AHC: Swapping Colonial Africa and Asia's legacy populations

There are plenty of pics of White Africans running around which generates excellent fodder for eyebrow-raising juxtapositions such as this photo of Zimbabwean cops...

zimpolice161111.jpg


I've sometimes wondered why India never really developed a large non-Native population of European colonists (aside from the huge populations of govt officials, soldiers, etc). Ok, now I know it has to do with the social structure, availability of land for development in Africa vs Asia, high degree of pre-existing governmental organization, etc.


And that's the challenge:
Starting no earlier than the real kick-off of colonialism (late 1600's, early 1700's), swap Africa and Asia's "legacy ex-colonist" populations so that colonial / post-colonial Africa is left largely absent any sizeable non-African minorities, while Asia instead is left with a large (5~6 million+) population of whites of European decent. I'm specifically interested in India, but anywhere else would be a fascinating exercise.




And before you go there: No. Pointing the big finger at Australia and New Zealand doesn't count. :p
But somehow shifting the mega-penal colony to SE Asia, India, or China might...
 
For the most part it can't be done. There's just not the spare farming land in Asia that's needed to attract Europeans, due to the huge populations in Asia. It's the same reason West Africa doesn't have a large white population. The best you could do is maybe something in South East Asia: make a bigger thing of settlement in Vietnam, or maybe colonise Thailand.
 
As someone of Anglo-Indian heritage there were white families who lived in India for three generations, my maternal grandmother's family only came to the UK in 1947 having lived in India for generations. My great-great-grandfather was born in Shimla and died in Bombay having only ever gone to the England for one year. The problem with having a larger community is the lack of agricultural land and also the disease burden. Kenya and Rhodesia had a much lower disease burden and whites lived much longer there than in most if India.
 
I've sometimes wondered why India never really developed a large non-Native population of European colonists (aside from the huge populations of govt officials, soldiers, etc).
.

Actually there were really few British in India at any one time. IIRC the figure was under 200k.

Others have already answered why Asia wasnt suitable for settler colonies IOTL so I shan't repeat what they've said
 
It's to be note, somewhat related, there was asians, indians in Africa's colonies too - Ghandi lived in South Africa, by example, and Mugabe kicked Indians and others out...

One wonder what would happens in recent era had they could generally remains in Africa. Or more.
 
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