AHC: Maratha Empire survives, industrializes, and colonizes Africa

How could the Marathas not only survive as the premier empire of India, but also modernize like Meiji's Japan, and do so effectively enough that the European great powers accept the Marathas as one of the nations colonizing Africa?
 
Not anyone can pull a Meiji.

Tokugawa Japan was, along with the lower Yangtze and northwestern Europe, one of the most economically developed areas in the Early Modern world. The average Japanese most likely had a higher life expectancy than the average northwestern European, the country had a heavy proto-industrial base, etc.

By contrast, South Asia in general was economically underdeveloped compared to East Asia, even its richest parts like Bengal, Gujarat or parts of the south. The Maratha homeland was most definitely not one of the most developed areas of India.

The Maratha state could survive and even successfully modernize militarily like the Ottomans, but it would be extremely difficult to successfully industrialize like Japan and be an expanding colonial power.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_pani_(taboo)

That might be a bit of an issue. There's also the reason of simply why would they want to colonise Africa? The Swahili seem better as trading partners rather than a people to rule over. Somalia is nothing but a colossal headache for anyone trying to colonise it. Madagascar has effectively nothing to offer. The rest of East Africa is full of peoples who can mount a major resistance effort (Zulu and their predecessors). And not to mention, that corner of South Africa is too close to the Cape and Portuguese Mozambique which already was under European control. And any place outside of East Africa is rather ridiculous.

Further, the Maratha Empire if I recall was rather decentralised (the other name in English for it, Maratha Confederacy, should give a clue), which might pose a severe challenge for modernisation efforts. And they also lacked the infrastructure and organisation of society which medieval and early modern Japan had that allowed Japan to modernise in the manner it did.
 
Reading most books on the 17th and the 18th century india was developed in some regions as china when it comes to the manufacturing sector. Wealth and large populations also helped, and japan was a relative backwater. Japan modernized because it was lucky as an island nationd. Had a pre existing sophisticated system established by the bakufu that could control effectivly flow of goods info and people. It is also small in size and more homogenous when compared with India. Read thebooks on greatdivergence I am personally a supporter of the pommeranz parthasarathi and the california school of historians.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_pani_%28taboo%29

That might be a bit of an issue. There's also the reason of simply why would they want to colonise Africa? The Swahili seem better as trading partners rather than a people to rule over. Somalia is nothing but a colossal headache for anyone trying to colonise it. Madagascar has effectively nothing to offer. The rest of East Africa is full of peoples who can mount a major resistance effort (Zulu and their predecessors). And not to mention, that corner of South Africa is too close to the Cape and Portuguese Mozambique which already was under European control. And any place outside of East Africa is rather ridiculous.

Further, the Maratha Empire if I recall was rather decentralised (the other name in English for it, Maratha Confederacy, should give a clue), which might pose a severe challenge for modernisation efforts. And they also lacked the infrastructure and organisation of society which medieval and early modern Japan had that allowed Japan to modernise in the manner it did.

The Swahili is very much your best bet.

It had been a melting ground for different cultures for centuires, there were indians, malay and arabs working that coast and indeed living in african cities. The swahili word for captain is an arabic one but the swahili word for nursemaid is borrowed from hindi.

When the Portuguese arrived in the indian ocean, they took direct control of some key swahili cities and used them to try and control the indian ocean trade.
Then the push back came from the muslim world and you started seeing coordinated efforts by muslims to drive out the portuguese.

So Hormuz fell to persia, aden to the ottomans etc.

The Omanis eventually drove out the portuguese from oman, took the fight to africa and established control over Kilwa, Zanzibar and Mombasa on the swahili coast.

But lets say that isn't Oman who does that, lets say it's Gujarat instead. Gujarat were a muslim state in india, who fought the portuguese with the help of the ottomans and the mamluks much like Oman did and would have the same motive in taking the fight to africa.

Then Gujarat itself falls to the Marathas, as it did in OTl, and the african cities come with it the way say greenland followed norway to denmark.

That gives the marathas a foothold in africa and a motive for colinisation.
 
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TBut lets say that isn't Oman who does that, lets say it's Gujarat instead. Gujarat were a muslim state in india, who fought the portuguese with the help of the ottomans and the mamluks much like Oman did and would have the same motive in taking the fight to africa.

Unfortunately the Sultanate of Gujarat no longer existed when Oman cleansed the Portuguese from the coast.

If you make a POD to have Gujarat resist the Gurkanis then the Maratha rise to power will probably be butterflied away.
 
Unfortunately the Sultanate of Gujarat no longer existed when Oman cleansed the Portuguese from the coast.

