Britain without India.

How would the failure to assume control over India have affected Great Britain and the British Empire?

In the 1750's to 1800 timeframe, India was largely looted of its specie, bringing a great deal of liquidity to Britain, no doubt assisting their industrialization.

Afterword, favorable trade relations further expanded British industry.

If Britain had failed to conquer/absorb India, what might have been the result?

Would the American Revolutionary War, French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars, etc have gone differently?

How about the Industrial Revolution and Britain's economic might of the 19th/20th centuries?

Certainly Colonialism, for all of Europe would have gone differently. India was a rare profitable colony. I've long held the philosophy that much of 19th century colonialism was a fad (keeping up with the Jones, as the saying goes) rather than a concrete economic requirement.

Feel free to expand, I'm trying to get a grasp on potential tails.

No takers?

Alt History Buff said:

No takers?

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I'm really really interested in what Britain would be like without India, I just don't have the necessary knowledge to comment.

Alt History Buff said:

How would the failure to assume control over India have affected Great Britain and the British Empire?

In the 1750's to 1800 timeframe, India was largely looted of its specie, bringing a great deal of liquidity to Britain, no doubt assisting their industrialization.

Afterword, favorable trade relations further expanded British industry.

If Britain had failed to conquer/absorb India, what might have been the result?

Would the American Revolutionary War, French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars, etc have gone differently?

How about the Industrial Revolution and Britain's economic might of the 19th/20th centuries?

Certainly Colonialism, for all of Europe would have gone differently. India was a rare profitable colony. I've long held the philosophy that much of 19th century colonialism was a fad (keeping up with the Jones, as the saying goes) rather than a concrete economic requirement.

Feel free to expand, I'm trying to get a grasp on potential tails.

Click to expand...

I'm not that knowledgeable either, but I believe the main effect would have been contingent on the fact that a british failure in the region leaves France open as the only country powerful enough to take it. This would have radically altered the global balance of power.

Alt History Buff said:

How would the failure to assume control over India have affected Great Britain and the British Empire?

In the 1750's to 1800 timeframe, India was largely looted of its specie, bringing a great deal of liquidity to Britain, no doubt assisting their industrialization.

Afterword, favorable trade relations further expanded British industry.

If Britain had failed to conquer/absorb India, what might have been the result?

Would the American Revolutionary War, French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars, etc have gone differently?

How about the Industrial Revolution and Britain's economic might of the 19th/20th centuries?

Certainly Colonialism, for all of Europe would have gone differently. India was a rare profitable colony. I've long held the philosophy that much of 19th century colonialism was a fad (keeping up with the Jones, as the saying goes) rather than a concrete economic requirement.

Feel free to expand, I'm trying to get a grasp on potential tails.

Click to expand...

Your statement that India was a profitable colony is partially true. British investment in India was certainly profitable but this was mainly due to the size of the India market for British goods. The Empire ensured that the Indian population did not produce its own goods and was constrained to buy British goods generating the profit.

Certainly in the early phase of Indian Empire the EIC had serious problems maintaining a profitable trade because of the costs of defending its position militarily and economically against competition. Perversely by the time that competition in India (French, Dutch, Portuguese) had been squeezed out, mostly by military means and internal threats from independent Indian states had been removed, the EIC was nationalised by the British Government.

It does beg the question, given the UK's competitive position in world trade in the early - mid 19th century, whether a Liberal free trade approach to empire may have been more profitable in the long run. Certainly there were voices arguing against the acquisition of Empire but the legacy of the eighteenth century wars in India meant that the UK was stuck with the colony.

An interesting what if would be if the British approach to India mirrored its approach to China and concentrated on a few "treaty ports" with a vast hinterland dominated by British trade. This would have required the British to "rule by proxy" supporting some of the Indian states against other outside interference. The trick would be persuading the eighteenth century Empire men (Clive etc.) to think more like a nineteenth century Liberal.

I don't think the looting of India produced nearly as much capital as the the Sugar trade (and its slavery) so I suspect the industrial revolution wouldn't be affected adversely in the UK. Likewise a free(-er) India would have little impact on the American Revolution - if not Tea then some other grievance would be used to rally the merchant classes.

