Ok this is for a TL I got in the works. But I need for the British to keep India. The question I keep asking myself is how can the British do this? What can the British do to assimilate the upper and middle classes in India and how to the British take Indian and bring them into their own culture. Basically I'm looking at the relationship becoming one of where the two become equals in the relationship.
How Does the British get India to stay within the Empire?
- Thread starter Jim Smitty
- Start date
If India remains within the Empire it will eventually become an Indian empire. Maybe you can keep North America in the empire as a counterweight against India.
Perhaps a federal British Empire could have an a American style upper house. One state two votes and therefore keep Indian influence down.
Perhaps a federal British Empire could have an a American style upper house. One state two votes and therefore keep Indian influence down.
Indians wouldn´t accept that.
Maybe a system where India is not India, but many different states, divided along IOTL linguistic lines. Having the other dominions would be vital but still is a stretch.
Simple, divide and conquer.
Keep them hating each other more than they hate you.
Play up religious, linguistic and ethnic difference, support the weak groups against the strong etc etc etc
Keep them hating each other more than they hate you.
Play up religious, linguistic and ethnic difference, support the weak groups against the strong etc etc etc
Well never creating a single India would probably help. Have it always remain a series of independent states withing the Empire and prevent the rise of any overarching Indian identity at all.
Lusitania
Donor
Following the first India Mutiny the British East India Company stopped almost all efforts in bringing British culture and values to the Indian Sub-continent. There never was an attempt to make the Indian people part of the British Empire. So for India to be part of British Empire you need to make them feel like they equal and not like second and third rate members of the British Empire.
That's OTL. India was a mess of many, many, princely states. Yet, an Indian state still sprung up, as the general Indian perception was (and still is) that a united India would be more powerful than a divided one.
There is also a problem with dividing India along linguistic lines. Hindustani had long been the lingua franca of most of India, even including parts of the south like Hyderabad and the Deccan (to the point that a Deccan dialect of Urdu exists). Of course, it was more of a trade language than a commonly-spoken one, but grounds for a united India certainly existed on linguistic lines.
Forget the old "imperial federation" trope, or at least keep India out of any potential federation, leaving it as another state within the empire.
Ultimately, India has to gain meaningful autonomy as early as possible, with at least the upper and middle classes having a firm stake in whatever replaces the Raj ITTL. Granting India dominion status, equivalent to Canada, during the 19th century might do it, but it would require political will from London. Also, the electoral system needs to allow religious (and ethnic) minorities some degree of representation.
I agree with the above posters that suggested keeping India divided. If the "Doctrine of Lapse" either doesn't get adopted at all, or only applies if a Raja that has no direct heir voluntarily leaving his holdings to the British/EIC, would at least help minimise grievances. Also, native Indians have to be treated as (near) equals, not as colonial subjects.
Ultimately, India has to gain meaningful autonomy as early as possible, with at least the upper and middle classes having a firm stake in whatever replaces the Raj ITTL. Granting India dominion status, equivalent to Canada, during the 19th century might do it, but it would require political will from London. Also, the electoral system needs to allow religious (and ethnic) minorities some degree of representation.
I agree with the above posters that suggested keeping India divided. If the "Doctrine of Lapse" either doesn't get adopted at all, or only applies if a Raja that has no direct heir voluntarily leaving his holdings to the British/EIC, would at least help minimise grievances. Also, native Indians have to be treated as (near) equals, not as colonial subjects.
The Mughals were foreign, and plenty of Indians seemed fine with being ruled by them.
Anaxagoras
Banned
The only real way is full local self-government, with an Imperial Parliament (in which each Dominion has an equal vote) dealing with foreign and defense affairs.
Those eventually ruled from India, they didn´t remain in Afghanistan.
Mughals ruled from Delhi and Brits from London. Big difference.
And Mughals allowed Indians deal their own issues unlike Brits.
What if the British royal family moved to India and decided to permanently live there, starting with Edward VII. Viceroys could represent them in England and Scotland.
Lusitania
Donor
Then you would end up with English civil war just like when Portuguese king decided to remain in Rio.
Britain just can't. It could not keep Kenya so it certainly can't keep India for the same reason that Japan or Mongols could not keep China.
India and China are universes and civilizations on their own. And they had a deep sense of their culture and identity, considering their conquerors as barbarians.
Either Britain is being assimilated by India, or the transplant will be rejected in the end.
The only way to keep lastingly a territory which is culturally so differentiated is to drown it under waves of migrants from the colonizer country. This is what happened in North America and Australia and It was possible only because these territories were scarcely populated, because of amerindians' lack of immune defenses to smallpox and because of ethnic cleansing.
Such a scheme could not be successfully replicated in India at the time of british colonization because India was far too big to swallow.
I'm looking for a way to make the British a rival for a US that is larger than OTL and the two were uneasy allies in WWI and II after wars beforehand that saw the British being kicked out of Canada. They still have Australia and those areas. But I need a nation that could rival the US as a superpower. I don't really care how it works, so long as it works.