Madras a Dominion!? I think that would be beyond the pale for almost all the Imperials. Of course, these are desperate times. Besides that, how is Mysore faring at this point in the war?
Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
I don't see why it couldn't. It could absorb the Anglo-Indians fleeing from every other part of India, and would have the double-edged sword of having both a white political/administrative establishment and a home-grown Indian political scene that includes Congress-allied parties. They could certainly be in the position to have a mutually beneficial set of agreements with the Republic, like co-sovereignty over troublesome border regions, and a variety of trade agreements. Not to mention the fact that the Republic will tolerate the Dominion of Madras as long as its independence comes with the stipulation that the people always have the option to vote for joining India. Indeed, this portion of India might be a region of growth in South Asia given the relationships it'll soon develop with fellow dominions, like Australasia and the Cape Federation (whatever it's called...), and eventually Canada and whatever becomes of the Caribbean.
So what happens next? The war's effectively over, with just a few princely states in Rajputana and the Impie Army in the Central Provinces left. Hyderabad could conceivably maintain independence during this peace agreement, and no doubt that the Shah will grab a few of the Balochi princely states, but by and large the Republic holds the Indian subcontinent up to the Deccan Plateau, and has partial control over what's beyond that.
The question is what happens to places like Mysore and Bastar, that is, princely states that have so far avoided allying or being subsumed by the Republic, that are now on the side of the newly-proclaimed Dominion of Madras, at least out of necessity. Will they be loosely associated with the Dominion but otherwise independent? Or become post-Westphalian shared protectorates between the Republic and the Dominion? The fate of Bastar (and of the other Orissi Princely States) depends on what happens in the "Last Stand" in the Central Provinces that the Impie-leaning factions of the army create by obstructing Republic advances. Will the Dominion abandon everything outside of the Madras presidency?
Burma's fate is also complicated, as it'll become tangled up in the national ambitions of China, Siam, the Republic of India, home-bred nationalists, and nationalists for the various ethnic groups of the area. This may brew unrest across Southeast Asia, especially with those Indian regiments in Laos stirring up trouble.
I assume that by this time, the Republic has developing relationships with Tibet and China, given the importance of the Darjeeling Pass to the Republic's survival. It'll be interesting to see how those relationships play out post-independence.
Thanks to everyone for the comments - for those who may have missed it, the update is on the previous page at post 3959.
Anglo-Ottoman relations are somewhat strained during the Imperial period, especially with the Ottomans' under-the-table support of India, but the post-Great War default is good, and relations will probably revert to that after the Indian war ends. And yes, they've been a customer of the British shipyards.
The 1930s-level hardware might start to show up by the end of the war, but more of it will come through postwar development when design boards will have the chance to assess the experience of the war and incorporate its lessons.
Special forces: hmmm, there were storm troops/infiltrators during the Great War, and the idea might proceed from that, or from the "deep battle" doctrines used by both sides during the Indian war which required small-unit operations behind enemy lines.
Thanks! That means a lot coming from you. And it's great to see that your impressions of the story include some of the exact things I was trying to say about colonialism and the transition to modernity.
I hope to see many more comments from you - your thoughts are always welcome.
We'll see. Keep in mind that the monarchy doesn't necessarily mean this king.
Absolutely. Many of the Coaster merchants are smugglers on the side, and by now some of them have taken up the business full-time, and smuggling lends itself pretty well to organized crime. There's no national prohibition in the United States to give the mafia a boost, but there's plenty of room for traditional rackets and gunrunning - I'd expect, for instance, that many weapons were brought into the Caribbean during the Imperial period, and that West Africans were among the smugglers.
At this point, it's obvious that the Republic can conquer Madras if it wants, and also that nobody can stop Madras joining the Republic if it votes to do so. The deciding factor will be the extent to which the Dravidians are on board. If enough of them want to stay independent, and if it looks like they'll fight for Madras or cause problems for an Indian government there, then the Congress may decide that taking over is more trouble than it's worth, and might be willing to work out a deal where Madras becomes a special province or (in Badshah's words) a dominion of the Republic. They might also decide that a semi-independent Madras could help handle trade and cultural relations with Britain without as much bad blood.
If the Dravidians don't get on board, of course, then it's "so long Saunders, nice try" - most likely, the elected legislature would vote to join India, and there's no one really capable of stopping it.
You'll notice that the governor of Madras isn't too enamored of the Imperials - he's an old India hand, and a couple of the wartime updates mentioned him resisting Imperial excesses. He's been planning to bail out since the siege started. And as he says, he doesn't expect this government in London to recognize what he did, but he hopes that the next one might.
