A Portuguese India

With what POD?

Yeah, giving Portugal more of the massive Indian cake is definitely possible but for the longest time (roughly up until the Scramble for Africa) all Portugal wanted was trade opportunities (excluding Brazil). And guess what, for that a few coastal forts are enough, while administering an entire subcontinent is too much of a hastle.
 
Yeah, giving Portugal more of the massive Indian cake is definitely possible but for the longest time (roughly up until the Scramble for Africa) all Portugal wanted was trade opportunities (excluding Brazil). And guess what, for that a few coastal forts are enough, while administering an entire subcontinent is too much of a hastle.

The Brazilian interior largely conquered itself. The only thing mother Portugal really did was put down plantations on the coast. The interior borders in South America weren't really drawn until well into the 19th century.

The only way Portugal conquers any part of India is if it makes puppet states. And that seems unlikely considering what they did OTL.
 
Possibly. But then the British/Dutch had a headstart in having joint stock companies owning land and managing armies. In a way the Portuguese invented colonialism, but the British perfected it. I think by the time the John Company held ascendancy in India, Portugal was a declining power, as was Spain and the Netherlands. They didn't have the resources to make a joint stock company as the British did.
 
Not a chance. Portugal's insistence on converting people--and inability to dominate the Mughals in their prime--would have been only the first major roadblock to their domination of all of India.

They also had that union with Spain--an unmitigated disaster for Portugal--European competition running "better" stock company models, and a lack of manpower.

Britain managed to dominate India because the French lost against them, and because they arrived on the scene just as the Mughal Empire began to slowly decay. This allowed them to manipulate internal politics, through the BEIC, to gain land and economic privileges, allowing the BEIC to field more armies.
 
Not a chance. Portugal's insistence on converting people--and inability to dominate the Mughals in their prime--would have been only the first major roadblock to their domination of all of India.

They also had that union with Spain--an unmitigated disaster for Portugal--European competition running "better" stock company models, and a lack of manpower.

Britain managed to dominate India because the French lost against them, and because they arrived on the scene just as the Mughal Empire began to slowly decay. This allowed them to manipulate internal politics, through the BEIC, to gain land and economic privileges, allowing the BEIC to field more armies.

This. The British entry into the Indian political scene was literally at a time when Northern India was continuously in a state of devastation where the Mughal Empire was losing its power. It was a very particular series of events where the Company was able to assert its authority; and they had the added benefit of surviving a disastrous war earlier on from 1686-1690 where they were allowed to keep their land.

One also has to remember that the British paramountcy was established by working within the system of legitimacy in Mughal India. Until 1858, the East India Company was a legal vassal of the Emperor in Delhi, and ruled the subcontinent in his name. Their expansion in India was conducted under this legal reality as legitimacy was a very important part of the British adventure in India.

The conquest of India boils down to the deterioration of an old Empire; a lucky conflict between nobles in an important province of said empire allowing the British to intercede; working with a lot of local support from bankers and brokers to nobles, and convincing Parliament that the Empire in India was a worthy endeavour (there was quite a bit of opposition); convincing the Emperor to grant them revenue rights while he had escaped the Qila- Mualla to the confines of Allahabad in British influenced territory and being able to engineer a coup to consolidate their administration since the rest of the Empire was so busy fighting off the other threats that were at their doorstep.

I just can't see this combination of fortune and wiliness happening again to enable the Portuguese to go through the same thing.
 
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