AHC: No Partition of India post 1900.

[Kalki]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Forum. I present to you the most intractable of problems. The partition of India into India and Pakistan using a PoD not before 1900.

Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to prevent this from happening with a PoD post-1900.

This isn't mission difficult, it is mission impossible. Difficult will be a walk in the park for your prolific minds and sharp intellects.

Bonus points if you can create a PoD which will not result in the dissolution of this subcontinental political entity in years after its creation.

Also, before you spam this thread with post after post about how such a task is impossible to accomplish let me humbly inform you that I can present not one but two such PoDs to accomplish said task, post 1920. The later of which is in 1944.

Intrigued?

Comment what you think the PoD is below!

 

[B-29_Bomber]

Ghandi is shot in 1920.


Done.

 

[Beedok]

China goes Communist faster. The Americans want a strong, united, India to balance against 'the Reds'. Pressure is put on London to make it happen.

Seems semi-doable?

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

Mohmammed ali Jinnah

Pakistan was politically his creation.

There may have been an undercurrent of muslim-hindu mistrust, but he was the political heart of it.
Without him India is a unitary, federal, state with Punjab, Kashmir, and Bengal as 3 of them.

He is known in Pakistan as the father of the country, and for good reason.

Even with him there are several PODs that don't lead to an independent Pakistan.
There is one school of thought that pushing for an independent Muslim state was a bargaining ploy to get a more pro-muslim India, which failed.
Or get the main Congress party to support the British through WW2, and prevent the preferential support given to the Muslim brotherhood.
Or prevent the split within Congress.
Or get Jinnah to have a shot at being the 1st president of India.
He was happier being the head of a large country, rather than 2nd in command in an even larger one.
However, if he was going to be the head of all India rather than part of it hw would probably have pushed for a united, rather than divided, state.

 

[Kalki]

Ghandi is shot in 1920.


Done.

Close but no cigar! Sorry! You aren't killing the man you are immortalizing him by making a martyr out of him.

It might have worked, if Gandhi hadn't already so thoroughly marginalized Jinnah in the INC by 1920 and then proceeded to destroy Jinnah political career, that he left politics for almost 15 years.

China goes Communist faster. The Americans want a strong, united, India to balance against 'the Reds'. Pressure is put on London to make it happen.

Seems semi-doable?

Most of the INC leaders including Nehru where openly socialist. I believe the US will have a hard time entrusting another Asian giant into the clutches of potential communists.

What's the adage? Better the devil you know than the devil you don't?

Pakistan was politically his creation.

There may have been an undercurrent of muslim-hindu mistrust, but he was the political heart of it.
Without him India is a unitary, federal, state with Punjab, Kashmir, and Bengal as 3 of them.

He is known in Pakistan as the father of the country, and for good reason.

Even with him there are several PODs that don't lead to an independent Pakistan.
There is one school of thought that pushing for an independent Muslim state was a bargaining ploy to get a more pro-muslim India, which failed.
Or get the main Congress party to support the British through WW2, and prevent the preferential support given to the Muslim brotherhood.
Or prevent the split within Congress.
Or get Jinnah to have a shot at being the 1st president of India.
He was happier being the head of a large country, rather than 2nd in command in an even larger one.
However, if he was going to be the head of all India rather than part of it hw would probably have pushed for a united, rather than divided, state.

As long as Gandhi is in the picture, he isn't letting anyone else become a bigger figure in the Independence movement than himself. Least of all Jinnah, the man he once destroyed.

The tale of the Partition is as much as the story of the tale of one nation become two as it of vengeance and debts to settled between two lawyers from Gujarat.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

Close but no cigar! Sorry! You aren't killing the man you are immortalizing him by making a martyr out of him.

It might have worked, if Gandhi hadn't already so thoroughly marginalized Jinnah in the INC by 1920 and then proceeded to destroy Jinnah political career, that he left politics for almost 15 years.



Most of the INC leaders including Nehru where openly socialist. I believe the US will have a hard time entrusting another Asian giant into the clutches of potential communists.

What's the adage? Better the devil you know than the devil you don't?



As long as Gandhi is in the picture, he isn't letting anyone else become a bigger figure in the Independence movement than himself. Least of all Jinnah, the man he once destroyed.

The tale of the Partition is as much as the story of the tale of one nation become two as it of vengeance and debts to settled between two lawyers from Gujarat.

 

[Riain]

What if Burma was included in India? Would that balance out some of the tension by brining a third factor in?

 

[Kalki]

What if Burma was included in India? Would that balance out some of the tension by brining a third factor in?

Or it could just potentially upset the apple cart more. Without OTL Bangladesh included in a Republic of India and the transportation links passing through it, communication with the North East is very complicated. With Bangladesh included communication with the North East and even with Burma becomes a lot more simplified.

Perhaps the ease of communication will simplify integration of the Burmese regional economy into the Unified Indian economy. Over all that should have a significant effect towards creating a more stable union

On a side note, Burma's population isn't really massive. I don't have historical figures, but around the time it gained independence its population was below 20 million compared to 300 million for the whole of British India. Even today its population is 50 something million compared to over 1.2 billion for India, 185 million for Pakistan and 160 million for Bangladesh.

Will it be enough to change the ethno-religious equation significantly? Probably not.

 

[Kalki]

I wish I could upvote that!

 

[Kishan]

Pakistan was created by the adamant stand of Jinnah who was once sidelined by Gandhi in the Congress Party. If only he had remained in the political wilderness never returning to lead the Muslim League, League would never have grown to the proportion where it could challenge the Congress. Thus if Jinnah had met with an accident or the mortal disease which was killing him slowly had terminated his life some ten or twelve years earlier, partition could have been averted.