If you make a POD to have Gujarat resist the Gurkanis then the Maratha rise to power will probably be butterflied away.

My POD would have been a Gujarat victory at diu (either 1547, 1538 or 1509) having the same effect as the omani/ottoman victory at muscat 150 years later.
 
That (especially 1547 and 1538) would wank the Ottomans (who were far more invested in East Africa) moreso than the Gujaratis.

Yeah, you'd need a victory at diu and then some other loss/distraction for the ottomans so that the portuguese swahili cities aren't taken directly directly by the turks but instead a more local muslim proxy, like the omanis in otl.

Wasn't there a portuguese plan to burn Mecca if the Ottomans committed too much to the indian ocean as a warning for them to stay away?
 
Errr.....If you read Pommeranz (who cites Parthasarathi) you would see that India was not as developed as East Asia. Pommeranz repeats this numerous times, so I'm a bit dubious how well you know his book.
I never said india was as developed as east asi. I said India was very developed during the 17th and 18th centuries, that is all. So yes I have read his book. The problem with India is that space, geography, lack of homognoity and focus on village vs city culture made it next to impossible for any ruler of a united India to centralize the state in any meaningful way. This does not mean industrialization is not possible. Perhaps what should happen is that Marathas manage to be much more succesful and prior to british foothold in Bengal take care of their major thrats the nizam of hyderabad and the afghans. Once that happens lets have butterfly effect lead tot he british not winning in Bengal in 1757 and they are unable to gain a foothold on the continent. In such a situation I can defiantly see that by the 1800s an india that is nominally lead by the mughal empire but controlled by the marathas and their allies that is able to beat back the Durrannis, be too large a state for the British to conquer and in the worst case India simply goes through a situation analogous to China leading to a revolution that establishes republican government following technological and ideological diffusion with the west as in the case of China. Have you read his books I wonder, if so and rourke is another good author though he does differ from cali school somewhat, that India and China together were the centers of the world economy till the 1800s. So no they were developed just bad luck, decentralization, and a combination of endogenous and exogenous shocks striking these countries simultaneously screwed them.

Also why focus on yangtze, you point to yangtze and Ill point to xiniang as examples of udnerdevelopment. if you look at china as a whole it was roughly on par with india in development only when you lok at certain regions of china do yous see those regions a bit more developed. So why the selective use of the yangtze river? Yeah large segment of chinese population lived in the yangtze region but the chinese interior was underdeveloped. Plus the data economci historians use is scanty at best and most of the figures are made up and have methodological issues. I am an economic historian myself and I can say that much of what the field does is all conjencture and assumptions based on hard to get data that relies on assumptions rather than concrete facts to come to conclusions.
 
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The problem with India is that space, geography, lack of homognoity and focus on village vs city culture made it next to impossible for any ruler of a united India to centralize the state in any meaningful way.
Yet centralization is exactly what Mysore did with the asaf tukris and whatnot.

This does not mean industrialization is not possible. Perhaps what should happen is that Marathas manage to be much more succesful and prior to british foothold in Bengal take care of their major thrats the nizam of hyderabad and the afghans.
And that would still not be industrialization. It would mean a non-British India (assuming the Marathas don't go all centrifugal).

India and China together were the centers of the world economy till the 1800s. So no they were developed just bad luck, decentralization, and a combination of endogenous and exogenous shocks striking these countries simultaneously screwed them.
They were economic centers (though China was still far ahead of India), but that does not mean they were equally developed.

Also why focus on yangtze, you point to yangtze and Ill point to xiniang as examples of udnerdevelopment.
I think you're joking...but Xinjiang was not Chinese in an economic sense. North China, which is actually economically part of China, was more developed than their Indian (or European) counterparts.

if you look at china as a whole it was roughly on par with india in development
No, they weren't on par. There is general consensus that the Qing Chinese were the most commercialized large agricultural economy in the Early Modern world.

the chinese interior was underdeveloped.
The interior developed rapidly in the High Qing, while, as you note, the lower Yangtze was already saturated with people. Meanwhile large segments of Bengal itself remained underdeveloped.
 
Yet centralization is exactly what Mysore did with the asaf tukris and whatnot.


And that would still not be industrialization. It would mean a non-British India (assuming the Marathas don't go all centrifugal).


They were economic centers (though China was still far ahead of India), but that does not mean they were equally developed.


I think you're joking...but Xinjiang was not Chinese in an economic sense. North China, which is actually economically part of China, was more developed than their Indian (or European) counterparts.


No, they weren't on par. There is general consensus that the Qing Chinese were the most commercialized large agricultural economy in the Early Modern world.


