A scrambled colonial India

Hello, alternate historians. I wanted to question about something that came in my mind when i was playing RPG: could India, instead of being monopolised by one country (Englannd), have been divided by the european powers, like Africa, Southeastern Asia and China? What powers could make part of this scramble? And the results?
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
French did have a Colonial empire in India but not very strong like British. Portuguese colonies were quite small. Britain is the only empire that could conquer large parts of India and rule with that much strength.
 
It was close, but not a monopoly. There were Portuguese territories (Goa), French territories (Pondicherry) and Omani territories (Gwadar) which were not integrated into India (or Pakistan, in the case of Gwadar) until after independence.

I disagree that Britain was the only colonial power capable of holding the lion's share of the Subcontinent.
 
It's a bit tough to say because the changes that would allow the other European powers to really scramble for India could also change the balance of power in Europe and therefore change the players involved (FWIW, I think Britain being badly defeated but not so bad that it can't recover in the 7 years war would be a good start).

Still, there are some potential safe bets that can be made:

Wherever Britain goes, so does France. Better luck for France during the Carnatic Wars could see them take large chunks of India's east coast, particularly the Southeast.

Portugal could formalize holdings over a much wider hinterland than OTL's Goa as part of deals with the more powerful European militaries, as per OTL in Angola, so there goes a big chunk of Southwestern India. The Dutch could formally annex Sri Lanka as well. It's probably a stretch, but I could see Russia projecting power as far as modern day Pakistan, though they would probably be ruling through local proxies rather than directly.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
As the above poster said,France winning the Carnatic war is the nearest thing that could get to this scenario. These two might have large chunks of territories and the only two of a significant size empire in India. Portuguese had a small empire and I doubt more conquests would work as Portuguese were very intolerant to other religions and denominations and conquering more could give their empire a fall. Dutch were very small in India or didn't exist.
 

xsampa

Banned
Look to the West as of 1896 has India divided up between the French in southern coast, their native protectorate of Mysore in the interior, former Brazilian (formerly Portuguese) West India, an International India (East India), a BEIC-run Bengal Company-State, (South) Chinese puppets in the Ganges and Kashmir, and Iranian vassals in Northwest India. Part of Pakistan is hinted to become a Russian colony.
 
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