Introduction
The main pod of this time line are as follows
1 . Indus valley civilization survived and is conquered by vedic Aryan tribes . The vedic Aryan adopt much of the political system and technological advances of the indus valley civilization and by 900 BC form a centralised Empire though out north India and parts of deccan and central Asia and large parts of Iran with a high level of urbanization in the Indus river valley and also in the helmand river valley
2 . A plague ( which was the tuberculosis , leprosy and other combination of diseases) does not hit the Indus valley civilization which was the case in our timeline for reasons I'll elaborate more on as the circumstances arise.
3. The weakening of the south Asian monsoon is as drastic as in our time line, the Indus valley civilization collapsed primarily to climate change, which many hypothesis to be associated with the bond event as in and around the same time there was the collapse of other bronze age civilization in Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt and other areas. For example Dast E lur and Dast e kavir in Iran which are now basically salt deserts were location to numerous rain fed lakes as late as 4000 years ago as the south Asian monsoon was powerful enough to reach Shiraz, Isfahan, Tehran and other cities located in the north and central Iran while the intensity of these rains in this region cannot be compared to the monssonal rains that the subcontinent recieves today none the less the vast Iranian plateau must have been much cooler and much more habitable in the past , while now it's mostly a semi desert doted by mountains
The mountains retained much of the rain in the form of snow and during the hot summer months use to feed the many small river system and lakes of ancient Iran .
In this time line the effect of the bond event is drastic on the monsoon system of south Asia
The monsoon did weaken but the people adjusted to the changes much like our timeline but with more success for example In this time line one of the major adjustment made by the people of the hapta Hindu or Indus valley was the abandoning of the production of rice and other water intensive crops in favour of millets such as finger , foxtail, pearl and sorghum. These crops can be produced even in the most dry region with little water and even if the nutrients in the soil has been exhausted and is also a good source of fodder and feed grains to livestock. The major food crops in the late Harappan culture of this time line is millet , wheat , barley and legumes . Other changes , innovation will be the introduction to the qanant system in the Indus valley but with certain innovation due to the flat lands of the Indus valley, the innovation made here may result in the hydraulic system not resembling a qanat but for a lack of a better term I'll use the said word ,qanats. Now for those of you who who are not familiar with what a qanat is , it's just a underground aquaducts which is designed to carry water from a aquafier to the fertile fields or a city . A fertile mountain valley may be supplied water from as many as a 100 qanats or say a city may be supplied water with slightly lesser number of them but they have underground reservoir to store water . Now the earliest qanat was said to have built around 1200 bc but new evidence suggest that qanats atlest primitive ones were working around as early as 2000 bc or some say as early as 2700 bc and was used by Elamites , so in this time line the inhabitants of Indus valley civilization learn the details of underground aquafier from the inhabitants of the iranian plateau and make use of it for building qanats . Now for a qanat you need a mountain or a hill with a alluvial fan and a underground aquafier from which to tap into and from there a underground sloping channel is constructed to the fields , but in the Indus valley there is no hills and obviously there are no mountains so in this situation where they find an aquafier they dug an sloping underground channel which ended with a artificial well or a underground reservoir from which water would be lifted by the use of shadoof or a sakia , technologies which the inhabitants were quite familiar with. There are other innovations but this modified form of qanats is the most important considering the sheer number and size of aquafier in the Indus valley this innovation will ensure that a lot of lands are cultivated irrespective of the distance from rivers and another benift is that the crops are not at the mercy of the Indus floods which adds to the stablity. More on the innovation in irrigation system later.
