AH Challenge: Those Dastardly Indians!

Ivan Druzhkov · Apr 5, 2005

In the various geopolitical/techno-thrillers novels of the post-Cold War era, there are a number of stock villians that appear to threaten America on the world stage. These include:

* A resurgent China
* An Muslim terrorist/despot with WMDs
* An evil Russian president-autocrat/oil tycoon
* An evil nationalist Japanese CEO

However, India, as luck would have it, does not appear on this list. While I don't know why, my guess would be that India's interests have not had much of a reason to conflict with American interests in South Asia.

You know what this means.

Yes, you need to think of a good way to make the Indians a popular villian in American literature, but not the only villian.

Melvin Loh · Apr 5, 2005

Rabid BJP Hindu nationalist India ?

Why not a scenario where the most rabid BJP Hindu nationalists take power in India and decide to embark on a war of conquest against all nonbelievers including Pakistan, China, and the US, after committing crimes against humanity against all Muslims, Christians, and ohter minorities ?

aktarian · Apr 5, 2005

Well, for one you need to remove Pakistani threat. With it India has to focus on western borders and can't focus on much else. Possible scenarios.

-No division of India and Pakistan. OK, this would affect Cold War too much so leave that aside.
-More peaceful division of India and Pakistan. While relations between them aren't rosy there isn't much hate either. Possible but would probably affect Cold War as well. It's a possibility.
-Pakistan ceases to be a threat. Hmmmmmm. I guess defeating and annexing them sometime in the past is not an option. Maybe Pakistan develops into somewhat functioning democracy. Something like Turkey.
-Greater Indian support for LTTE. Sri Lankans are p/o but can't do much. So they ask US for help. Offering Tricomale (sp?) harbor for USN for aid. US accepts, Indians are extremly p/o, percieve US as trying to encircle them (together with aid to Pakistan). Turn to SU, keep good relations with Russia, increase military. US sees them as a threat.
-Sri Lankan military more sucesfull in 1990s, defeat LTTE. India offers mediation, Sri Lankans refuse, India once again deploys peacekeeprs, Sri Lankans see them as occupiers, war breaks out. Though this would require that LTTE don't turn against Indians in 1980s. OR it's not New Delhi that supports LTTE but Tamil state(s) in south. Sri Lankans don't want to distinguish between the two and claim it's official Indian policy.
-After and all-night party Jerry Bruckheimer goes out to get some curry and develops food poisoning. He decides that Indians aren't getting away with it he produces mega-million, special-effects rich movie about Indians getting their s*it kicked by US planes and SEAL commandos and this sets a new wave of movies based featuring bad Indians.

-Pakistanis make a clone of Jerry Bruckheimer and replace them. He then makes above mentioned movie.

Forum Lurker · Apr 5, 2005

That'd make them the only villain, if they succeeded, and not a villain at all if they failed. If, on the other hand, only Pakistan was taken, and the Indian government was forced to grow more and more repressive in order to prevent a civil war from tearing the country into Hindu and Muslim states again, I can see them becoming viewed as a potential villain; this would work especially well if the Indians decided that a cold war with China would be the best way to keep the population in line, by giving an external enemy to fight.

MerryPrankster · Apr 5, 2005

In Executive Orders, there's a plot between Iran and India (with China as the silent partner in the background) to really slap the US upside the head.

While an Iranian bioterror campaign using an airborne variant of the Ebola virus causes US forces in Europe to be qurantined and chaos in the US homeland, Iran (and Iraq, which it has annexed into a sort of greater Islamic state) will invade Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Meanwhile, India will mobilize its navy and help blockade the Persian Gulf, keeping US forces in Diego Garcia from reinforcing US garrisons in the Middle East. I think the Indians fantasize about invading Australia for "living space" once the US retreats from the region, but that's less concrete.

It's really a clever plan, except...

1. The bioterror campaign isn't as effective as they hoped.
2. India backs down when the US fleet approaches the Gulf entrances--nobody told them about the use of Ebola
3. Iranian forces are defeated by the in-theater US/Saudi/Kuwaiti forces--though they force the Americans to retreat into the Saudi interior, the US forces recover, mass, and smash them (the Iranians are probably a bit overextended).
4. There's a lot of popular unrest within Iran--rather than rally around the gov't, the people are very unhappy.
5. Brinksmanship--the US brings up the Ebola virus (see point #2) and threatens nuclear retaliation. The Indian gov't, not wanting to go down with Iran, backs down.