On paper, it's doing fairly well - its forces are intact, and it occupies parts of the Madras Presidency that it took from the Congress or local rebels during 1918-19. However, it realizes that the Republic juggernaut is about to come down on it. By this time the maharajah is looking for an opportune moment to switch sides and work out a deal - preferably one that lets him keep the territories he took, but he realizes that might not be possible.
Sure. Maybe I'll do an update with a couple of "reactions abroad" scenes before the one with the endgame.
The Republic's priorities for 1920-21 will be Rajputana, the Central Provinces and Orissa. The Balochis are a secondary concern, and the Congress might be willing to let some of them go their own way as long as they're friendly, but the Rajput and Central Indian princely states have to be brought under control for the state to be secure. I expect that a combination of sticks and carrots will be used to bring the princely states into line - one of the sticks being military force - and that the bulk of the army will be sent to overwhelm the remaining British and (small-I) imperial troops in the Central Provinces.
The southern princely states are, as mentioned, looking to make a deal with someone - the Republic, Madras or preferably both - in order to maintain their independence. And Burma will certainly be a potential mess - ethnic Burmese are actually a minority in most of the areas that the Republic is taking, but there will still be local nationalisms to contend with, and the Siamese will have their hands full.
One of these days, when I have some time - it is one of the things on my long-term to-do list.
At any rate, as you've probably guessed, the next substantive update will wrap up both the Indian War of Independence and the Imperial Party, and not by coincidence, will begin the 1920s.
Anglo-Ottoman relations are somewhat strained during the Imperial period, especially with the Ottomans' under-the-table support of India, but the post-Great War default is good, and relations will probably revert to that after the Indian war ends. And yes, they've been a customer of the British shipyards.
The 1930s-level hardware might start to show up by the end of the war, but more of it will come through postwar development when design boards will have the chance to assess the experience of the war and incorporate its lessons.
Special forces: hmmm, there were storm troops/infiltrators during the Great War, and the idea might proceed from that, or from the "deep battle" doctrines used by both sides during the Indian war which required small-unit operations behind enemy lines.
Thanks! That means a lot coming from you. And it's great to see that your impressions of the story include some of the exact things I was trying to say about colonialism and the transition to modernity.
I hope to see many more comments from you - your thoughts are always welcome.
We'll see. Keep in mind that the monarchy doesn't necessarily mean this king.
Absolutely. Many of the Coaster merchants are smugglers on the side, and by now some of them have taken up the business full-time, and smuggling lends itself pretty well to organized crime. There's no national prohibition in the United States to give the mafia a boost, but there's plenty of room for traditional rackets and gunrunning - I'd expect, for instance, that many weapons were brought into the Caribbean during the Imperial period, and that West Africans were among the smugglers.
At this point, it's obvious that the Republic can conquer Madras if it wants, and also that nobody can stop Madras joining the Republic if it votes to do so. The deciding factor will be the extent to which the Dravidians are on board. If enough of them want to stay independent, and if it looks like they'll fight for Madras or cause problems for an Indian government there, then the Congress may decide that taking over is more trouble than it's worth, and might be willing to work out a deal where Madras becomes a special province or (in Badshah's words) a dominion of the Republic. They might also decide that a semi-independent Madras could help handle trade and cultural relations with Britain without as much bad blood.
If the Dravidians don't get on board, of course, then it's "so long Saunders, nice try" - most likely, the elected legislature would vote to join India, and there's no one really capable of stopping it.
You'll notice that the governor of Madras isn't too enamored of the Imperials - he's an old India hand, and a couple of the wartime updates mentioned him resisting Imperial excesses. He's been planning to bail out since the siege started. And as he says, he doesn't expect this government in London to recognize what he did, but he hopes that the next one might.
On paper, it's doing fairly well - its forces are intact, and it occupies parts of the Madras Presidency that it took from the Congress or local rebels during 1918-19. However, it realizes that the Republic juggernaut is about to come down on it. By this time the maharajah is looking for an opportune moment to switch sides and work out a deal - preferably one that lets him keep the territories he took, but he realizes that might not be possible.
Sure. Maybe I'll do an update with a couple of "reactions abroad" scenes before the one with the endgame.
