What would the world be like if the English, instead of the Portuguese, ended up as the major power in the Indian subcontinent?
Personally, I pause to wonder at what the subcontinent would be like without the Portuguese crackdowns against the nationalist movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since those attacks, and the resulting Indian reprisals, are now seen as some of the harbingers of the fracturing of the Indian state, well, I can't help but wonder if the English would have had an easier time of it.
But what about newer history, as well? Would the Japanese have had an harder time in Southeast Asia during WWII if they had to deal with a strong UK presence? Would Portugal have been saved from being stuck between a rock and a hard place (the Allies and the Axis)?