Indian WIs

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Deleted member 14881

With a POD of 1800 how can other European Powers have a Influence in India

How do you get the Sepoy mutiny 10-20 years earlier?
 
With a POD of 1800 how can other European Powers have a Influence in India

How do you get the Sepoy mutiny 10-20 years earlier?

By 1800 Britain was the only European power left in the region, aside from Portugal, and they only controlled Goa. Besides, at that point most of the European Powers were under French occupation or rule and their colonies had been sized by Britain. U would have to go mack earlier to multiple powers in India. Like the seven year's war or maybe even earlier. As for the Indian Rebellion, just have the East India Company mismanage their territories even worse then OTL.
 
By 1800 Britain was the only European power left in the region, aside from Portugal, and they only controlled Goa. Besides, at that point most of the European Powers were under French occupation or rule and their colonies had been sized by Britain. U would have to go mack earlier to multiple powers in India. Like the seven year's war or maybe even earlier. As for the Indian Rebellion, just have the East India Company mismanage their territories even worse then OTL.
Actually France had a bunch of trading posts, too. True, Britain had conquered them in 1800, but they were returned after the Napoleonic wars. But, as with Portugal, they were isolated cities.
 
With a POD of 1800 how can other European Powers have a Influence in India

Very difficult- by this point France no longer had the power projection capabilities to play politics in India. None of the other Euroepan powers did either. You need a POD in the Seven Years War, really.

How do you get the Sepoy mutiny 10-20 years earlier?

Again it's difficult- the Mutiny was caused by gross mismanagement of what we would call PR by the East India Company in the Gangetic plain. There were many factors involved- I suppose you could have greater and earlier British success in gaining dominance over the Gangetic plain and the same sort of mismanagement.
 
With a POD of 1800 how can other European Powers have a Influence in India

How do you get the Sepoy mutiny 10-20 years earlier?

By 1800, it is very very hard to break the domination of Britain, unless you somehow salvage Bonaparte rule, have fantastic France-Russia relations, and Russians decide to intervene in Punjab from the northwest. The other option is somehow Napoleon breaking the stranglehold of the British navy and invading Britain across the channel successfully. Unfortunately, both these possibilities are nearly impossible. And conditions in India are even less conducive to non-British Europeans influencing it.

As for the Sepoy mutiny, what you need to understand is that it was the last effort of the old Pre-British aristocrats to keep (some) power in India. What you can do is to have a Dalhousie-like Governor General who will run roughshod on the rights of the local rulers, and aristocrats about 10 years earlier. Further, if this happens during the Second Anglo-Sikh war (1849), you will have the entire north India out of British hands, and a real disaster in the making for the British. IOTL, Punjabi troops were the ones who did the most of the fighting in the British quelling of the mutiny. However, if Punjab also is at war with British, it is likely that south central India might revolt. That will leave a few strongholds for the British, and a few loyal native rulers in south India (like Hyderabad, Mysore, etc) and small Rajputana rulers (Jodhpur, Udaipur, etc) on whom the British can depend. Even so, it is very likely that the British can conquer their empire back - the rebels were disunited, and could be separated from each other by superior British diplomacy. However, it is going to be a far costlier enterprise (in both money and manpower) for the British. Whether the British will go that far is open to question, particularly if some of the northern rebels hold together. However, at this point, Indian nationalism was too nascent to support any rebels.
 

Deleted member 14881

So basically just let the Governor General be a complete asshole to everyone with power in India?
 
As for the Sepoy mutiny, what you need to understand is that it was the last effort of the old Pre-British aristocrats to keep (some) power in India.

That's a massive overgeneralisation- the aristos wouldn't have been able to move without pre-existing mismanagement by the EIC. Contrast the situation in South India where the Company had essentially been pretty hands off (or outright chummy) with the major royal houses notably the Nizam of Hyderabad, the House of Wodeyar in Mysore and the to Varma families who ruled Cochin and Travancore. In the North, however the Company tired to be more hands on and royally screwed it up.
 
That's a massive overgeneralisation- the aristos wouldn't have been able to move without pre-existing mismanagement by the EIC. Contrast the situation in South India where the Company had essentially been pretty hands off (or outright chummy) with the major royal houses notably the Nizam of Hyderabad, the House of Wodeyar in Mysore and the to Varma families who ruled Cochin and Travancore. In the North, however the Company tired to be more hands on and royally screwed it up.

Yes, and no. It is true that the north Indian aristocrats had their power stolen badly by the EIC . But quite a bit of it was more circumstances that aligned to make life more miserable for them than any dedicated effort by the British to outrage them. Things like the Doctrine of Lapse (adopted children had no rights and the entire estate of the parents reverted to the EIC) were really region-neutral. It was just sheer luck that north-central Indian states suffered more from these.

As for the large south Indian states, Mysore, at this time, was ruled directly through a Commissioner (Sir Mark Cubbon) and the ruler had been deposed some 20 years earlier (It was late in the 1870s when the British upheld the plea of Krishnaraja Wodeyar III and restored him to his throne).

But yes, it is true that the British screwed up more in north India, because they tried to rule directly, whereas in the south, mostly British rule was indirect (except in the erstwhile Madras Presidency). But it is also true, that where the British had already neutralised the existing local nobility (Bengal proper, for instance), there was little to no rebellion against the British.
 
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Yes, and no. It is true that the north Indian aristocrats had their power stolen badly by the EIC . But quite a bit of it was more circumstances that aligned to make life more miserable for them than any dedicated effort by the British to outrage them. Things like the Doctrine of Lapse (adopted children had no rights and the entire estate of the parents reverted to the EIC) were really region-neutral. It was just sheer luck that north-central Indian states suffered more from these.

As for the large south Indian states, Mysore, at this time, was ruled directly through a Commissioner (Sir Mark Cubbon) and the ruler had been deposed some 20 years earlier (It was late in the 1870s when the British upheld the plea of Krishnaraja Wodeyar III and restored him to his throne).

But yes, it is true that the British screwed up more in north India, because they tried to rule directly, whereas in the south, mostly British rule was indirect (except in the erstwhile Madras Presidency). But it is also true, that where the British had already neutralised the existing local nobility (Bengal proper, for instance), there was little to no rebellion against the British.

I get your point- yes, you're right with regard to the Wodeyars. I had forgotten that they only got restored much later.

I suppose the other major South Indian monarchs- Travancore, Cochin and Hyderabad were fortunate in that they pretty much aligned themselves with the Company pretty early on. Where the Madras Presidency territories were concerned of course, we should remember that the Company took over the the turmoil left by Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan's overturning of the previous balance of power. As with Bengal, the existing local nobility had been neutralised.
 
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