The Republic's priorities for 1920-21 will be Rajputana, the Central Provinces and Orissa. The Balochis are a secondary concern, and the Congress might be willing to let some of them go their own way as long as they're friendly, but the Rajput and Central Indian princely states have to be brought under control for the state to be secure. I expect that a combination of sticks and carrots will be used to bring the princely states into line - one of the sticks being military force - and that the bulk of the army will be sent to overwhelm the remaining British and (small-I) imperial troops in the Central Provinces.
The southern princely states are, as mentioned, looking to make a deal with someone - the Republic, Madras or preferably both - in order to maintain their independence. And Burma will certainly be a potential mess - ethnic Burmese are actually a minority in most of the areas that the Republic is taking, but there will still be local nationalisms to contend with, and the Siamese will have their hands full.
One of these days, when I have some time - it is one of the things on my long-term to-do list.
At any rate, as you've probably guessed, the next substantive update will wrap up both the Indian War of Independence and the Imperial Party, and not by coincidence, will begin the 1920s.
Oh crap, I forgot about that, didn't I? So many threads to the story...
Fortunately, nothing in the last substantive update precludes the roles I had planned for them, so I can fit them in easily. Maybe that narrative update I mentioned in my response to Sulemain, which will include the American reaction, will also involve them. And the Burmese. Yes, I think that's what I'll do.
Kaiphranos
Donor
He was born in 1856, enough time for plenty of butterflies to affect him. In OTL, he lived in South Carolina for part of his childhood--if his family still ends up there in TTL, that could have some interesting effects on his views...
Let's see. His father John Ruggles Wilson grew up in Steubenville, Ohio, and went to college right across the state line in Pennsylvania. His mother was born in England, but was already in Ohio before the POD and knew the Wilson family through the church. It's entirely possible, and even probable, that they would marry around the same time as OTL (1849) and that their first son would have the name Woodrow (which was the mother's maiden name).
From there... well, in OTL, his father had "Southern" racial views and moved the family to the South in the 1850s - Virginia at first, Augusta, GA during the war and Columbia, SC in 1870. If that also happens in TTL - and I don't see why it wouldn't, given that the elder Wilson's racial opinions seem to have been baked in before the POD, and that he was interested in founding a southern Presbyterian church - then young Woodrow would spend his early childhood right across the river from SC, no doubt hearing all the atrocity stories about the slave uprising. Or maybe, in TTL, his family might move to Columbia or Charleston before the war, putting them right in the middle of the trouble. Either way, he'd probably be in Georgia after the war, because his father would never stay in postwar SC, and he'd be exposed to the same white-supremacist strain of progressivism that he encountered in OTL.
I could see him having a notable academic career in TTL, possibly becoming a university president as in OTL, and being a prominent public intellectual. He might not have a political career, given that by the twentieth century the Democrats were in decline everywhere but the South, or else he might end up at a Southern university and enter politics from there. Maybe he'd be governor of Georgia, or a senator.
Of course, the other possibility is that he'd be influenced by the South Carolina uprising and become a racial liberal or even a radical. I don't rate that likely, though - he was home-schooled, and his father's views appear to have been a profound influence on him. I doubt his father would let him get close to the kind of people and ideas he'd need to encounter for his opinions to evolve that way. Maybe if his father were killed in the war and his mother got remarried to someone more progressive, but even then, he'd probably revere his father and be influenced by his mother. I don't see an Abacarist TWW in the cards, more's the pity.
Even if it survives, the effects are going to big and don't rule out abolition at some later date. IOTL, the only British king in modern times to abdicate was forced out because he wanted to marry the wrong women, for domestic moral reasons in short. In contrast, King Albert could well be forced to depart because he was too heavily involved in the Imperial regime. The pressure to force the monarchy completely out of political life would be intense after this. [On the other hand, the Imperials have not really done anything too horrific in Britain so unless that changes the monarchy be able to escape relatively undamaged...]
teg
You really conveyed well the fact that war is an horror, whatever the motives are. The dominion status for Madras could be a fluke forgotten by the general public or it could have consequences down the line : if India was to force the issue, it could backfire at them later.
What consequences will the South east Asian regiment have when the war ends : will some settle down or will the be the seeds of future revolutions in their home countries? And what did happen in Mauritius, its French and Indian population, coupled with its strategic position could lead to general unpleasantness down the line.
I'm watching True Detective, the new HBO show that is in Louisiana made me think about the status of minority languages in the USA : was there any anti French movement during the War?
What consequences will the South east Asian regiment have when the war ends : will some settle down or will the be the seeds of future revolutions in their home countries? And what did happen in Mauritius, its French and Indian population, coupled with its strategic position could lead to general unpleasantness down the line.