What would have changed would be the culture of the British Empire and perhaps the desire to emulate it from the rest of Europe. After all the Colonial Governor is much more to aspire to than the grubby colonial trader. Even if the trader makes more money.

Ziemniak said:

I'm really really interested in what Britain would be like without India, I just don't have the necessary knowledge to comment.

Click to expand...

On the flip side, imagine India, without British influence, never adopting the sport of cricket .

Robert Guiscard said:

Actually the train of events that lead to India falling under the complete domination of Britain was very unique and complex. In fact I bet a fair numbe rof people on this forum could tell you how unlikely India falling under British domination was. It really was a combination of luck, opportunity, and good leadership. If Britain didn't take over India I can't see any other power having the same luck as Britain had. We'd probably see some large settlements and territories under various European powers but the continent would be dominated by Indian rajas armed by, allied to, and with armies led by Europeans.

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With a stronger Maratha or mughals annihilate the Duranni(How they beat Nadir shah, I dont know) and maintain control over the majority of the subcontinent and Britain is not able to gain a foothold in Bengal then politically perhaps India can resist British colonization(though lack of centralization of the state and the decentralized mess of rajas and nawabs ruling over a predominantly low literate and agricultural region(akin to Poland or Southern Europe), caste system and lack of access to lots of capital or necessity for coal) may still be exploited by european powers. However economically it is still screwed. The moment the brits put up tariff barriers, buy up cheap cotton from the south and Egypt, import indian master textile weavers and what not and the lancashire cotton mills+ industrialization which was bound to occur given the situation in UK at the time, the Indian manufacturing industry is destroyed.

High Literacy+cheap coal+good waterways+manufacturing base+central banking system+Stable centralized government means Britain will industrialize but India will have greater difficulty doing so and fall behind. In such a case, Indian textiles are like otl going to be outcompeted by British and French ones and I can see whatever dynasty ruling India goes the way of China post opium wars. By this point technologically and economically post 1800s India, regardless of who rules over it cant prevent european economic dominance though it may be given the right circumstances and luck be able to avert political domination and prevent the British raj from forming.

Hell if it is super lucky it can avoid Chinaesque taiping rebbelion, upheavals, and collapse of the ruling dynasty leading to a descent into warlordism.

I'm not convinced that India was then a country; it's more like an entire region of interacting separate powers, more like Europe than one nation. At times in its own history, it had been, under different heads.

India rises and falls on long tides of history, from unification to overburdensome central authority to factionalism to disintegration to feuding to one side victorious to unification again, and it is a peculiarity of the rhythm of it all that they were on the downswing, Maratha authority was already running thin, when Europe came to visit.

The East India Company, by relying on Indian middlemen, may have done a great deal for trade and commerce within India, to break down local barriers and stimulate growth- as Tiranthakar Roy argues, the modern country became a united economy long before she reunited as a nation.

The trade would not have gone away, but- if the subcontinent had been on a different part of the long cycle of the times-

actually, India as a trading partner without the added cost of running an empire could have been an economic bonus for Britain.

CarribeanViking said:

I'm not convinced that India was then a country; it's more like an entire region of interacting separate powers, more like Europe than one nation. At times in its own history, it had been, under different heads.

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I largely agree. If India remained divided under several different foreign and independent powers instead of just solid British or French rule I can easily see a scenario where India as we think of it never materializes and after decolonization instead remains a region of several different independent nations. It was British rule and consolidation of territory that resulted in India as a nation.

Focus

See the Tony Jones timeline about a world where Robert Clive died early. Hence, India becomes French dominated instead of British. Without the wealth of India Britain focuses more on North America and the Caribbean.

One of the HUGE advantages that India gave Britain was the world's best supply of saltpetre for gunpowder.

Until the Chilean/Peruvian supplies started being developed in earnest, India had by far the best supply of saltpetre.

This meant Britain had a huge advantage in e.g. the Napoleonic wars.

Britain was the only European power that really had a chance of conquering India and even then, it was still difficult to do so. If Britain wasn't able to conquer the sub-continent, I can't really see any other European power doing anything than establishing trading centers on the coast and not expanding beyond that, like how the Portuguese had control of Goa.

