Balkanized India with a post-independence POD?

My knowledge of indian history is really sketchy, so I'd like some help with this. Esentially, what is the best POD for a balkanized India post-1947? With Balkanized I mean that the subcontinent ought to be divided in many countries (say 7 or 8) instead of only two or three as in OTL. I think that there are two easy possible points:

-Gandhi is murdered by a muslim, religious civil war swamps India in the middle of a war with Pakistan.
-India and Pakistan are never separated, but religious tensions tear apart the new Dominion/Republic during the 50's. This could also include a Vietnam-like scenario for the british empire.

what are your thoughts? bonus points for a) making some of those successor states communist b)allowing princely states as Hyderabad to survive.
 

maverick

Banned
Post-Independence POD is hard as hell...

I usually use earlier PODs...in the 1930s at the latest...Japanese invasion might help but little...

Nuclear war with Pakistan?

The Princes already agreed to join in 1947, except for the Nizam...so he either gets lots of help or we need an earlier POD...
 
Gandhi destroyed all hope of avoiding partition when he so stupidly made the announcement that any conditions agreed to with the Muslims could always be broken afterwards.

Since this is exactly what happened to the princely states there is no reason to doubt that he, Nehru and their supporters were quite sincere in this intention.

Have him keep quiet about this plan, thus also reducing tensions and mutual hostilities sufficiently that he survives the year. Around 1950 Gandhi, having replaced Nehru, decides the time has come for the changes he intended all along. This gives the princes time to become aware of how untrustworthy Gandhi is, and also to plan accordingly, and adds the people of Bangladesh and Pakistan to the confrontation, with India's own Muslim population and the Sikhs for good measure.

Kashmir becomes an independent state supported grudgingly by a reduced Pakistan and enthusiastically by China.

Bangladesh extends further north to Nepal, cutting India's easternmost provinces off, thereby creating yet another state or states. Some of the territory northwest of Bangladesh is also acquired.

Nepal and Bhutan possibly gain a few scraps of territory.

At least one major princely state survives as an independent nation besides Kashmir, possibly Hyderabad.

By the time the war ends the remains of India are in poor shape and all of the newly independent nations have a powerful vested interest in keeping India weak and/or shattered.
 

Thande

Donor
I think you need some wacko extremist group to take power (maybe after a different Gandhi assassination) that manages to piss off both the princely states, who withdraw their assent to confederation, the French and Portuguese (i.e. by an early claim and invasion of their surviving possessions) and of course the Muslims.
 
What about the "Indian Emergency" from 1975 to 1977, when Indira Gandhi and her clique assumed dictatorial powers and ruled by decree (among other things, a sterilisation campaign was started by her son Sanjay Gandhi), ?

Could a prolonged emergency, coupled with an escalation of violence and an attempt by Gandhi to hold on to power at all costs trigger a situation that leads to balkanisation (perhaps Pakistan and China also interfere in order to make som quick gains and there is an earlier Sikh movement for Khalistan)?

Or was the concept of Indian nationhood by that time so firmly accepted that the only result would have been the fall of the government (as it historically fell from power during the 1977 elections)? Admittedly my knowledge of Indian history is lacking and thus I cannot accurately judge whether some sort of balkanisation would still be possible at this point in time, unless there are calamities of an enormous scope.
 
It's easy for people living halfway across the world to not realize this, but India was balkanized in 1947. See Wikipedia's article on it: integration was far from done in 1947. In 1947, the "India" ruled as a Republic was absolutely riddled with Princely States of uncertain status. The biggest holes were huge: Rajasthan, Hyderabad, and Mysore (Karnataka) were out, for example. If the 1948 plebescite in Junagadh had descended into violent chaos, for example, it's easy to imagine that Operation Polo -- when, in late 1948, India invaded Hyderabad -- would have been impossible or else a total quagmire. With those two setbacks, the march to unification that seems inevitable from the distance of 60 years would have been very much in doubt ITTL.
 
Thanks for the info, as I thought, a united India with a lot of unintegrated princely states could be an explosive mix.

Now for something that could be in the limits of ASB-ness: is there any way to have India become only a geographical expression? That is, having the subcontinent so balkanized that no successor state pretends to be the "true" Indian state. I think this would need something really massive, perhaps a Civil War in the 50's with soviet, british, chinese involvement.
 

maverick

Banned
It's easy for people living halfway across the world to not realize this, but India was balkanized in 1947. See Wikipedia's article on it: integration was far from done in 1947. In 1947, the "India" ruled as a Republic was absolutely riddled with Princely States of uncertain status. The biggest holes were huge: Rajasthan, Hyderabad, and Mysore (Karnataka) were out, for example. If the 1948 plebescite in Junagadh had descended into violent chaos, for example, it's easy to imagine that Operation Polo -- when, in late 1948, India invaded Hyderabad -- would have been impossible or else a total quagmire. With those two setbacks, the march to unification that seems inevitable from the distance of 60 years would have been very much in doubt ITTL.

Can we use the 1948 POD?

We could get Mysore, Kashmir, Hyderabad, Kerala, Bengala, Pakistan all going in different directions...

Now for something that could be in the limits of ASB-ness: is there any way to have India become only a geographical expression? That is, having the subcontinent so balkanized that no successor state pretends to be the "true" Indian state.

I think that's what I tried in my TL 'A Red Eagle Rises'...but there is one Indian Federation claiming to be India, though...

There's a thread in Changing The Times called 'A Princely State' about this idea...but its in the old part of the site, and deals with a pre-1947 POD...
 
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