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The World in a New Century, Section XII: Persia and India
Published by the McNally Corporation in Chicago, 1901.

Persia:
The country of Persia covers much of the land between the Turkish Empire in the west and British India to the east. Like the Turkish Empire, the people of Persia practice the Mohammedan religion. However, in many ways, Persia is more uncivilized than the Turks. The country is governed by the absolute ruler known as the shah and like the other countries in the region, the people are given no say in how the government functions. Persia, however, has been unable to prevent foreign influence from the great powers of Europe from filtering into the country.

The two countries that have put the most effort into influencing the Persian government are Great Britain and the Russian Empire. During the last century, Russia launched several wars against Persia. Along with taking land around the Caspian Sea from Persia, Russia gained exclusive rights over parts of the northwest Persia and around the rest of the Caspian Sea. In the past decade, Great Britain also invaded Persia and enforced their interests in the country. Great Britain took the region of Baluchistan in southeastern Persia as well as the island of Ormuz. The control of Ormuz allows Great Britain to control the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Because Persia is a backward yet diverse nation, there are many people who are being oppressed by the rule of the shah. Nationalist sentiment has recently risen in Persia among many peoples in the country. So far, the Baluchis have been most successful. With the British invasion of Persia, Baluchistan was established as an autonomous state under British protection. In the northwest, the Azeris and Kurds have undertaken nationalist uprisings against the Persian government. While these have not had much success thus far, the mountainous regions have made them difficult for the Persian government to completely suppress. Possible assistance by the Turks or Russians have also contributed to the survival of these smaller movements. To the east of Persia, Afghanistan has also survived as an independent country under British influence.


India:
The Indian subcontinent is almost entirely owned by the British government. Like the Hudson Bay Company in New Caledonia, the British East India Company performs many of the functions of the colonial government in India. The cities of Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras serve simultaneously as the colonial administrative capitals and as the regional offices for the British East India Company. The BEIC also has several autonomous powers within the subcontinent, similar to the Hudson Bay Company in New Caledonia. While the viceroys are nominally appointed by the British government, the BEIC has great influence over the actual affairs of the colonial government and the viceroys have little true power.

Aside from the areas directly controlled by the British government and the BEIC, there are several autonomous states within British India known as the princely states. The princely states are remnants of the pre-colonial countries in India and are headed by local Indian rulers. However, they do not have complete autonomy and are still British protectorates, and in the half century since the Ganges Revolt, the powers of the princely states has been gradually removed in favor of direct control by the British viceroys. The primary princely states are Rajputana, Hyderabad, and Mysore. Recently, the northwestern frontier of British India has also been carved into the princely states of Baluchistan and Kashmir.

The population of British India is very large, at over three hundred million people. This is over three times the population of the United States, and almost seven times the population of the British Isles. The population of British India mostly practices Brahmanism, though there is a large Mohammedan minority. Within the Indian social hierarchy there is a strict caste system that largely prevents the poorer underclasses from bettering themselves economically.

While Great Britain dominates the Indian subcontinent, there are a few small areas that are not owned by the British. The largest of these is the country of Afghanistan. It is located in the Hindu Kush mountains northwest of British India, and serves as a buffer state between the British and Russian territories in the region. There are also some minor cities on the coast of the Indian subcontinent that remain out of British control. These are the Portuguese possession of Goa, and the French possession of Pondicherry.