Postulating an "India as China" outcome with a number of British treaty ports dominating trade with a fractured India, it is still likely that the UK will acquire a number of smaller colonies as a consequence of the Napoleonic conflict (which was pretty much divorced from the Indian Empire building in OTL so the butterflies wouldn't be flapping too hard.

Australia and New Zealand would probably still be settled as they were a reaction to losing America and a desire to exclude the French monarchy from any further acquisition of colonies. They are also white dominated settler colonies as per Canada. South Africa and Ceylon / Sri Lanka will probably still be acquired from Holland during the wars but I would assume futher expansion in the Far East is confined to trading enterprises out of Singapore and Hong Kong.

South Africa, Sri Lanka and Australia become the way points for Britain's global trade empire. Emigration is focused on South Africa and the white settler colonies and the trading cities. Without India and before the Scramble for Africa the British Empire is smaller, whiter and probably more profitable. An Imperial Federation as a concept is more manageable to implement, particularly if Sri Lanka is returned to a native client state (minus Trincomalee or similar treaty port).

The "scramble for Africa" is an interesting question. British experience would lead them to want to control Suez which may still involve them in Egypt but more likely in a Panama situation with direct control only over the canal zone (with a weak client government outside this area)

Resource exploitation in Greater South Africa is likely to go ahead (diamonds, gold, metals) but the acquisition of East and West coast African colonies is unlikely - possibly some trading ports or islands (e.g. Zanzibar, Lagos)

Other nations may in turn concentrate on "core colonies" aping the British - expect to see heavier French immigration in Algeria with more tenuous links throughout West Africa.

The scramble may only occur when the latecomers (Germany, Italy) come to the Empire "party" and even this may leave great swathes of Africa outside European control (if not influence) due to the different policies of the British (and possibly French)

Remember much of the "Scramble for Africa" was a reaction to British overseas dominance.

At one point, Colonalism was on the decline with the Anglo-Spanish loss of most of the America's to independence (1776 to 1830's). The profitable West Indian/Brazilian sugar trade was in decline even before the emancipation of its labor force.

India was the European crown jewel remaining of colonialism.Without that example, would France care enough about Indochina to assume control? Would anyone at all care about Africa beyond naval bases?

Britain herself only gained influence in Egypt to protect the route to India. They took Sudan, Kenya, etc to protect Egypt. They wanted the rest of Africa to protect these colonies, etc.

Without a profitable Indian colony to set the standard, I'm not sure anyone, even Germany and Italy would care about subsaharan Africa.

Indirectly, China might benefit from this lack of interest. WIthout strong European supply lines, the "Unequal Treaties" may not have been feasible.

Alt History Buff said:

Remember much of the "Scramble for Africa" was a reaction to British overseas dominance.

At one point, Colonalism was on the decline with the Anglo-Spanish loss of most of the America's to independence (1776 to 1830's). The profitable West Indian/Brazilian sugar trade was in decline even before the emancipation of its labor force.

India was the European crown jewel remaining of colonialism.Without that example, would France care enough about Indochina to assume control? Would anyone at all care about Africa beyond naval bases?

Britain herself only gained influence in Egypt to protect the route to India. They took Sudan, Kenya, etc to protect Egypt. They wanted the rest of Africa to protect these colonies, etc.

Without a profitable Indian colony to set the standard, I'm not sure anyone, even Germany and Italy would care about subsaharan Africa.

Indirectly, China might benefit from this lack of interest. WIthout strong European supply lines, the "Unequal Treaties" may not have been feasible.

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Pretty much agree with this - I think UK would still want to secure the Suez canal even if only for trade but it may not be via a full takeover of Egypt.

Germany and Italy were the keenest players in the colonial game towards the end of the nineteenth century. Whilst I agree they may not seek control over vast swathes of the interior of Africa directly I think they will seek to emulate UK (and France?) by establishing coaling / trading stations around the coast (e.g Swakopmund, Zanzibar, Assab, Mogadishu)

But trade with india and China would be attractive to all the European powers - China (and now India ITTL) will still be exploited - just not conquered.

