India split up among the colonial powers?

How can we get into a position where India (including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives) split up between colonial powers? For example Sri Lanka being Dutch, Bengal being British, some stuff being French, Portuguese and Spanish, now we're not talking just Europeans owing cheeky little trading posts we're talking India being divided like Africa, where (most of ) the land is owned by different European countries.
IS THIS POSSIBLE, AND HOW???????
 
I could imaginate that being possible but I am not sure how. Portugal had Goa since early 16th century so it could with right conditions expand more. Dutch perhaps can keep Sri Lanka without Revolutionary Wars of 1790's and early 19th century. Bigger French India is too possible.
 
I guess that somehow weaking the English/British presence on the subcontinent (you don't have to put them out of the game, just prevent them from basically encircling the whole of India and preventing other Europeans from entering "my turf") at the same time as maintaing the decline of the Indian regional powers, such as the Mughals.

While I doubt that India can be entirely split up like Africa was in the late 19th Century, I believe that with certain conditions, the European powers with greater naval projection (UK, the Netherlands, Spain [perhaps], Portugal, France, possibly Denmark) might establish military positions that gradually expand through the centuries. In this scenario, you get a more divided India, obviously, with a concentration of foreign enterprises in the coastal regions (likely the southern cone of the subcontinent for these nations that have connections to Southeast Asia, like the Dutch and the Spanish, and other parts for those who don't, like France), with a constellation of pseudo-princely states orbiting their zones of influence and less influenced Indian polities in the corelands of the subcontinent (though I imagine someone that gets Gujarat, Sindh or even Bengal will sooner or later try to establish a protectorate of sorts over the Mughals or whatever Indian power is ruling the Delhi region). As the decades pass, and the European technological development gets to the late 19th Century juggernaut levels, we might see another phase of internal expansionism, like it happened in Africa (if you compare the 16th Century with the 19th Century, that is).

This is a very interesting scenario that I've sometimes wanted to address, a "Scramble for India". In my opinion, the PoD must be before the 18th Century, when the British presence in mainland India became substantial, and they gradually prevented other European powers from "entering" their territory through the mastery of the seas. If you have an even stronger European presence by the late 16th Century, namely by Spain, Portugal, France and the Dutch, all of which had important naval capabilities, I think the right butterflies can lead us to a more "colonized India" scenario.
 
I could imaginate that being possible but I am not sure how. Portugal had Goa since early 16th century so it could with right conditions expand more. Dutch perhaps can keep Sri Lanka without Revolutionary Wars of 1790's and early 19th century. Bigger French India is too possible.

It's definitely possible. I mean, it's already OTL, albeit one severely skewed in Britain's favour down the road.
 
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