Urgent Help Needed- New British Commonwealth

horticultureandmelodrama

Hi

I have a research assignment for a Professor which lets me exeriment with counter factual history. (yeah!!) She wants to know if the British had a different racial policy, or were nicer to the natives how would relations between an independent India and Britain turned out?

Or perhaps what would be needed for the commonwealth to be a stronger, more powerful alliance? Could the commonwealth have taken on characteristics of the EU?

I have a Monday deadline and would really really appreciate ideas.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
horticultureandmelodrama said:
Hi

I have a research assignment for a Professor which lets me exeriment with counter factual history. (yeah!!) She wants to know if the British had a different racial policy, or were nicer to the natives how would relations between an independent India and Britain turned out?

Or perhaps what would be needed for the commonwealth to be a stronger, more powerful alliance? Could the commonwealth have taken on characteristics of the EU?
Click to expand...

Suggestion: Go back and start from the Indian Mutiny- if you can avoid that, you'd probably see even less "direct" rule of India, one which is willing to use more Indians in the running of India than OTL.

This could lead to a different racial policy in that instead of bringing their memsahibs out as was increasingly prevalent in post-East India Company times, more Englishmen might have been willing to marry Indian women, in the same way the French did, thereby creating an even larger Eurasian population that might act as a sort of bridge between the cultures.

In TTL, India might have been able to achieve independence as a Dominion.

As for actually being "nicer" to the natives, I really don't know how you'd get that given the power structures and prevailing ideology of the 19th C. To be fair and objective, the Brits treated the average Indian about as well as, or even better than, the average ruler, (be he native or European) of the time would have done.
 
Glen

Glen

Moderator
There's been a lot of counterfactuals done on alternates for the evolution of the British Empire into various alternate commonwealths.

Can someone who is familiar with a few of them give some links here for him?

In the meantime, you might want to search the titles of the threads for British Commonwealth.
 
Mr_ Bondoc

Mr_ Bondoc

Something to Consider...

One major aspect towards a friendlier Indian policy might be a change in economic policy. Consider one of the major impetuses for many of the colonial excesses was the theory of mercantilism. According to the theory, the main goal of teh development of colonies was to enrich the mother country. While a socialist economy similar to those described by Karl Marx would have most certainly increased the centralization of the economy, they would have also further disenfranchised the locals and caused further unrest. An economic policy similar to John Maynard Keynes, wherein a government is established that can aid and assist in the developoment of the economic cycles, but allows the political and economic processes to take place independently would have increased the amount of autonomy by the country's leaders. As to when this could happen, the economic impetus could come during the period from the 1880s to the 1910, prior to the development of the Indian Congress. A steady stream of economic and infrastructure development, partnered with a policy towards national developoment and economic growth could go a long way to creating a "friendlier" Indian/British relations.
 

Tyr

I really get irked by this American way of teaching that the British Empire was some big evil semi-nazi state.... You are from India though...hmm I wonder what kind of thing you hear there.

Britiain had the best racial policy of any nation of consequence at the time, by todays standards it wasn't 100% perfect though as it was it was good.
With the French and marrying natives- this was just so they could turn the natives into 'brown Frenchmen' (and keep this policy today with regards to immigrants)
Britain did not want to destroy local cultures, we just wanted to modernize them, maybe give them some British styled liberal democratic values but in essence just bring them into the modern age.
The main problems with the empire and race was nothing to do with the empire itself, just racist twats who happened to be British (of which there was a lot), goverment policy could only stretch so far.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Leej said:
I really get irked by this American way of teaching that the British Empire was some big evil semi-nazi state.... You are from India though...hmm I wonder what kind of thing you hear there.

Britiain had the best racial policy of any nation of consequence at the time, by todays standards it wasn't 100% perfect though as it was it was good.
With the French and marrying natives- this was just so they could turn the natives into 'brown Frenchmen' (and keep this policy today with regards to immigrants)
Britain did not want to destroy local cultures, we just wanted to modernize them, maybe give them some British styled liberal democratic values but in essence just bring them into the modern age.
The main problems with the empire and race was nothing to do with the empire itself, just racist twats who happened to be British (of which there was a lot), goverment policy could only stretch so far.
Click to expand...

Hey, I'm ethnically Indian and I think the the British Empire was the best thing ever to happen to the subcontinent. The British made India. Without them you just get a balkanised region of squabbling states.

I don't know how it's taught in India but I'd suspect that it's heavily influenced by the hypernationalistic rhetoric that plays so much of a part in Indian discourse :(
 

Tyr

Exactly what I think. Good on you.
I am so sick of meeting ethnic Indians who go absolutely off it at me for being a 'empire fanboy' (even though they have never been to India themselves, often even their parents haven't...)
 
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Flocculencio

Donor
Leej said:
Exactly what I think. Good on you.
I am so sick of meeting ethnic Indians who go absolutely off it at me for being a 'empire fanboy' (even though they themselves have never been to India themselves, often even their parents haven't...)
Click to expand...

