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The Maratha Empire had, for all intents, come out of nowhere to become the largest empire in India in the late eighteenth century. Yet, they suddenly collapsed, and their remnants were easily swept aside by the British. In my eyes, they collapsed because of fundamental institutional problems.
  1. An economy based on plunder

    Now, the Marathas were fundamentally based upon plunder since the beginnings under Shivaji, when they raided many Mughal cities like Surat and the plunder was brought into the imperial treasury, funding later military expeditions. However, as they grew and grew, suddenly they ran out of cities to raid and plunder, as they became the most powerful empire in India.

    So, how do we solve this? One way is to give them more lands to plunder - say, have them win the Third Battle of Panipat. Rather than having a brief period of instability from which they recovered successfully, they continue to grow, conquering and raiding Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. They can now go so far as to raid Pashtun lands. However, this would fall into the issue that they have run out of lands to raid, and so that would then mean a reversal in fortunes. No, perhaps a better way to have them survive is to alter their economy. They should perhaps then conquer some of the richest parts of India, and then realize that taxing these lands is better than raiding them. The best candidate for this is Bengal, which provided half of the Mughal GDP and continued to be quite rich until the emergence of British rule. Having them conquer Bengal is quite difficult as it was directly in the path of the British, and though Siraj-ud-Daulah could have thrown out the British in the Seven Years War, the Marathas would find similar difficulties in conquest. The next best candidate is Punjab - the greater Punjab region, including Punjab in Pakistan, Punjab in India, Himachal Pradesh, and the Hindu parts of Jammu and Kashmir. This meshes well with a Third Battle of Panipat POD, where Punjab would likely be conquered by the surging Marathas as the Durrani collapse, likely even worse ITTL, leads to further and further Maratha victories. Here, they may realize that taxing income is better than raiding Punjabi cities.

  2. Internal strife

    Towards the later part of the Maratha Empire, their leading families began to fight with one another. For instance, during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the Holkar family engaged in a massive civil war against the Scindia. The Holkars, being led by Yashwant Rao Holkar, the "Maratha Napoleon", were ultimately able to defeat the Scindia, but not without some heavy losses that led to defeat in the much more important war with the British.

    So, how do we solve this? This strife is ultimately rooted in the Third Battle of Panipat, which didn't really reduce Maratha territory, but it did lead to much more infighting and politicking after their massive defeat. Reversing the result would result in power centralized in the Peshwa, or the hereditary prime minister, which would reduce the possibility of families jockeying against one another and putting the territorial integrity of the empire at risk by doing so.
And so, it actually seems rather simple. Have the Marathas win the Third Battle of Panipat, installing a puppet ruler as Mughal Emperor. They conquer Punjab and realize that taxation ultimately leads to better and more stable revenue than plunder, and reform their empire to follow the standard Mughal model. And power remains vested in the Peshwa family rather than decentralized among its prominent families, resulting in less internal jockeying
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