[British India AH] - How many countries could have been formed?

See above. I realize that there was a strong position towards a single all-Indian state (and then the divergences of the Muslim Indian contingent towards Pakistan and then Pakistan & Bangladesh), and that even at time of independence there remained several Princely States within British India.

However, what I'm curious about is how many sustainable and stable nations could have been formed from the colonies, based either on ethnic, linguistic or religious lines and perhaps following population movements ala IRL. In my head I can see some sort of Baluchistan and a Sikh State perhaps in Punjab, but I don't know enough to guess at more.
 
Anything from one to dozens. Currently there are 36 in India alone, the original federal proposal was 31 and there are currently around thirty areas either seeking independence or otherwise candidates for statehood. Probably less than a hundred.
 

Isaac Beach

Banned
There was a proposal for a Dravidian-speaking state in the south of India, and there were also the various states that existed quite briefly before being invaded or pressured and annexed by India; namely Sikkim, Hyderabad, Manipur, Tripura and Kashmir, and the Rajasthani princes were briefly independent before being pressured to accede to India (there might be a few others but information on the period following Indian independence is kinda sketchy).
 
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