Indian states which were stable and able to govern their populations and fit into the British colonial resource extraction plan, like Travancore, Hyderabad and a lot of the Rajput states tended to just be given a Resident and left to sort out their own internal affairs. The British took direct control in the face of a power vacuum (as in much of the former Mughal heartland) or in response to internal chaos (as with the Punjab where the Sikh Empire was being torn apart by internal rivalries and factions). Thus, it would be hard to find a legitimate and effective aristocracy in the directly governed areas because the lack of such was what left these areas easy prey for British annexation.

[Flocculencio]

The linguistic states came into existence only in 1956 after the reorganisation of states by the Government of India. Hence states forming along linguistic borders at the time of independence does not have any chance. Further a pan-Indian nationalist feeling had developed in the early years of the twentieth century. Certain regions like Bengal had developed their own nationalism earlier in the nineteenth century itself. But such regional identities were limited to certain regions only.

I suppose that's true- it was also visible in Kerala where the state of Travancore was rapidly attempting to place Cochin under it's control and was only blocked from expanding further into Calicut by Tippoo Sultan's more powerful forces conquering the area.

[Simon]

Considering that the Indian presidencies extended their control over the Malay Straits, a colony on Sumatra and in the wars against the Dutch over Java itself, then maybe if they spread out thus far a reorganisation would make sense whereby each one has a more geographical focus, thus sundering the dominance of Calcutta?
Yeah, British India did seem to spread into the surrounding region somewhat. Makes sense really since Burma was always about shielding India as a protective barrier, Malaya/Singapore in part about protecting the route to China, and generally getting dragged into economic contests with the Dutch. Having a look at a rough map of the three Presidencies (http://britishcoins.indian-coins.com/images/presid.JPG) if you keep Burma as a seperate colony right from the start and divide Bengal into two parts with a prospective Agra Presidency I mentioned before running the north-western bit that does appear to make things a little more workable. At this point with a possibly much weaker 'Indian' identity forming and the princely states dividing the Presidencies up even further you at least have a fighting chance.

[Wendell]

Yeah, British India did seem to spread into the surrounding region somewhat. Makes sense really since Burma was always about shielding India as a protective barrier, Malaya/Singapore in part about protecting the route to China, and generally getting dragged into economic contests with the Dutch. Having a look at a rough map of the three Presidencies (http://britishcoins.indian-coins.com/images/presid.JPG) if you keep Burma as a seperate colony right from the start and divide Bengal into two parts with a prospective Agra Presidency I mentioned before running the north-western bit that does appear to make things a little more workable. At this point with a possibly much weaker 'Indian' identity forming and the princely states dividing the Presidencies up even further you at least have a fighting chance.

The princely states dividing up the presidencies is far more easily said than done.