If something like this succeeds and the US is dealt a major reversal (let's assume nobody wants to go nuclear--the Indians have nukes, Iran might have them soon, perhaps the US leader is too humanitarian), I'd expect Indians to join the "villain pantheon" alongside Islamists for the next several decades.

zoomar · Apr 5, 2005

Whoa, in at least two of the more recent Tom Clancy novels, India was presented as a two-faced behind-the-scenes participant in that dastardly clique containing China, Iran/Iraq, and even Japan (or at least the people who took over the Japanese government and started the Japanese-USA War in Debt of Honor) trying to bring the good old USA down a peg or two. Didn't they invade Sri Lanka or someplace like that as part of this grand strategy? Didn't we get to sink or shoot up one of their aircraft carriers to remind them who's boss?

Dave Howery · Apr 5, 2005

No, I think they just overflew them to show them how helpless they were in the face of the US carrier power. India was also a villain in several of the Fleet games from Avalon Hill.... they pick odd times to confront America, usually just after the US has used force somewhere to protect it's interests.

Bulgaroktonos · Apr 5, 2005

Have India go Communist. Make the POD far enough back that the Commies become a huge party in India, they take power, and they would join the Chinese and Russians in our popular mindset of bad people.

Of course, this would have huge ramifications far impossible to enumerate here, so, unless you want to pull a Decades of Darkness, you might be better off choosing another POD.

zoomar · Apr 5, 2005

Dave Howery said:
No, I think they just overflew them to show them how helpless they were in the face of the US carrier power. India was also a villain in several of the Fleet games from Avalon Hill.... they pick odd times to confront America, usually just after the US has used force somewhere to protect it's interests.

I also think we got to fight them in a scenario in Janes Fleet Command, IIRC.

MerryPrankster · Apr 5, 2005

Dave Howery said:
No, I think they just overflew them to show them how helpless they were in the face of the US carrier power. India was also a villain in several of the Fleet games from Avalon Hill.... they pick odd times to confront America, usually just after the US has used force somewhere to protect it's interests.

India has carriers and jets--in a clash, the US would probably win, but they wouldn't be pushovers.

Dave Howery · Apr 5, 2005

India's carriers are small ex-Brit carriers capable of using VTOL planes only... they would be a pushover against a typical USN carrier battle group....

Dave Howery · Apr 5, 2005

Of course, if you want to make the Indians into a real naval threat, have them go communist early on (as suggested earlier) and have them do intensive research on carriers, maybe get Soviet help in building up a real blue-water navy... India's huge population and warm water ports could make them a severe threat to the USN in the Indian Ocean....

Raakone · Apr 5, 2005

Another way this could theoretically happen...suppose that people in other states of India knew more about Kerala, where a Communist party dominated at the state level...with beneficial results. So, people in other states vote communist, but maybe the Federal communist party has different aspirations from the Kerala one. They decide to go on a path to being a superpower, perhaps worried about Pakistan and China. Because the US did kind of back Pakistan at one point (just because they wanted to deny the USSR a direct link to the Indian Ocean), India would decide to drop their "neutral" policy and go with the USSR. Or maybe if the change in government made China les hostile, you'd have something of "The Maoist Bloc"

Dave, both the USSR and China had/have advanced naval capabilities. They'd probably be just too happy to upgrade India's navy, so that the Indian ocean would be "friendly territory"

~Ra'akone

NFR · Apr 6, 2005

Ivan Druzhkov said:
In the various geopolitical/techno-thrillers novels of the post-Cold War era, there are a number of stock villians that appear to threaten America on the world stage. These include:

* A resurgent China
* An Muslim terrorist/despot with WMDs
* An evil Russian president-autocrat/oil tycoon
* An evil nationalist Japanese CEO

However, India, as luck would have it, does not appear on this list. While I don't know why, my guess would be that India's interests have not had much of a reason to conflict with American interests in South Asia.

You know what this means.

Yes, you need to think of a good way to make the Indians a popular villian in American literature, but not the only villian.