Dear god, yes I hate those people. At least I'm informed enough to make an educated analysis of the situation. Most of these types just seem to babble on the premise that "OMG teh Br1ts r Nazissssss!1!!111!!1!!!!!!"

I'm proud of my heritage and culture but I see my culture as being first and foremost Malayalee, secondarily Syrian Orthodox and only thirdly "Indian"- as far as I'm concerned that's a political term which only makes sense in relation to then British Empire and it's success in, uniquely in history, uniting the entire Indian subcontinent regardless of culture, language or creed.

Of course I'm a bad example to take- my grandparents left India for Singapore in 1948 and my grandmother has been heard to comment that Gandhi was a good man, but a fool.

I do, however, understand the need for nationalism in India- it's necessary to hold the Republic together and I have no problem with that. It's just a pity that that means that historical accuracy has to be glossed over (e.g. the portrayal of the Indian Mutiny as the "First War of Independence").

It's good to be proud that your culture has produced the world's largest democracy- it's bad to forget that it did so because of the British Empire.

Now what I really have a problem with is the severe case of self-loathing going on in the British education system and the inability to acknowledge that what their ancestors did produced good as well as bad. Again you have that either-or dichotomy:

Since Dyer massacred the Sikhs at Amritsar the elimination of Thuggee and Sati doesn't count. Since Kipling called Indians "niggers", we can't read in context and acknowledge that he was very sympathetic to Indians in general. Since we were ruling over other people and that, by definition is eeevil, it doesn't matter that we educated their best and brightest at Cambridge, in doing so setting in motion the seeds of Indian democracy. Since we subjugated India by force it doesn;t matter that we let it go peacefully and were working towards it from the 1920's or so rather than trying to hang on to it in a bloody colonial war like in Algeria or Vietnam.
 
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Thande

Thande

Donor
Flocc said:
as far as I'm concerned that's a political term which only makes sense in relation to then British Empire and it's success in, uniquely in history, uniting the entire Indian subcontinent regardless of culture, language or creed.
Click to expand...

It reminds me of when Churchill said that an independent, united India was absurd because 'India is no more a unified region than the Equator'. The irony being, of course, that that was true BEFORE the very Empire he was talking about came along.
 

Tyr

Well Ghandi was a bit of a fool. Many of his plans were just plain stupid i.e. he wanted to help the nazis and cause major trouble for Britain in India during WW2.
Churchill-meh, many say one of the reasons the nazis got so far was because Churchill was the only one who spotted how much trouble they could be and he was more concerned with shouting about how India shouldn't be independant (destroying his reputation in the process).
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Thande said:
It reminds me of when Churchill said that an independent, united India was absurd because 'India is no more a unified region than the Equator'. The irony being, of course, that that was true BEFORE the very Empire he was talking about came along.
Click to expand...

This was one of the spheres in which Churchill was a bit of an idiot.

I remember reading in Plain Tales from the British Raj (a collection of reminisces of colonials) that some of the men who were applying for the Indian Civil Service in the late '20's were being cautioned against it by their elders because it was pretty much taken as read that India would get independence within the next 20 years or so, thereby endangering their long-term careers.
 

Bulgaroktonos

Horticulture, did my suggestions help at all?

Like I wrote before, perhaps get the Crown to Rule in India before 1857. With direct Crown rule, you get the British to open up to India sooner, and let Indians play a bigger role in the government.
 
Mr_ Bondoc

Mr_ Bondoc

Another Quick Idea....

Starting in the 1880s, you have the rise of the Spiritualism movement. Out of this movement, you had people exploring new religious ideas and concepts. From this you had people like Helena Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, and other modern spiritual leaders becoming popular celebrities. As such, religions like Hinduism and Buddhism were introduced and praccticed in Great Britain for the first time. In an ATL wherein these religions were granted greater acceptance, there is a good likelihood that India would be seen as a "second holy land" by many of these followers. Many who would have been in seats of Parliament...
 

restorationboy

Bulgaroktonos said:
Horticulture, did my suggestions help at all?

Like I wrote before, perhaps get the Crown to Rule in India before 1857. With direct Crown rule, you get the British to open up to India sooner, and let Indians play a bigger role in the government.
Click to expand...

Thanks. They were really helpful and I told my professor about the site. She may even lurk now. BTW this is horticulture, my old Id refused to sign me in

Dear god, yes I hate those people. At least I'm informed enough to make an educated analysis of the situation. Most of these types just seem to babble on the premise that "OMG teh Br1ts r Nazissssss!1!!111!!1!!!!!!" .
Click to expand...

Colonial history taught in Indian schools does'nt fall neatly into either the Brits were evil or the Brits were good category.

You might find this interesting

The Indian Prime Ministers speech at Oxford praising some aspects of British rule

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/nic/0046/pmspeech.htm

UCLA professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam discusses the nature and impact of British colonialism in South Asia and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s depiction of it.

http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/article.asp?parentid=27753

Certainly, the Indian nation state is an invention prompted out of necessity but no more so than any other nation state. Even up till the 1700s the Scots were mere "rebel buggers".
 
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