The collapse of the indus valley civilization had a catastrophic results for the future of the Indian subcontinent. With its collapse nearly 2000 years of knowledge and experience disappeared with it . The subcontinent which boasted running water, sewage system, planned township,expertise in metallurgy, engineering and in other areas were lost. If the civilization survived and latter conquered by the vedic Aryans will lead to the absorption of these knowledge and expertise by the Aryans who will also contribute to the Indus valley civilization ,technology in which they had expertise resulting in a hybrid culture. The knowledge and experience of science and agriculture of the indus valley civilization and the warrior culture of the early vedic Aryans will lead to the rapid expansion and urbanization of the entire subcontinent
This section gives a general overview and idea of an alternate history of the Indian subcontinent . In depth discussion of the alternate history will be done in subsequent posts ,era wise
The subcontinent of India in our timeline is known for its diversity in terms of languages, ethnicity,religion and in other areas. This subcontinent for the most part of the 2nd millenium AD was under foreign rule and was able to rid itself of foreign rule only recently speaking in the context of the indian historical time line. This alternate history exercise aims to create a history in which Indian subcontinent for the most part both in terms of political power and religion remains united and uniform . The result of this unity and uniformity is not a mono culture or mono ethnic society as Japan as the indian subcontinent is too large to establish a mono culture or mono ethnic society. In This alternate time line historical process will result in an united Indian subcontinent with a level of diversity similar to that of their ethnic cousins in Iran . Iran has in terms of faith achieved total uniformity with 90 percent of the people following ithna ashariyyah school of Shia Islam and the dominant culture being the Persian culture in terms of language,ethics,history and in other relevant areas. Iran as a country is diverse in terms of languages, ethnicity and culture but still the Persian people dominate Iran. In this time line the vedic Aryans will be the dominant ethno linguistic group of India playing a role that is similar to what Persians play in Iran . Though vedic Indo Aryan culture dominate Indian subcontinent in our time line but the people identify with their regional , caste and religious affiliation rather than ethnic affiliation. In this alternate time the vedic Aryans identify with their ethnicity to a much greater extent than in our time line and will pursue a policy of aryanization of other ethnic groups in terms of religion and culture much through out this alternate history eventually creating an vedic Aryan majority which will help them to secure political power in the subcontinent. While this may be interpreted as vedic aryans pursuing a policy of racial purity but in reality it is a policy of cultural assimilation by way of aryanization of other ethnic groups where by other ethnicities leave their former language and culture in favour of the vedic Aryan one rather than creating a fusion of vedic Aryan and non Vedic Aryan culture although some level of fusion may take place but on the whole the cultural aspects remain more or less same . While a total cultural assimilation of all ethnic groups of the subcontinent is not possible but a cultural assimilation of 50 to 60 percent of the population is possible. This means 50-60 percent of the population speaking the same language having the same customs and beliefs and culture.
Hinduism in this time line is more uniform than hinduism in our time line with the major difference being Monotheistic ideas . The Hindus in this time line adopt Brahma as the sole God and develop religious beliefs and customs and practices around the belief
In terms of language sanskrit will play the role Persian plays in Iran or what Hindi plays in India while I have not decided upon which foreign language should India adopt or should India do away with all foreign influence
With a common religion and a lingua Franca to unify the diffrent people of the subcontinent combined with the cultural domination of the vedic Aryans it is not an impossibility but rather a logical outcome that the entire subcontinent remains for the most of its alternate history united
So having discussed the requisites of a political unity next I'll briefly touch upon the biggest problem facing the Indians in our time line as well as the Indians in this alternate time line
The problem of horses . It may sound like a trivial issue but indian kings faced shortage of horses and always had to import them from central Asia. Considering the fact that most of India's foreign rulers were proficient in using horse. The vedic aryans themselves were proficient in using horses in battle. The cavalry did not become totally redundant until the wide spread use of tanks but the threats posed by a cavalry forces could be mitigated by use of artillery and this development took place in the mid 19 century as army generals found out that cavalry was not as effective as before
The Iranian empires solved the problem by recruitment of nomads of central Asia or by recruiting Kurds who resided within Eranshahr and also by importing horses. The Mughals of India also solved the problem by recruitment of nomads from central Asia and it is not co incidental that Mughal Empire collapsed when the empire lost Afghanistan to the Persians and Uzbeks
For India of this time to maintain its unity and to avoid being subject to foreign rule it has to maintain links with central Asia so that country can import horses and more importantly to recruit the horsemen of central Asia into the army . This would cause huge amount of changes because India in our time line was not actively engaged in the affairs of central Asia after 500 BC when the Achaemenid Empire conquered the Hindu Kush mountains cutting off India from central Asia. Indian empires in this time line would be active participant in the politics of central Asia competing with the various Iranian Empire for influence amongst the various central Asian tribes . Indians may also set up buffer states aswell as client states in central Asia . While in our time line we do find Indianized kingdom in central Asia but by no means were they client states or buffer states of kings in India
While having touched upon major ideas and issues next posts will deal with alternate historical development