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A union known as Confederate States of India(CSI) takes over and the
following happens,

. An army staffed and run
by Indians organized along Prussian-lines, funded by a British-style
national bank, with Swiss-quality arms, steamrollers the rest of South
Asia, stretching to the borders of OTL Persia, Tibet, and Thailand, by
1914. Industrialization, led by capitalists from Bengal and Madras,
proceeds rapidly. The first trans-CSI railroad opens in 1870. By
1914,
on the eve of the Great European War, India's per capita wealth
(including newly incorporated regions) is only 25% that of Germany but
catching up fast.
Exultant with their heady success after the destruction of the Moghuls
in the 1850s, the CSI undertakes an ambitious national project, partly
inspired by the Japanese example - they will form a much closer
union,
adopt a national religion and have a single language. With the
currency
union having led the way in economic integration, a common army, and
the
link language of "Modern Sanskrit" as a precedent, the CSI
government
adopts a militant, monotheistic Kshatriya-ized Hinduism, with elements
taken from Sufi Islam (think reformist Sikhs on steroids worshipping
the
one true God, chanting His Sacred name 'Om').
The institution of state-run schools speeds this process so that by
1939, other languages and religions are fading fast. State-run
persecution speeds this process. Refugee orthodox Hindus who cannot
stomach the incredibly rapid de facto abolition of the caste system in
a
rapidly urbanizing country, and fundamentalist Muslims who cry heresy
at
the changing pattern of social interaction and the slow erosion of
institutions such as purdah, flee to other parts of the world, forming
an extensive diaspora. Muslims choose Ottoman and British SW Asia,
where they distinguish themselves overseeing construction of the
Qattara
Depression Scheme in 1910. Hindus prefer East and South Africa, where
they grow to surpass whites in population and eventually dominate the
cut diamond trade and the commercial sector; Ceylon is popular with
both groups. During the abortive Boer rebellion, the heavily
outnumbered Afrikaners curse the 'curry-eating' ortho-Hindu British


troops.
In 1938, Hitler's invasion of Poland sparks the Eurasian War. With
the
running sore of Ceylon, swayed by Hilterian arguments about 'Aryan
brotherhood', and admiring the example of Japan (who have governed
the
Philippines since the late 1890s), India joins the Axis, hoping for
quick territorial gains against Ceylon and the mountainous country of
Afghanistan and Tibet. Though Ceylon is easily taken (thanks to the
spectacular work of the engineer-jawans who construct the Palk bridge
in
record time using pre-fab construction techniques), Tibet and
Afghanistan prove much harder, especially with lots of American
lend-lease aid flowing through Soviet Manchuria on its way to Afghani
nationalists and Tibetan fighters.
India remains stuck in this position as first Germany falls in 1946 and


Japan in 1947. However, India has been bled - and caught off guard
in
what for India has been primarily an anti-guerilla war. The
destruction
of Osaka and Yokohama by nuclear fire strikes terror into the CSI
governmentand brings it to negotiating table.
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