I'm watching True Detective, the new HBO show that is in Louisiana made me think about the status of minority languages in the USA : was there any anti French movement during the War?
I ask myself how this whole India fiasco is going to reverberate in Great Britain after uncesored information reaches it. The public would probably be very shocked for such an un-British behavior. Those who served in the War and refused to follow arbitrarial orders will come home very disgustful with the Imperial Party. Maybe we can see something like a Carnation Revolution in London.
Also, I saw that you put Hemendranat Tagore as Prime Minister and this made me ask myself about the status of the religious personalities in India. This was a time of spiritual revival and I fear this whole War must be very painful to them. I ask you mainly of one person, Paramahansa Yogananda, that in OTL was being educated by his guru to serve as a kind of an ambassador to the West, linking the spiritual traditions of the two worlds. How is he and others yogis going to deal with the following tensions between Britishmen and Indians?
Also, sorry for another question
, but are we going to see an alternate Eric Blair/George Orwell? He served as a Policeman in Burma in 1922, but with the Empire at its lowest point he would probably have to find a new occupation.
Thank you for your work!
Also, I saw that you put Hemendranat Tagore as Prime Minister and this made me ask myself about the status of the religious personalities in India. This was a time of spiritual revival and I fear this whole War must be very painful to them. I ask you mainly of one person, Paramahansa Yogananda, that in OTL was being educated by his guru to serve as a kind of an ambassador to the West, linking the spiritual traditions of the two worlds. How is he and others yogis going to deal with the following tensions between Britishmen and Indians?
Also, sorry for another question
, but are we going to see an alternate Eric Blair/George Orwell? He served as a Policeman in Burma in 1922, but with the Empire at its lowest point he would probably have to find a new occupation.Thank you for your work!
I'm still reeling from the blatant anti-feminism, though Jonathan hasn't spelled out how that works in practice--maybe not so different from realities on the ground for the various classes before--that is, lower class womens' lack of privilege is not that drastically worse than what the men suffer; upper class women get the benefit of loopholes as before--the backlash would be targeted on the middle-class women, and concentrated on those with unconventional ideas. Or women like the social worker who denied Jack disability benefits--but even she's possibly secure--it might all concentrate on a minority of suffragettes and other feminists.
Or it might be getting much worse, taking on Handmaid's Tale type overtones--reversals of women's property rights, outrageous instances of "man in the house" leading to lurid disasters for wives and children...one might assume not but that's where the rhetoric tends to lead, doesn't it? If the Imperialists were delivering the economic promises they'd made, the pie getting bigger, jobs getting more secure and returning to customary levels of pay, such extremism would be unlikely--but the opposite is happening, and before the Imperiaiists pack it in and admit they've got nothing, I'm sure some of them are going to double down on the womenfolk as a tactic of distracting demagoguery. The question is, how much of a following will they get?
Then, to turn to some stuff Jonathan has reported, first of all there's the situation in Ireland, with the UK seizing Ulster and ethically cleansing the Catholics who lived there. OK, it is really the Orange Ulsterites doing that, and seceding themselves from the Kingdom of Ireland and rejoining the UK on their own initiative--but the Imperialist Party is complicit and so is "respectable" Britain as a whole by default. If the majority of the Irish have it so violently cast in their faces how little the status of their own "kingdom" means, they are going to be that much less reconciled to any compromise with Great Britain and in turn that will give the Imperialist-minded Britons something quite real to worry about. Something that might in their view justify really drastic measures--in Ireland and in Britain.
Finally there is the ominous report that the Socialist Labour party has been outlawed. Granted, what their leadership called for was clearly treason--just as anyone sane who spoke against Hitler was clearly committing treason against the Third Reich. With Labour outlawed the political safety valve is at least half welded shut. There are still the respectable moderate parties--the Tories, the Liberals. And people like Jack might not think banning the Socialists is any great loss-remember his impression of their contemptible inability to fight for themselves in the street riots. Lot of noise and highfalutin' talk, no muscle or common sense, must be the word on the street.
But the longer they languish in outlawry, the more the most radical and violent among them will gain credibility. Meanwhile all their dire predictions are coming true, and perhaps a man like Jack will remember that. But the Imperialist leadership will wonder just how assertive a possible Labour comeback will be. Will it lead to hangings or firing squads? Or just a humiliating loss of power and prestige? The propertied classes must wonder too. The whole Belle Epoque process of moderating the socialists by engaging them in mainstream electoral politics is out the window and it isn't clear whether trying to let them back in would merely be trigger of an explosion anyway.
