AHC: Indian Britain

So i played a game in EU4 as Bengal to do an achievement (needs you to control London, Ottawa, Cape and HK as Bharat/India)

How would an Indian nation control the British Isles, or atleast parts of it? Obviously England needs to be weakened in some sort of way, or India become much stronger.

Of course there was not a Unified India until 1947, so a country like the Chola, Vijayanagara, Sultanate of Delhi or just any nation that is centered on/based in the Indian subcontinent would need to control Britain.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
When was the POD? The POD needs to be at least as behind as mid or even early Antiquity itself for this to happen.
 
An industrialized Bengal unified northern India and then colonizes tiny bits of coastal Africa and SE Asia. After that it works its way up to a technologically backwards Europe and colonizes the vulnerable islands off its coast.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
India wasn't a colonizer material after that. It was rich but in a different way. Religions and ethnicities crystallized making contact with others taboo,empires had become smaller and more divided,Islamic empires had a large foothold,etc. Comparing India to European countries isn't possible until you go back to antiquity. A strong Tocharian empire(Kushan) surviving could have done it. Even for them,difficult.
 
India wasn't a colonizer material after that. It was rich but in a different way. Religions and ethnicities crystallized making contact with others taboo,empires had become smaller and more divided,Islamic empires had a large foothold,etc. Comparing India to European countries isn't possible until you go back to antiquity. A strong Tocharian empire(Kushan) surviving could have done it. Even for them,difficult.
India with its back and fort between Buddhism, Hinduism(which itself changed), Jainism and Islam makes it anything but a religiously crystallised region, not sure about ethnicities.

Same goes with empires, they weren't getting smaller with Delhi, Mughals, Guptas etc.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
India with its back and fort between Buddhism, Hinduism(which itself changed), Jainism and Islam makes it anything but a religiously crystallised region, not sure about ethnicities.

Same goes with empires, they weren't getting smaller with Delhi, Mughals, Guptas etc.
No it wouldn't be possible. Guptas were surrounded with powerful Sassanids and further,ultra powerful Byzantines. Also Huns and Mongols were always on a prowl in the Northern Borders. An attack towards the West would get India baited like the in that scenario. Mughals and Delhi Sultans were busy managing instabilities,expansion within the India and Central Asia and hostile neighbors. A unified Scythian Empire or an Indo Greek Empire or a Tocharian Kushan empire doing it is somewhat at the border of ASB and ATL where as others are entire ASB.
 
India wasn't a colonizer material after that. It was rich but in a different way. Religions and ethnicities crystallized making contact with others taboo,empires had become smaller and more divided,Islamic empires had a large foothold,etc. Comparing India to European countries isn't possible until you go back to antiquity. A strong Tocharian empire(Kushan) surviving could have done it. Even for them,difficult.
Why not? How about the Chola? OTL they actually invaded Srivijaya and Kedah.
If they survived could they form a colonial empire? Maybe even conquer the British Isles?
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Why not? How about the Chola? OTL they actually invaded Srivijaya and Kedah.
If they survived could they form a colonial empire? Maybe even conquer the British Isles?
Which side is East Indies and which side is Britain? How many Neighbors would they have to cross if they need to conquer west? How much more powerful were Empires to the West? It is pure ASB.
 
Which side is East Indies and which side is Britain? How many Neighbors would they have to cross if they need to conquer west? How much more powerful were Empires to the West? It is pure ASB.
Which side is France and which side is India? How many neighbors would they have to cross if they need to conquer east? How much more powerful were Empires to the East? It is pure ASB.

(From a hypothetical TL where England never went further than the Angevin empire)
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Conquest of the West by India in the Late Antiquity and Mediaeval era is full ASB! Romans,Sassanids,Goths,Scythian,Turkic(Hunnic),Mongol,Slavic,Germanics,Celts,etc would grind them to dust if they went on a full fledged conquest and even reverse the conquest into now destabilized India and Sassanids,Byzantines or even neighbouring Turkic,Tocharian and Mongol would first occupy it and then Byzantines and Sassanids come in and occupy it later if such experiments are done.
 
Conquest of the West by India in the Late Antiquity and Mediaeval era is full ASB! Romans,Sassanids,Goths,Scythian,Turkic(Hunnic),Mongol,Slavic,Germanics,Celts,etc would grind them to dust if they went on a full fledged conquest and even reverse the conquest into now destabilized India and Sassanids,Byzantines or even neighbouring Turkic,Tocharian and Mongol would first occupy it and then Byzantines and Sassanids come in and occupy it later if such experiments are done.
How is it ASB? It might be implausible but certainly not ASB. Europe wasn’t predestined to rule the world.

For the British Raj to happen, It was a very lucky series of events that when the Mughals were collapsing, the English were just starting an industrial revolution.