The interior developed rapidly in the High Qing, while, as you note, the lower Yangtze was already saturated with people. Meanwhile large segments of Bengal itself remained underdeveloped.
Mysore centralized because it was small and compact. indian textiles were as complex and well developed in terms of the manufacturing industry as China this is a given. It was Indian cotton that dominated the European markets during the 17th, and 18th centuries and was the catalyst for the trade protectionist barriers set up by Britain and France. China was mainly relied upon for porcleans and tea, silk as well those were its major exports alongside rhubarb. In terms of agricultural development I will concede that Chinese agricultural development was slightly ahead of the Indian one but it was not that large when one looks at the output of foodstuffs in the ganges delta or along the major agricultural regions in India. The thing india lacked was that unlike China which was unified and the different regions from the pear river delta to the yangtze and the north china plain could contribute to the central states resources in terms of agricultural development and spread tech diffusion meant they enjoyed a considerable advantage over their fragmented Indian counterparts.



Yes xinjaing was a joke, really part of chiense core. The regions in china that were more developed agriculturally than the indian counterparts are guandong, fujian, zhejiang, anhui, jiangsu and shangdong. As for the other regions you cant say much cause no data exists and given the geopgraphy and environments them being as rich or as well developed as say kochin or madurai or delhi is laughable. There are some surveys but that is about it so making conclusions as to their agricultural productivity is premature.

In terms of Indian industrialization the only chance was for either the marathas to centralize or the Mughals succeed in the same centralization efforts. What India needs is a strong central government, curtailment of princely and nawab power, focus on passing protectionist policies to protect domestic manufacturing industries, an increase in spending on education leading to rise in literacy rates, the investment of capital into the villages to develop them into towns and encouragement of movement of people in greater numbers to the cities. OTL even in 1800 much of India remained at its core villages rather than cities. That needs to reverse. In terms of coal India has some major coal deposits in the eastern portion around Odisha, chattisgargh and modern madhya pradesh regions so a centralized state would have access to these hard coal deposits. An investment into transportation and roads is also necessary as to is the creation of a central banking system. All of this is possible provided the marathas or Mughals stabilize, beat back the initial british attempts at gaining foothold in India and like Japan ror China you will see the nation that ocntrolsindia sending its citizens abroad leading to the adoption of the tech improvements in terms of rail networks, communication, etc as well as importance of naval power, and industrialization will take off.

However it is very unlikely to be honest.
 
indian textiles were as complex and well developed in terms of the manufacturing industry as China this is a given. It was Indian cotton that dominated the European markets during the 17th, and 18th centuries and was the catalyst for the trade protectionist barriers set up by Britain and France. China was mainly relied upon for porcleans and tea, silk as well those were its major exports alongside rhubarb.
Around 1750 Jiangnan produced more cotton per capita than Britain produced any textile per capita. I am unsure how much Indian cotton dominance was due to its superiority rather than India being closer and generally freer to Europeans.

In terms of agricultural development I will concede that Chinese agricultural development was slightly ahead of the Indian one but it was not that large when one looks at the output of foodstuffs in the ganges delta or along the major agricultural regions in India.
And yet Chinese population densities were far higher than Indian ones, especially before 1800 (also note that despite this, the Chinese were not particularly more susceptible to famine). This suggests significantly greater agricultural development.

The regions in china that were more developed agriculturally than the indian counterparts are guandong, fujian, zhejiang, anhui, jiangsu and shangdong.

I might be more inclined to believe you if you show me an Indian counterpart to Huguang.
 
Around 1750 Jiangnan produced more cotton per capita than Britain produced any textile per capita. I am unsure how much Indian cotton dominance was due to its superiority rather than India being closer and generally freer to Europeans.


And yet Chinese population densities were far higher than Indian ones, especially before 1800 (also note that despite this, the Chinese were not particularly more susceptible to famine). This suggests significantly greater agricultural development.



I might be more inclined to believe you if you show me an Indian counterpart to Huguang.
Alright here is a good paper by kevin H rourke on the great divergence beetween India and Britain. combined bengal, surat, and madras exported to Europe 936,000 pieces of cotton by 1790. Oh and it is by Gupta and Broadberry both of whoom do not support parthasarthis conclusions so they are a bit more objective when it comes to south asia. COnclusion is textile manufacturing in terms of cotton in selected indian regions as if not more advanced than quivelent cotton manufacturing in CHina though in terms of silk china produced more.
 
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Guys, I feel like this argument is pointless. Let's just find some way for the Marathas to become centralized, for the Marathas to increase food production, for the Marathas to build a powerful navy, etc.
 
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