alternatehistory.com

By February of 1960, newspapers and other news outlets across the West began labeling India as a "failed nation", a term usually reserved for nations overrun by crime, unable to defend its people and territory or completely anarchic - and there certainly was sound reasoning behind that label. Hunger, famine and diseases plagued the nation. Governors and deserters often exerted more control over the countryside than the central government in Lucknow. The army was completely shattered and in constant retreat under pressure from Western and Chinese militaries. Resistance movements were forming across the nation and, in case of Persia, Baluchistan and Afghanistan, were beating back Unitarian garrisons to liberate their country. All of their allies were separated from them - Aceh and Oceania were in the distant Pacific, no longer reachable, while the puppet government of Turkestan, hoping to survive the following years and not incur the wrath of the US, cut all ties with Lucknow. However, one thing, one dirty thing separated India from other so-called "failed nations", and they were about to use it.

A nuclear first strike against the United States was the only possibility of victory Amrit Ahuya's government had. The chances were slim - dealing enough damage with nuclear attacks to shake the faith of the civilians in the West and China in the war, and thus force out, at least, a negotiated peace where they had a little bit of weight at the table. Even then, the price India would have to pay for the war would be severe, and there was no guarantee that this would be enough to force the Allies to the peace table... but when the other option is unconditional surrender and the subsequent end of the Unified Indian State, they were going to take that chance. The Netaji unceremoniously agreed to the plan. Lacking any usable bombers and fearing a repeat of the Ceylon debacle, the Indians opted to use land delivery - trucks and a few experimental artillery pieces designed for firing nuclear warheads, delivered to the south and east. Strategic bombardment was no longer a luxury India could afford - just landing the bombs in enemy territory would be a success.

On February 14th, 1960, the Chinese Army was passing through Burma, establishing occupation authorities there, liberating Assam from its long Unitarian occupation, and reaching into the outer reaches of Bengal, seizing the town of Chittagong the day prior. The Westerners were advancing from the south, leaving the Deccan plateau and encroaching further towards the Ganges River valley, which seemed like it will soon become the meeting line of the two attacking forces. Both of these offensives came to a sudden halt, however, when nuclear explosion after nuclear explosion shook towns and cities in US occupied territory near the front line, with a total of eight bombs dropped throughout the day. Dozens of thousands died from the nuclear first strike immediately, with many more following in the next few weeks due to radioactive contamination - not even speaking of the damage suffered by the US supply lines, which put the Allied offensive into India in a very precarious position.

The meeting of the high leadership of the United States on February 15th was dominated by one issue and one issue alone - to retaliate or to not retaliate.

The supreme commanders of US land and air forces in the Deccan Front respectively, Henrikas Radauskas and Harrie Hoevers, both supported the idea of an immediate retaliatory thermonuclear strike against India - however, this view was not shared by the civilian leadership of the alliance, including both Xiao Xuegang, Chancellor of Shun China, and Volker Braun, Prime Minister of Germania. This time, their concern was not the fear of a nuclear war, but humanitarian and economic concerns. At this point, pretty much everyone in the meeting was aware that the Great Asian War was coming to an end, and it will be followed by a long and arduous reconstruction of India. The subcontinent was already a complete mess, millions had already died, and stacking up hundreds of thousands more, as well as destruction and radioactive contamination of some of its largest cities, would turn it into a nigh-unsolvable nightmare, draining the resources of the Allied nations and thus drawing the ire of the voters who got them into government positions in the first place. However, these arguments did not convince the military men, who accurately went on to point out that an inability to respond to the nuclear attack would erode the public opinion of the war much faster than any prolonged reconstruction. After all, you have to factor in how human people perceive loss, too - to them, losing a close person to a nuclear strike would be much worse than hearing about a hundred thousand Indians they wouldn't ever care for die in a similar attack.

February 15th was a tense day - news from field commanders and from back home would reach the US supreme command in Nijasure practically every minute. Officers in the front - those who were still alive, of course - all reported in unison that US forces are no longer capable of mass offensive operations. Supply lines have been severed, vital divisions and brigades completely destroyed, and all this is in addition to the already overstretched nature of the Allied invasion. The last few months saw significant success and land gains, thinning the US lines and forcing them to delegate much of their forces to occupation and resistance suppression - which means that any significant disruption, such as the nuclear attacks yesterday, can and will put an end to the easy victories of the past. Sure, the Indian Army was full of deserters, completely disorganized and sometimes lacked even the most basic equipment, but a continued invasion would certainly stretch out for the rest of the year, resulting in many more casualties to combat, famine and chaos. The military leadership did not have hopes of easy success if conventional fighting is resumed, thus they demanded a retaliatory nuclear strike to finish India off once and for all. In the end, the prime ministers conceded, and the retaliation was initiated. Strategic jet bombers, having already been prepared with nuclear loads months ago in the case of an Indian first strike, took off from their airfields to a nearly undefended Indian airspace.

The dilemmas, debates and backroom shouting of February 15th, 1960 would later be adapted into a novel by one of the witnesses of the day, French diplomat Renaud Gaudin, by the name of "The Four Horsemen", referencing both the Biblical myth and the four people who ended up confirming the decision to use nuclear weapons against India - Braun, Xiao, Hoevers and Radauskas.

Ten nuclear bombs ended up thrown on Indian cities on February 16th. Five of them hit strategic targets - closed research towns along the Indus, like Bright Tomorrow and Unity, and military industrial complexes. Three were used to soften up the Indian military, attacking large concentrations of enemy soldiers in Bengal. Two landed on the two most important cities in the country, Lucknow and Delhi, sweeping their city centres and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

February 17th was a quiet sunny day.

It took a few days for anonymous sources to confirm that Amrit Ahuya and the majority of the Indian supreme government perished in the attack on Lucknow - that was the final nail in the coffin for the Unified Indian State. With no central government left to speak of, the nation went into complete anarchy, or, at least, even more complete than before. A few generals and regional governors attempted to claim the position of the central government of India, but none of the claimants were able to rally a significant portion of the army to their side and try to organize a defense of the decapitated nation. Soldiers put down their weapons and began to return home, others surrendered to the US or, if they were particularly brave, infiltrated the countryside to start low-level resistance movements. With practically nothing left to stop them in their tracks, the Allies began advancing forward, seizing region after region and eliminating the last pockets of disorganized resistance in skirmishes during the month.

Traveling across the Ganges River Valley, Chinese and Westerner soldiers shook hands for the first time and stopped to witness the ruined nation before them together. Diaries and letters from the front at this time universally noted the ravaged countryside of India and often questioned just how righteous their side was in the end if they left their enemies in such horrendous condition. The last major claimant to the leadership of the Unified Indian State, governor of Bihar Aryabhatta Sirasikar, surrendered on February 28th and signed the instruments of unconditional Indian surrender on the same day, though many pockets along the Indus and in Tibet continued to fight until March. Meanwhile, local resistance movements in Central Asia mopped up the Unitarian strongholds in their territory, all lodging declarations of restoration of independence throughout the month.

The Great Asian War was coming to an end.

Thinking about it... maybe it couldn't have gone any other way. But it doesn't hurt to recognize India's tenacity, anyway - they had fought against much of the world basically all by themselves for four years.