Alternate Parition of India

What if Dravida Nadu broke off as a communist state? It's proponents wanted societal unity and E.V. Ramasani was an atheist. I'm not sure whether the Soviets would have supported it since they were friendly with India, but maybe the Chinese do and it turns into a proxy conflict? Or the Soviets support Dravida Nadu and this pushes India into the Western camp? That would complicate the situation with Pakistan (if it was made). A communist Dravidia could be very useful for the Comintern in dminating Eurasia. I wouldn't be suprised if India got controlled by the Soviets too (a permanent partition, separating India into Dravidia Nadu and the People's Aryan Republic (although it probably wouldn't be called that due to Nazi connotations)).

Well the Communists (albeit independently-minded) are strong in Kerala, but I think that's it.
 
Bump!

With a much larger population and an Indian Ocean port at Gwadar, the countryt could play a much bigger role in the region, not to mention the implications of it falling into the Soviet orbit in the 70s.

Gwadar belonged to Oman, though the Afghans could buy it like Pakistan did.

Here's 2 interesting partition maps I found, the first one for Punjab. The "notional boundary" assigned districts to India or Pakistan based on which religion a majority of their population professed. Pakistani Gurdaspur - the district had a small Muslim majority - would have largely isolated Kashmir from India and thus ensured Pakistani control of it.

partition-punjab-2.jpg
 
Didn't Travancore (now part of Kerala) try to make a run of it on its own (with support from the British)? It has materials necessary to make nuclear weapons, so the maharajah at that time could have brought in lots of foreign support in exchange for resource deals and military bases...
 
Didn't Travancore (now part of Kerala) try to make a run of it on its own (with support from the British)? It has materials necessary to make nuclear weapons, so the maharajah at that time could have brought in lots of foreign support in exchange for resource deals and military bases...

If the Maharajah had tried to go it alone with British guarantees against any Indian military action (highly unlikely) he would almost definitely had faced a mass civil disobedience campaign that would have brought him to heel. OTL he gave it up the second his Diwan was stabbed by a bunch of Congress Youth members.

More importantly the push for independence seems to have been a negotiating position that Tranvancore took so that they could comeaway with more autonomy from the central government at least according to said Diwan's family.

As for the the Thorium sand deposits which can be used to make nuclear materials, I'm not sure the potential of the thorium was even known to the Maharajah seeing as how the first experimental reactor was constructed in the US in 1951. It was only when India developed an indigenous nuclear program in the 60s and 70s that the value of the deposits was realised. IIRC this is why the Thorium fast breeder reactors were such a big part of Indian nuclear research
 
If the Maharajah had tried to go it alone with British guarantees against any Indian military action (highly unlikely) he would almost definitely had faced a mass civil disobedience campaign that would have brought him to heel. OTL he gave it up the second his Diwan was stabbed by a bunch of Congress Youth members.

More importantly the push for independence seems to have been a negotiating position that Tranvancore took so that they could comeaway with more autonomy from the central government at least according to said Diwan's family.

As for the the Thorium sand deposits which can be used to make nuclear materials, I'm not sure the potential of the thorium was even known to the Maharajah seeing as how the first experimental reactor was constructed in the US in 1951. It was only when India developed an indigenous nuclear program in the 60s and 70s that the value of the deposits was realised. IIRC this is why the Thorium fast breeder reactors were such a big part of Indian nuclear research

According to Alex von Tunzelmann in her book Indian Summer: The Secret End Of An Empire, the British supported the Maharajah in order to get secure access to the thorium...
 
According to Alex von Tunzelmann in her book Indian Summer: The Secret End Of An Empire, the British supported the Maharajah in order to get secure access to the thorium...

Hmm... seems like something the Brits might do back when they were desperately trying to rebuild their nuclear programme after WW2.

That being said it is important to remember that the Maharajah didn't really have the kind of universal popularity he would need to survive during the heady post-independence days when the entire country seem to stumble around in a haze of nationalistic fervour. Hell a year before independence in 1946, he faced a rather serious insurrection by lower caste factory workers which had to put down by Travancoori army. One wonders how long the Indian government would have sat by while he tried to do the same in response to the inevitable unrest his declaring independence would bring.
 
If East Pakistan/Bangladesh controls Murshidabad, is it possible to have the eventually independent Bangladesh become a constitutional monarchy under the former princely house once based in that city?
 
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