India without the British

Admiral Brown

WI the British, for whatever reason, never conquer Bengal in the XVIII century and never establish more than a few comercial outposts in Southern India. Let´s say they lack the will, or they have trouble elswhere, or France is stronger, or the Royal india company bankruptss, or whatever, and there's no will, at the highest level, to get complicated with land conquest in a distant subcontinent.

Let's say also that the Industrial revolution is delayed a few decades, and the West doesn't get really interested in India till the end of the XIX century (at the same time it did ITATL in China and Japan).

What happens to India? The Mughal empire would still colapse, but what will replace it? A divided India is likely, but, who will dominate? Would we see an Hinduist revival, with Hinduists states as the Marathas assuming a predominant position in this new scenario? Or would these states be unable to defeat any threat comming from Muslim Central Asia or Persia, as it happened IOTL at the Battle of Panipat? Would a sikh state emerge at Punjab? any other thoughts?
 

Falecius

The most likely outcome is France controlling South India instead of britain by the end of 18 century, It was already in the process before Plassey.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Falecius said:
The most likely outcome is France controlling South India instead of britain by the end of 18 century, It was already in the process before Plassey.
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This. It would most probably take France longer to do so, but they would do it.

However it's worth remembering that Britain is still going to be established in Bengal unless something very odd happens, even if France gets southern India.
 

wolf_brother

Banned
French India would be very interesting, politically, economically and socially.

EDIT: Can anyone recommend some TLs that features a French India?
 

Falecius

The problem however is that you should butterfly away the revolutionary/napoleonic wars or heavily change their outcome (both likely: the Indian revenues may play a great role in the evnts leading to OTL revolutions). If not, Britain would still cut the link between France and India.
 

Admiral Brown

Falecius said:
The most likely outcome is France controlling South India instead of britain by the end of 18 century, It was already in the process before Plassey.
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OK. But let's say we could somehow reduce all European influence to the minumun (art least for a century). How does India organizes itself?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
wolf_brother said:
On a smaller scale though. Its a 'sub-'continent ;)
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Europe is and always will be a subcontinent of Asia, too ;)
(also Persia and China fulfill the positions of Russia and the Ottoman Empires rather well now that I think of it, although only Persia had a significant political role so it's not a good parallel :p )
 

Uriel

SavoyTruffle said:
Eh, Europe is a peninsula with continental delusions yet gets called a continent simply because they managed to bully the rest of the world. :p
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:mad: Hey Europe is clearly, unquestionably and logicaly seperated from Asia by the ... uhhhhhm .... öhhhh .... :confused: ..... aren't there some hills ?
 

Emperor-of-New-Zealand

Uriel said:
:mad: Hey Europe is clearly, unquestionably and logicaly seperated from Asia by the ... uhhhhhm .... öhhhh .... :confused: ..... aren't there some hills ?
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The Ural Mountains, I believe. In this same context however, North America is just a subcontinent of South America (I would say vice versa, but I think this gets to the Ameriwankers more :p).
 
Plumber

Plumber

Emperor-of-New-Zealand said:
The Ural Mountains, I believe. In this same context however, North America is just a subcontinent of South America (I would say vice versa, but I think this gets to the Ameriwankers more :p).
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I would argue that they would both be subcontinents of America. :p
North America is larger and more populous than South America anyways.
 

Koenig von Poposia

If the French do in India like they did with the Native Americans in Quebec, perhaps there would be a huge number of Indians in India with some French ancestry analogous to the Metis?
 

Trotsky

TheGingerninja41 said:
Robert Clive kills himself?
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So your POD would have Robert Clive randomly deciding one morning that he should kill himself? "He attached a rope around his neck and tied it off to the ceiling, cocked his pistol and stabbed himself through the mouth with his sword."
 

Mirza Khan

I'm too lazy to look up the details, but I think Clive killed himself in OTL-he had some kind of medical condition (want to say a stomach problem, but I'm not sure) that was extremely painful, and during a particularly nasty bout of it he decided he couldn't take it anymore and stabbed himself with a penknife.

Anyway, the POD need not be Robert Clive's suicide-its widely agreed that, following the collapse of the Mughal Empire, India experienced a military power vacuum which the British were able to fill in. Any number of PODs could prevent the vacuum from forming-kill off Nader Shah before he attacks the Mughals, and they might hang around a little longer. Have the Third Battle of Panipat go the other way, and the Maratha Empire will be much stronger than OTL, probably intimidating enough for the Brits to decide its not worth conquering. And so on.
 
Beedok

Beedok

You could have Clive die when he was in French custody or escaping, like say in the timeline in my signature (;)), though that particular one still results in some serious British influence still occuring, but nonetheless it is a potential POD.
 
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