I'm much more interested in adding a discussion with insights from different opinions rather than an argument, but you seem quite intent on calling my views ludicrous and I can't remember things, so here goes:
1. This has nothing to do with the point you made and that I was answering - that yopu claimed Shinto was as divided as Hindus and Muslims were. I.e. you've forgotten the argument you were trying to make, as well as not being able to understand my reply!
I don't want to put words in Iori's mouth, but I interpreted them as saying that to conquer India, Britain had to get Indians to side against each other, and that this would not happen in Japan because, among other issues, religious unity would prevent them from doing this. My point was that the diverse nature of Shinto means there was no real feeling of religious unity. You then responded that this didn't compare with the Hindu-Muslim divide. I point out it didn't need to for native troops to fight against each other, it just needed to be as diverse as Islam, as Muslims fought against each other.
That the British were able to use Muslims against each other is because India was - as I said - much more divided than Japan in MANY ways.
Rather than speaking in abstract terms, why dont you explain to me precisely why that matters in a concrete example. For instance, how did the British conquest of Bengal rest on differences that did not exist in Japan?
I didn't do this. I used C20th events - because you should be aware of them, and I'm certain you know nothing of India before this - because they're indicative of the longterm. You can't meaningful disagree unless you think India is MORE religiously divided now than in the C17-19th, which would be an extraordinary claim.
I would certainly argue that the level of Hindu-Muslim animosity across the Indian subcontinent as a whole increased dramatically in the middle of the 20th century. Just look at the level of hatred that exists on each side of the Indian-Pakistan border, compared to how the two faiths intermixed in the 18th Century Punjab.
You don't seem to be aware of this, but V'nam was already an occupied country when the French took it over - and had been for a thousand years. Displacing and replacing a foreign elite is very different to conquering a homogenous nation like Japan.
As I understand it, the Nguyen dynasty was an ancient Vietnamese family. Happy to hear you expand on your point in case I misunderstood it.
Except for the actual history of each country. Which mean that it is impossible for the British to do "something similar in Japan" - i.e. replace one foreign ruling class with another - because there is no foreign ruling class in Japan for them to replace!
No, but there is a feudal ruling class that suppressed the poor badly. Much of the success the British had in India was in their popularity from restraining the zamindars.
As for hierarchy in Japan vs caste in India: you have no idea what a caste system is. No, they're not comparable. Caste includes hierarchy but not vice versa.
You're just quibbling over terminology. Of course there were differences to the social strata in different countries. But for the point of our discussion, there are enough social differences in Japan for different groups to be played against the other.
And - because the people who disagreeing with Lori don't seem to have understand his or her point at all - the OP asked if a ***Raj*** type colonization of Japan was possible. This, as Lori said, was a very specific thing and required particular conditions of diversity and lack of national consciousness and lack of homogeneity found in India and not Japan. Colonizing Japan would have been possible (for some level of effort - possibility too a high a one to be profitable.) But doing so Raj-style, not.
It seems to me that you'd have to define what a "Raj-type colonisation" actually means. Clearly the exact circumstances aren't going to be the same. But I interpreted the jist of it to be a private chartered company starting with trade, gradually getting footholds, taking up more territory chunk by chunk, before the national government eventually replaces company rule. I would say a similar thing happened in Nigeria.