An interesting question...

How would a realistic Industrial Revolution emerge in India?

Conditions were ripe for it in the Song Dynasty in China, until the Mongols interrupted, and they quite obviously worked in Britain IOTL.

What conditions would have been required for an Indian Industrial Revolution? Perhaps removing the Mughals? A different type of Hinduism emerging on a more libertarian basis (this is pre-1900, after all) prior to the time of Gautama (which would change too much, I think)? Or perhaps one of the various Indian kingdoms with the right resources for developing industrial society gets to exist uninterrupted longer (which ones that would be, I'm not sure.)

Regardless, I'd be curious how an Industrial Revolution might emerge in the Indosphere and the impact Industrial society would have on India. It did all sorts of things to Christianity, how would Hinduism survive?

Questions...Questions...
 
Seems to me that one of the greatest barriers to industrialization in India would be caste and/or other cultural institutions incompatible with a "western" conception of industrialization. I often wonder how employers in modern India work around issues of caste identity and socioeconomic status. The superimposition of Indian institutions over 21st century commerce is one thing; I can't imagine the superimposition of 18th/19th century British industrialization over an India of the same period.
 
It doesn't have to be a "Western" concept, I hardly think the one that would have occurred in the Song Dynasty without Mongol inteference would have been on that model, after all, Chinese authoritarianism is almost an integral trait in OTL China (might have been different if a different Chinese state under another school had unified China instead of Legalist Qin). But regardless, how is it possible for a model of industrialization to emerge? Nothing's impossible in AH, after all...
 
Top