Nerfing the US a bit would help - perhaps a bigger Canada, or maybe Britain keeps New York, or George-East&West Florida, British California, or something like that.
How Does the British get India to stay within the Empire?
- Thread starter Jim Smitty
- Start date
Nerfing the US a bit would help - perhaps a bigger Canada, or maybe Britain keeps New York, or George-East&West Florida, British California, or something like that.
Admiral Beez
Banned
The Empire would need to work on the Roman model, where the populations of conquered territories were offered Roman citizenship. Normally this would be the elites and those who served in the military. The challenge with using this for the British Empire is you would have to have strict residency and mobility controls, otherwise all of India will move to Britain.
Saphroneth
Banned
The way I'm thinking about it is that you need the Empire to be something that India wants to be in. One key point would be having it as functionally a major global alliance network built on top of the British Empire itself - much like NATO or WARPAC in OTL - and in this case that probably means that China, Russia or both are hostile to the alliance in general and India specifically. (That means there's a reason for India to stay within the network, in this case to stay under the Empire's nuclear umbrella or the like.)
That isn't needed, just have the U.S. be more friendly o the empire and help it with federalising. This could be done if say the soviets took more land in Asia or Europe (Finland, Manchuria or Turkey). That way there's more fear of communism and democratic imperialism is a better option.
Also India would have to be abandoned, by 1900 I think India was lost. Another scenario is just the British raj becoming independent as one country. Now THATS a superpower.
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Actually, going back very far if Britain does better in the American war of independence you could see the emergence of an Atlantic straddling country governed similarly to the U.S. today.
Saphroneth
Banned
Not sure why it would use the US system of governance? That's very different to the British one and the differences are largely not ones which make the system work better - just different, because the Constitution was written to be "Not England" in a lot of ways. (Yes, England, not Britain, that's how they said it at the time.)
Both of these can quite easily be woven together - but this rolls back the 'Empire' right to the earliest days. A resolution to the American colonies that actually... resolve issues and keep them in the Empire sets a totally different precedent (and flavour to Empire).
But an Empire with America and India- both of them benefit from the economic relationship of not having tariffs between them.
But sadly this goes back to the "We need to rebuild the Empire from the ground up", rather than make changes.
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An alternative to my hyper-liberal happy answer is the Strategic Division Council (or something like that), which is slightly more "in" than Saphs approach.
I.e. Dominion status for India, Canada, Australia-New Zealand (yes, together), and South Africa/Rhodesia/etc.
They, alongside Britain have a representative 'First Minister' or Dominion Rep. Each responsible for different spheres (which has a whole mess of repercussions strategically). Britain is responsible for European & N.Atlantic Affairs, Australia for Pacific, India for the Indian Ocean, and South Africa for S.Atlantic and African Affairs, Canada for Arctic & N.American Affairs. Now you could always argue more votes for those with more 'Concerns' - but it is explicitly NOT democratically handled, but strategic (almost a Stratocracy for Imperial Affairs, Democracy in the Dominions). So each rep has offices, and responsibilities for their 'Concern' but also are supported by the Military of their Dominion. So India would be the home of the Indian Concern Fleet. Britain the European/Atlantic, etc.
This means that India has its own government more or less, a vote on the joint decisions of all Imperial-level affairs, as does Greater South Africa, Australiasia, Canada and Britain.
Now, this does mean surrendering control over most of the daily affairs of India, but I could see it as a plausible alternative to independence post WW1/WW2.
Plus, besides some limited common affairs (foreign policy, cross-concern projects), the council is able to reform - India pushes for war in Afghanistan - who is in charge of that? The others are probably going to vote against India getting it, and instead setting up a 'Central Asian Concern'.
Now excuse me whilst I vomit at the idea of a British-Empire turned world-stratocracy.
Saphroneth
Banned
I'm sure it would be quite right and proper, you know.
And involve only a little too much tea.
Admiral Beez
Banned
Granted the empire is maritime focused, but a pan-imperial railway would be interesting, and may encourage people to migrate outside their tribal boundaries.
Saphroneth
Banned
I'm not sure how you'd do that, unless you had British control of the central Middle East and Afghanistan. Even then it's not really pan-Imperial, it's just (at most) a spinal Africa railway which goes through the Middle East to connect to India.
I meant that as shorthand for "lots of consituent autonomous regions with some level of inherent sovereignty witha strong central government handling some aspects of domestic affairs and all foreign policy."
Canada or Australia would probably be a better model for what the running of an entity like this would look like in terms of the form of Government.
Saphroneth
Banned
That's actually a lot like what the British Empire was - a lot of what was marked in uniform pink on the map was actually protectorates, which surrendered foreign policy and some domestic policy in return for protection.
@RogueTraderEnthusiast
I'm not sure how plausible it is but a "chaps-ocracy" empire based on Concerns and a loosely weighted dynamic voting system that changes based on where the issue arises is a fantastic AH idea.
I'm not sure how plausible it is but a "chaps-ocracy" empire based on Concerns and a loosely weighted dynamic voting system that changes based on where the issue arises is a fantastic AH idea.
Not to sound like a facetious prick like usual but it'd require an act of the gods. Every Anglo-ambassador to India was an idiot, who suffered from an increasingly disconnected case of White Man's Burden and then some. India isn't going to ever want to be part of such a polity where they're second-class at best.
That's a pretty heavily rose-tinted presentation of the British Empire and clearly one that wasn't sustainable.
I said US style because it suggests a reasonably common culture, an equality between constituent units and identification of the population with the greater entity as well as the sub-units.
I can't see it have an electoral college - it would probably be parliamentary.
Otherwise, this is probably the most plausible scenario to keep India in the empire. I'd also restrict British colonies in India to the south and along the Bay of Bengal, just to avoid the Indian population being too great.
Saphroneth
Banned
I think the point that the Empire's often displayed as a lot more politically homogenous than it was stands, though. That's the main point I wanted to make, so sorry for the confusion.
Okay, I see.
I think that runs back into the problem of the "Indian Empire". For it to stay a British one you need the British to be at the very least primus inter pares, whether by massive cultural diffusion of British values into the Empire or by the British being the lynchpin (hence my mention of the nuclear umbrella; before then it can be the Royal Navy, which serves a somewhat similar function).
Admiral Beez
Banned
Indeed, can we really see Canada, Australia or NZ as part of the Empire by the end of the 1800s? By the end of the 1870s there were no British forces in Canada, for example, beyond RN ships visiting Canadian ports.
...just to nitpick but are you saying that members of a society that had/was build around caste system cant accept being second class?