You challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to make Afghanistan as a country not exist, instead making it apart of Persia or India. What effect would the non-existence have, especially in the After 1900-era.
You challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to make Afghanistan as a country not exist, instead making it apart of Persia or India. What effect would the non-existence have, especially in the After 1900-era.
No Islam could perhaps accomplish this. Before Islam IRRC Afghanistan was in the middle of the Persian and Indian Cultural spheres. I would also reckon a fair amount of nomadic influence due to the Kushans. Finding a way to get rid of Islam or stop the Islamic conquest of Persia probably results in the area being split between strong Persian and Indian states.
You could also stop the Mongol invasion. With most of Afghanistan's cities not destroyed by the Mongols, Afghanistan would probably be much more culturally Persian then it is today.
Question: how would things be like from, say, since 1950, if Afghanistan was either completely controlled by Iran and Pakistan, respectively?
It's hard to say, really. It depends on other factors - are we assuming everything else somehow manages to go the same?
What do you mean? What else could a subjugated Afghanistan contribute to history that would change the situation entirely.
"India" wasn't really a unified state at the time; it's not the like the British came to India and said "okay, all your lands are belong to us." It was a process of nibbling. If Afghanistan developed into several small states within the Indian or Persian "sphere," it's conceivable that some of them might have fallen under Russian influence. OTL the Russians supported Persian efforts to seize Herat, and British fears that Russia might take it to threaten India were the driving force behind the "Great Game."^But with it basically belonging to India at this point, when Britain took over, wouldn't they also be transferred to Britain? So us it likely that Russia would eventually invade from there. Damn, this does have many possibilities... Who would likely win this war, or is it implausible to answer?