An Indian state conquering Britain in Late Antiquity or Medieval is pretty implausible, but the time period I’m aiming for is the Renaissance/Industrial Era anyways. (1300-1800)
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
You're missing that then. You just said Indian empire like Cholas who could conquer which is totally impossible. The West came into the lead due to various reasons. Greek and Roman Empire was one. India was mostly a closed society after the Guptas at that time when religious and societal crystallization happened. I have clearly mentioned the conditions when Indian Empire(empire headed in India) could do that. Tocharian(Kushan),Indo-Parthians,Indo-Greeks were the best candidates for that if they were given a chance. If you say something 'Native Indian' then that is ASB as most Indians especially of the ruling class were Central Asian(Indo-Iranian) in origin.
 
The British didn't need to conquer every country from France to Bengal.

A maritime oriented, industrial Indian power could do it. Bengal had very strong proto industries before being conquered. Orissa, the Cholas, a Tamil empire, a bufffed-up Ceylon, or other southern polity more naval oriented could also do it. The problem is, that honestly there isn't much initiative to do it. An industrial Indian civilization is entirely possible, but their priorities would be securing trade with China, Indonesia and the Middle East (in fact, since those routes where easily acessible through land and the Indian Ocean monsoons, there wasn't much need for intercontiental trade). Europe would be an afterthought. This hypothetical Indian industrial power could certainly invade and conquer a backwater Britain (or rather, coopting local rulers), but why make the effort?. Even ir there is some kind of "Scramble for Europe" scenario, there isn't much that Britain has to offer. Coal? North Sea oil? Sheep? All those can be obtianed closer and easier in the usual indian trade routes.

Simply put, Britain is boring.
 
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You're missing that then. You just said Indian empire like Cholas who could conquer which is totally impossible. The West came into the lead due to various reasons. Greek and Roman Empire was one. India was mostly a closed society after the Guptas at that time when religious and societal crystallization happened. I have clearly mentioned the conditions when Indian Empire(empire headed in India) could do that. Tocharian(Kushan),Indo-Parthians,Indo-Greeks were the best candidates for that if they were given a chance. If you say something 'Native Indian' then that is ASB as most Indians especially of the ruling class were Central Asian(Indo-Iranian) in origin.
That was just an example.

I do agree with the rest of your post.
 
The British didn't need to conquer every country from France to Bengal.

A maritime oriented, industrial Indian power could do it. Bengal had very strong proto industries before being conquered. Orissa, the Cholas, a Tamil empire, a bufffed-up Ceylon, or other southern polity more naval oriented could also do it. The problem is, that honestly there isn't much initiative to do it. An industrial Indian civilization is entirely possible, but their priorities would be securing trade with China, Indonesia and the Middle East (in fact, since those routes where easily acessible through land and the Indian Ocean monsoons, there wasn't much need for intercontiental trade). Europe would be an afterthought. This hypothetical Indian industrial power could certainly invade and conquer a backwater Britain (or rather, coopting local rulers), but why make the effort?. Even ir there is some kind of "Scramble for Europe" scenario, there isn't much that Britain has to offer. Coal? North Sea oil? Sheep? All those can be obtianed closer and easier in the usual indian trade routes.

Simply put, Britain is boring.
True, but colonies for colonies sake. I believe significant portions of Africa was just worthless land made into prestige colonies. Do remember during the Age of New Imperialism colonies were seen as a sign of prestige for the said nation.

Britain is certainly more valuable than, say, Sub-Saharan Africa.
 
After Gama arrives, some Tamil traders realize there's a lot of money to be made.
They set off a boat with silk and spices and, stopping on the way in the Swahili coast, go around Africa. When they come back, laden with silvers, more follow suit.
They quickly recognize the importance of the swahili coast as a stopover and arm a small navy to keep the Portuguese out (the Samudri of Calicut having something of a personal vendetta against them).
The Coromandel coast unifies, becomes regional leader. Vijayanagar becomes an empty shell, bankrolled by those Tamil merchants and serving as a secondary market and hinterland
Some swahili are convinced to set up shop along the way, on Tamil funding and to do slave trading.

PoD can be the siege of Cochin not being near ASB for the Portuguese and Calicut having slightly better artillery doctrine, or acquiring cannon designs from sunken Portuguese ships and the turks
 

Kaze

Banned
George the Fifth visited India before he became King (and Emperor of India), he could have met and married an Indian princess instead of Mary of Teck. There you go - an Indian and half-Indians ruling Britain.
 
On the draws: Precious metals seem possible, some kind of advanced goods (textile or pottery?) production is possible, maybe more so if you change the pace of those technologies through various butterflies (although some would argue this is always hard as long run nominal and real wages will end up being higher in cooler climates), and some kind of Mediterranean specialty products are possible, since they could acquire Britain as a trade point or buffer zone rather than actually because of interest in its products (as often the case for European imperialism).
 
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