Buddhist Indian State

Make it so that in the division of India, there is enough Buddhist population in the Raj to warrant the creation of a Buddhist majority state alongside Pakistan and India. What is a likely name for this state, and what regions would it include?
 

mowque

Banned
The POD is so far back as to butterfly the Partition (if not the Raj itself). Pretty tough to alter basic reilgious demogrpahics and keep OTL history.
 
Easy, just include Sir Lanka in the Raj. :p

If you mean on the mainland then your best bet is in the North-East; IOTL Buddhists make-up large minorities (in the 30-40% range) in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkhim and are the second largest religion in Mizoram (though only in the 5-9.9% range); outside of Assam, which is majority Hindu (though only in the 60% range) most of North-East population went through religious changes in the 19th and 20th centuries, with large scale conversion to Protestant Christianity, so perhaps have some Buddhist movement/leader go to the area that becomes popular and proselytizes and have the North-East become majority Buddhist, leading to a movement for separation from the rest of India.
 
Mass conversions of Dalits would help in terms of absolute numbers. There actually has been a movement that has been doing this for some decades, now. Have this happen earlier -- say 18th or 19th C and in greater numbers. I have no idea what region might be most conducive for this or how to concentrate converts into a state, though. Migration to one of the historical holy centers in India, perhaps. Creative gerrymandering by the British as part of an independence settlement? Cue communal riots, though.

Another thought: covert a ruler of one of the princely States to provide the necessary foci.
 
Mass conversions of Dalits would help in terms of absolute numbers. There actually has been a movement that has been doing this for some decades, now. Have this happen earlier -- say 18th or 19th C and in greater numbers. I have no idea what region might be most conducive for this or how to concentrate converts into a state, though. Migration to one of the historical holy centers in India, perhaps. Creative gerrymandering by the British as part of an independence settlement? Cue communal riots, though.

Another thought: covert a ruler of one of the princely States to provide the necessary foci.

That actually started in the 19th century; the real problem with this route is that while they are mass conversions, they're still a very small amount of the population, and it's occuring in the Heart of Hindudom.
 
That actually started in the 19th century; the real problem with this route is that while they are mass conversions, they're still a very small amount of the population, and it's occuring in the Heart of Hindudom.

But its greatest success in years since Independence.
 
Mass conversions to Buddhism by dalits did occur on many occasions. But they were not on a scale that could make a decisive change in the demography. The total population of Buddhists in India is less than 2% while the population of Hindus is above 80%. Hence a Buddhist Indian state was not plausible at the time of independence.
It was possible in the ancient period during the time of Mauryan Empire. If Emperor Ashoka had made Buddhism the state religion and the Mauryan Empire had lasted a few more centuries, Buddhism might have succeeded in preventing a reassertion of Hinduism. Though Ashoka had converted to Buddhism and tried to expand its influence beyond the borders of his empire, he never suppressed other sects or religions in his empire.
 
Easy, just include Sir Lanka in the Raj. :p

If you mean on the mainland then your best bet is in the North-East; IOTL Buddhists make-up large minorities (in the 30-40% range) in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkhim and are the second largest religion in Mizoram (though only in the 5-9.9% range); outside of Assam, which is majority Hindu (though only in the 60% range) most of North-East population went through religious changes in the 19th and 20th centuries, with large scale conversion to Protestant Christianity, so perhaps have some Buddhist movement/leader go to the area that becomes popular and proselytizes and have the North-East become majority Buddhist, leading to a movement for separation from the rest of India.

Or just have Burma not be made separate from British India until independence at 1947.
 
Mass conversions to Buddhism by dalits did occur on many occasions. But they were not on a scale that could make a decisive change in the demography. The total population of Buddhists in India is less than 2% while the population of Hindus is above 80%. Hence a Buddhist Indian state was not plausible at the time of independence.

As I mentioned it would be possible in the North-East if you got some resurgent evangelical movement to proelytize there, as IOTL Hinduism is only the majority religion in 2 of the 7 States of North-East India, and in one of those cases only in the 60% range.

Incidentally, here's a map of the States of India by the Percentages by Religion;

Religions of India by State & Territory.png
 

katchen

Banned
Actually there was such a Buddhist state partitioned off India. It was partitioned off India in 1937, ten years before independence and final division. That state was Burma and now called Myanmar. And yes, until 1937, Myanmar was part of British India.
 
Actually there was such a Buddhist state partitioned off India. It was partitioned off India in 1937, ten years before independence and final division. That state was Burma and now called Myanmar. And yes, until 1937, Myanmar was part of British India.

While Burma was part of British India for awhile it was not the situation the whole of the time; Burma was originally its own colony before being merged into the Raj in the late 19th century (said merger was controversial at the time) and was eventually split off from India to form its own colony again.
 
Sikkim is probably the best bet - the Hindu majority there is due to settlement of ethnic Nepalis during the 19th century, so if the Nepalis go someplace else or stay home, it might stay majority-Buddhist. You'd need a much more stable Nepal during the early 19th century for that to happen, though.
 
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