Cold War Challenge: Communist Pakistan, Capitalist India

[Wendell]

With a point of divergence after 1941, create a situation wherein Pakistan is a Marxist-Leninist state aligned to the USSR and India is a more or less capitalist state aligned to the United States. This situation should remain in place for the duration of the cold war. Any thoughts?

[RogueBeaver]

Does this have to be immediate? Pakistan is a state explicitly built on religious lines and communism and Islam (or any Abrahamic religion) don't mix that well, so I fail to see how that works. The military regimes clamped down viciously on them and they never numbered more than a few thousand, never in any important positions ofpower.

India: just have Patel, not Nehru become PM in 1947, succeeded by Desai. IMO what you are most likely to get in the long run is Rajiv's foreign policy: pro-American in basic orientation, Third Way economically but triangulating (not that the word was ever used) between the US, Russia and China and never wholly lining up with one of the 3.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by RogueBeaver

Does this have to be immediate? Pakistan is a state explicitly built on religious lines and communism and Islam (or any Abrahamic religion) don't mix that well, so I fail to see how that works. The military regimes clamped down viciously on them and they never numbered more than a few thousand, never in any important positions ofpower.

India: just have Patel, not Nehru become PM in 1947, succeeded by Desai. IMO what you are most likely to get in the long run is Rajiv's foreign policy: pro-American in basic orientation, Third Way economically but triangulating (not that the word was ever used) between the US, Russia and China and never wholly lining up with one of the 3.

It does not have to be right away, and yes, for various reasons, India is the easier of the two to adjust for the purposes of this challenge.

[RogueBeaver]

Here's my best take on it. Jinnah's TB is accelerated by a few years so he dies in 1945 instead of 1948. Nehru dies in prison in 1942, so Patel becomes PM and embarks on the course I previously mentioned. Pakistan is still created, but Truman decides to give more food aid to India. Dulles dies of a heart attack in 1953, so without his rigid West v. WarPac mentality Herter or Rocky is SOS and India becomes America's primary ally in the Kush (which it always should've been IMO). The Soviets, sensing a weak civilian government in Pakistan and with their long interest in the region dating back to the Czarist era, finance the CPP and train them in Moscow. Infiltrate the military, assassinate both Khans (L.A. and Ayub) and perhaps form an alliance of convenience with the Islamists. Maybe a younger figure like EMS in India, a pragmatic but highly ideological and ruthless Communist seizes control by the late '50s and early '60s. He appeals for Soviet assistance against China and gets all the arms money and credit can buy, signs a Friendship Treaty to defer any chance of a PRC attack. So by 1965 you have a Communist Pakistan and a Western India.

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

@Beaver: Do you think there'd still be a Third Indo-Pakistani War ITTL? Would India still win (I'm betting on India to win again though).

[RogueBeaver]

Whether there's a Second or Third is at best debatable. I see no reason why not, especially without the idiot (who could not be removed because Nehru adored him) Menon at MOD and better equipment. Hell, a Communist government might be more responsive to the East's needs rather than treating them as a quasi-colony as the West did IOTL, though it will always be a fairly loose federation to survive in the long term.

[Rogov]

Marxist-Leninist Pakistan is a bit much, especially when you have the example of Syria's pro-Soviet orientation for non-communist Islamic-identity but more nationalist than theocratic states.

[Wendell]

If not a M-L Pakistan, then how about an "Islamic Socialist" Pakistan aligned to the USSR?

[RogueBeaver]

So something like the UAR or Nasser's Egypt? That's easier, but with the unfortunate exception of Zia all Pakistan's leaders have been secularists.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by RogueBeaver

So something like the UAR or Nasser's Egypt? That's easier, but with the unfortunate exception of Zia all Pakistan's leaders have been secularists.

Yes, or like Syria, but point taken, nonetheless. Although, Baathists and Nasserites are secularists, technically.

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Originally Posted by Wendell

Yes, or like Syria, but point taken, nonetheless. Although, Baathists and Nasserites are secularists, technically.

Yeah, I think a theoretical Soviet-aligned Pakistan would be less full-on communism and more of a third way inspired by Arab socialism.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by HeavyWeaponsGuy

Yeah, I think a theoretical Soviet-aligned Pakistan would be less full-on communism and more of a third way inspired by Arab socialism.

So as Communist as say, Benin, which never went as far as its state ideology suggested. Now, how do we do it?

[Thande]

Pakistan wouldn't go Communist but it could go into the same sort of vague half-alignment with the USSR that India did in OTL.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by Thande

Pakistan wouldn't go Communist but it could go into the same sort of vague half-alignment with the USSR that India did in OTL.

I'm aiming more for a Benin-level of Soviet alignment, but since that seems too difficult plausibly, how would you switch India and Pakistan in the way you described?

[John Fredrick Parker]

Originally Posted by RogueBeaver

Here's my best take on it. Jinnah's TB is accelerated by a few years so he dies in 1945 instead of 1948. Nehru dies in prison in 1942, so Patel becomes PM and embarks on the course I previously mentioned. Pakistan is still created, but Truman decides to give more food aid to India. Dulles dies of a heart attack in 1953, so without his rigid West v. WarPac mentality Herter or Rocky is SOS and India becomes America's primary ally in the Kush (which it always should've been IMO). The Soviets, sensing a weak civilian government in Pakistan and with their long interest in the region dating back to the Czarist era, finance the CPP and train them in Moscow. Infiltrate the military, assassinate both Khans (L.A. and Ayub) and perhaps form an alliance of convenience with the Islamists. Maybe a younger figure like EMS in India, a pragmatic but highly ideological and ruthless Communist seizes control by the late '50s and early '60s. He appeals for Soviet assistance against China and gets all the arms money and credit can buy, signs a Friendship Treaty to defer any chance of a PRC attack. So by 1965 you have a Communist Pakistan and a Western India.

This actually looks like a pretty good TL; I agree a straightforward "communist" Pakistan is unlikely, but it could certainly adopt a sort of "Islamic Socialism", that end up looking like something like Nasserism (minus the Arab-centrism, obviously)...