DBWI An alternate end for the British empire?

1) How could we get a less violent end for the British empire??? I'm thinking in a scenario in which the Great Anglo-Indian War is avoided or shortened, and Britain mantains friendly relations with most of her colonnies.

2) How would such a world look like nowadays???

I know it's hard, because victorious states tend to be reluctant to give up anything. Specially if those states have defeated their most dangerous enemy twice in such a short period of time (the second time so easily). But this is Alternate History, so I'm sure you can thing of a way:)



P.S.: The Pod can be any time after 1900, but it's better if it's near the end of the Second European War, in 1940. And, if it's after that, it's even better.

(OoC: no more details, I think you can already figure out what happened ITTL;))
 
1) How could we get a less violent end for the British empire??? I'm thinking in a scenario in which the Great Anglo-Indian War is avoided or shortened, and Britain mantains friendly relations with most of her colonnies.

2) How would such a world look like nowadays???

I know it's hard, because victorious states tend to be reluctant to give up anything. Specially if those states have defeated their most dangerous enemy twice in such a short period of time (the second time so easily). But this is Alternate History, so I'm sure you can thing of a way:)



P.S.: The Pod can be any time after 1900, but it's better if it's near the end of the Second European War, in 1940. And, if it's after that, it's even better.

(OoC: no more details, I think you can already figure out what happened ITTL;))

Well, when the Soviets started to destabilise India after the Anglo-German Treaty (whether it's true the OSS aided them or not), it was more or less inevitable that there would be hostilities. That they managed to blame Gandhi's murder on the Brits only accelerated what would've happened anyways. You need at least a pre-war POD on that.

Africa would be easier. If the British had not interfered in Greater South Africa's elections, it is quite possible we would have ended up with Ian Smith instead of the hardliners, and then things would at once have been much different. Unlike the Portuguese extremists, Smith actually wanted to compromise with the moderate Blacks.

Of course, that was the second mistake: not cracking down on the Mau-Mau. When the Anglos left Kenya, they showed that violence worked, and let all hell loose throughout the continent.
 
Here are a few PODs that would have to take place to make that happen:

* Have the British pull out of Malaysia and its battles against the Communist insurgency before 1968...

*Prevent P.M. Enoch Powell government from declaring the "Permanent State of Emergency" in Northern Ireland in 1972...

*Have P.M. Neil Kinnock survive the 1984 bombing of the Labor Party Convention in Manchester...

* Prevent the assassination of student activist John Lennon at Leiceister Square in 1980, during the Poll Tax Riots...

* Have the United States and France back Great Britain during the Suez Canal Crisis, rather than having British troops firing on Soviet-backed guerillas by 1956...
 
Well, I suppose that part of this would be Churchill, who resolved that he would not preside over the dismantling of the British Empire. Having trounced his political opponent, Clement Atlee, Churchill and his protege, Anthony Eden, would make good on that desire.

Of course, the shooting death of Mohandas Gandhi in India at the hands of a Muslim extremist would be the beginning of the end. UK garrisons faced an unbelievable mutiny, heavily backed by the Soviet Union.

The UK wanted to be a superpower very badly--to keep the level of world dominance that they had enjoyed before the first world war. Far from the ideas of the welfare state that Atlee had proposed, the nation would attempt to consolidate its colonies, which resulted in crushing taxes at home.

What you'd need is Atlee coming to power in 1945 and honoring the agreement with Gandhi to pull out of India, and for Eden to be discredited later on. I don't think either of those are happening. COME ON, you're trying to vote out WINSTON CHURCHILL!! The guy who kept the UK ALIVE in its darkest hour.

It's much more plausible for the UK to take up Rajiv Gandhi's offer in 1972 for India to become an independent and allied state, but that one was also turned down.

Nor can I see the Balfour declaration working out. The UK held onto Israel and Palestine because they could see no real way for those people's to live together. It's ASB to assume that they can, and it's borderline ASB to assume that the Jews wouldn't get steamrolled by their Arab neighbors.

Just how ASB of an answer are you looking for? I think it's inevitable that the UK would go down fighting. Heck, even today, they still have a pretty intense struggle in Nigeria--and they ARE NOT giving up that oil.
 
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