She does, in fact. Tom "I am NOT delusional, and I TOO know about Russian culture" Clancy had them plan to invade Australia. The pain made me forgot in which novel, but it's in the background.

EDIT: Ah, yes, somebody's already mentioned it. Teach me not to read the whole thread first.

NFR · Apr 6, 2005

Raakone said:
Another way this could theoretically happen...suppose that people in other states of India knew more about Kerala, where a Communist party dominated at the state level...with beneficial results. So, people in other states vote communist, but maybe the Federal communist party has different aspirations from the Kerala one. They decide to go on a path to being a superpower, perhaps worried about Pakistan and China. Because the US did kind of back Pakistan at one point (just because they wanted to deny the USSR a direct link to the Indian Ocean), India would decide to drop their "neutral" policy and go with the USSR. Or maybe if the change in government made China les hostile, you'd have something of "The Maoist Bloc"

Dave, both the USSR and China had/have advanced naval capabilities. They'd probably be just too happy to upgrade India's navy, so that the Indian ocean would be "friendly territory"

~Ra'akone

China does not have or had an advanced navy, unless you are going all the way back to the Ming dynasty.

And who'd care about Kerala? Them's Keralites, only slightly better than Tamils.

Strategos' Risk · Apr 6, 2005

Ivan Druzhkov said:
In the various geopolitical/techno-thrillers novels of the post-Cold War era, there are a number of stock villians that appear to threaten America on the world stage. These include:

* A resurgent China
* An Muslim terrorist/despot with WMDs
* An evil Russian president-autocrat/oil tycoon
* An evil nationalist Japanese CEO

This is a branching idea, but would you like to continue that list and make it complete? I can think of more stock technothriller villains:

*Soviet hardliners back to recreate the USSR
*Various Colorful Eurotrash (non-Irish) fascist terrorists
*The somewhat misunderstood Irish nationalist terrorists
*Middle East insurgents galore
*The evil apocalyptic environmentalists
*The evil apocalyptic Christians

Hey, now that I think about it, how come no Jewish terrorists? Obviously, Israel won't be the enemy, but I think there's probably minor Zionists hardliners that are Hamas's counterparts. After all, the IRA had the Protestant Orangemen to contend with.

Forum Lurker · Apr 6, 2005

Israeli terrorism pretty much stopped once the Israelis won the War of Independence. There are occasional terrorists, like the one who assassinated Rabin and the fellow who turned a machine gun on a mosque a decade or so back, but so far as I know there's never been enough impetus to develop an organized network, especially given that they'd need to evade one of the most effective and ruthless security organizations in the world on its home turf.

Strategos' Risk · Apr 6, 2005

Oh, how about an organized group of right-wing militiamen and super anti-nwo Timothy McVeigh styled nuts, not really including white supremacists (only the insanest and most idiotic and most violent of the bunch), and in a massive secret organization, with a lone anonymous paymaster at the top?
Kim Jong-Il.

wkwillis · May 1, 2005

A Bengali Indian politician whose village is being drowned by global warming decides to kill off enough people to bring the forests back. So he releases a virus that kills 50% of the people on earth.
Unfortunately for him, all that happens is that the US and Europe open to free immigration and all his relatives immigrate to California. So global warming continues and his relatives become American, leaving him alone in an impoverished India with no one who can run a technological society, and no one to pay him rent for his Bengali farmlands, and no one who is willing to work as a servant in his house because they all have their own farm now and remittances coming from their relatives in America and Europe to buy fertiliser and increase food production.

horticultureandmelodrama · May 2, 2005

Pretty easy this one.

India continues as a populist state controlled economy. Its growing military clout is demonstrated by smashing Pakistan into two in 1971. Indira Gandhi as in the OTL imposed the emergency and becomes de facto dictator of the country. Unlike the OTL the emergency is never lifted. Mrs Gandhi and her son rule with an iron fist, opposition jailed, liberties curbed etc etc. And then, India develops its nukes and instead of halting as it did in 1970s it continues on the process of building warheads.

So now we have a dictatorial regime with nukes, cosying up to Russia and threatening US allies like Pakistan. Indo-Russian relations were always very close, and USSR pressure had forced the US to stop aiding Pakistan in 71. Add to this the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Mrs Gandhi shoots up the evil one charts with Kim Jong IL and Saddam Hussain.