The view that India wasn't a nation prior to the British is a little misguided. While certainly there wasn't a fully centralised authority by the time of the British ascendancy, I would argue that a proto-nation had already formed underneath the banner of the Mughals.

Many 'independent' kingdoms were actually formally feudatories of the Mughal Empire, and in many territories the rulers sought the authority of Delhi to confirm their rule, even if this was only a rubber stamp. There was a lot of power in controlling the Emperor as well, just as the Scindia of Gwalior would do as a Maratha.

To define the scope of the Mughal legitimacy; at its height, Tanjore, Mysore and so on were confirmed as vassals under Aurangzeb, but even as they weakened, other rulers such as Tipu Sultan continued to confirm the Mughal paramountcy. The Nizams and Nawabs of course continued to function under the theoretical Mughal in Delhi, and the reason I'm pointing this out is because it had a lot to do with how the British managed to take over India.

The British tended to confirm those rulers that were vassals because then no ruler could claim too much loyalty; and of course legally since they were always vassals after 1857, their formal loyalty simply transferred from Delhi to Calcutta.

Now you might say, there's a lot of 'formals' and 'de jures' in there versus what was actually happening on the ground, but I'd point out that legitimacy was very important in Indian politics, and was one of the biggest reasons no Princely States were able to break away. Even the Nizam, for example, was stunted because the British didn't want to give him a royal title. Indeed, no Prince had a royal title, or were ever referred to in any other terms than 'princely' or'native'.

The problem with the Marathas, is that their myth exceeds their goals. Maratha policy tended to be centred on Maharashtra, and the rest of India tended to be raiding ground for those princes. Many like Scindia and Holkar were actually forced from returning to their homeland as they wished to do to continue ruling. And in many cases even the Marathas acted like agents of the Mughal government in Delhi (in Mysore, for example, where both sardeshmukhi and Mughal taxes were both levied).

In terms of pan-Indian sentiment, they just didn't have it; the Marathas were actually less liked in Delhi than the Afghans, since they were prone to pillage without discipline, whereas the Afghans inflicted heavy punishments on their own looters.

I would argue that these actors would continue to function in an independent India, but that if the Nizams or Nawabs took control it would certainly resemble a Shogunate situation over a total break from Delhi. The Emperor did hold a lot of symbolic power.

traveller76 said:

See the Tony Jones timeline about a world where Robert Clive died early. Hence, India becomes French dominated instead of British. Without the wealth of India Britain focuses more on North America and the Caribbean.

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I'm not convince that the French ever wanted or could unite/conquer India in the manner that Britain did.

Their mindset was always trade and influence, not conquest.

When Britain successfully expelled all French military presence from the continent (leaving only a few undefended trading forts to the French), Britain methodically (though largely unintentionally) acquired the other pieces one by one.

If France had maintained a military presence, they could have prevented such easy conquests by Britain by providing an alternative source of armaments, officers, trade, etc. The Indian Raj's would not be required to buckle under to the British.

Britain would not have dared, say, force a major state to relinquish control of their military or finances to British factors if France offered an alternative option. They could play the Europeans against one another and maintain their independence.

See, I would expect Britain would have had a drastically different Empire without India. They need a location to exploit. If the East Indian company doesn't embroil itself in India, we could see that same effort being put into Indonesia, or East Africa.

I do like the idea of the British conquering and dominating the Omani Empire, from Zanzibar to Muscat, and perhaps to Madagascar would be really powerful. They could control which way trade goes, and it would be a base of operations to influence India, Persia, Arabia and Ethiopia.

And sets them up for Egypt in the future.

I think my assumption is going to have to be that they'd build an Empire around controlling peoples ability to trade, rather than controlling India directly.

I can certainly see a Britain without India wanting to try and retake territory from the US, or dominate the Caribbean.

The British state would have had a lot more money, as they wouldn't have been bailing out the corrupt East India Company again and again.

There would also be fewer "nabobs": unscrupulous military men that went out to India, ruled like tyrants for a few years, channeling money into their own pockets, and then came back home and bought seats in parliament, with very right-wing reactionary views.

funnyhat said:

On the flip side, imagine India, without British influence, never adopting the sport of cricket .

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You, sir, beggar things that would destroy the world.