So actually, the Imperials have done some horrific stuff in Britain already, and perhaps to cover one set of misdeeds they will double down with others before they fold. If they could ban Labour, can they ban Liberals? If Ireland is liable to go up in flames, and so are the working class districts of Britain, is a police state in order? Can a sufficiently firm hand of the "men in the house" curb seditious talk, such as the bleeding-heart "cant" coming out of India?
It's the Malê Rising Timeline--one has to hope something unexpectedly nice might happen. I credit the British working class with the ability to do that!
But nice is a lot better than those rat bastard Impies deserve.
If they get off lightly, it's for the sake of other people, not them, I hope to see it.
Dragos Cel Mare
Banned
Sadly, that's probably the case - the Imperials will get off lightly for their butchery. Hopefully, though, they would at least see the decline of their power and Britain becoming a country that's the opposite of their dreams.
Okay, hideously racist Alt-Wilson it is! Get cracking JE!
He should make his cameo within a couple of days - in a public debate with TR.
There will certainly be a movement to push the monarchy out of political life - it was on its way out of there anyway, and Albert's part in the Imperial disaster will convince people that it ought to stay out. Also, if the monarchy is to survive as a symbol of national unity - which the public will be looking for after the Imperials fall - then it will have to be above party politics. I'm still not sure how it will play out, but the monarchy might lose even the residual political role it has in OTL, and assume a status more like that of the Japanese Emperor.
The Southeast Asian veterans will certainly be a political force when they return home - this is their Great War, and is having similar social effects. It will play out different ways in different countries, depending on how strong the traditional authority structures are and how much the kings get ahead of the curve by modernizing.
We'll see what happened in Mauritius in a short time - it will play some role in the Imperial endgame.
Given that the United States stayed neutral in the Great War, there was no anti-French backlash (and certainly no anti-German one), so minority languages remain somewhat more visible than in OTL. French has co-official status in Louisiana.
There's already been support for soldiers who refused unlawful orders, and that's something the Imperials have had to take into account in fighting the war: for instance, they formed special volunteer units to attack the Indian food supply rather than just court-martialing anyone who refused. The British press practices a good deal of self-censorship at this point, but returning soldiers are letting people know what's really happening, and the parliamentary opposition is starting to question the war, so a political storm is coming.
Hmmm. In OTL, yoga was introduced to the West about a quarter-century earlier than this, by Vivekananda. Something similar would probably happen in TTL, with Indian intellectuals becoming more engaged with the West and with yoga fitting in so well with the interest in theosophy and meditation that prevailed at the time. I'd guess that there would have been yogis in the West for a generation by the time the Indian revolution broke out, as well as an interest in yoga among some of the British community in India.
I could imagine them reacting to the war in several ways: some might do their best to ignore it and focus on individual enlightenment, while others might try to act as a spiritual bridge between the two sides or condemn all fighting as evil. Maybe in one of the postwar updates in the 1930s or so, I'll touch on how the war affected them.
Also, sorry for another question
Probably not, with him being born in 1903, but there may be one or more people who are like him in various ways.
The important thing to understand about the Imperials is that while they're economically populist in some ways, they want to set the clock back to an idealized mid-nineteenth century. Their raison d'etre is resentment of the social changes of modernity, particularly those that took place after the Great War but also the late Victorian reforms. Feminism and rising status of women are part of those changes - the Imperials' position on social issues is roughly equivalent (making allowances for place and time) to that of right-wing American fundamentalism today, shorn of the religious trappings.
Imperial Britain isn't the Handmaid's Tale by a longshot, but it's a bit more than the usual anti-feminist backlash, and upper-class women are exempted from some but not all of the regressive legislation. And while abuse of women is not encouraged and in fact condemned - Imperial doctrine is that husbands and fathers should be responsible heads of families - the new order has also taken away many of the rights that help women in abusive situations defend themselves or leave.
British feminists are, shall we say, not supporters of the Imperial Party, and with the war and the economy both going south in a hurry, many Liberal and Tory politicians are starting to listen to their wives.
Which is the key, really. What you say about the mess in Ireland and the socialists being driven underground is largely true, but the major political event of 1919-20 is that both elite and working-class opposition are starting to come out of the shadows, and there are the first stirrings of a united front. And who better to knit it together than the people who've been on the front lines the whole time?
We'll get there fairly soon. Whether the Imperials' denouement will be "unexpectedly nice" is in the eye of the beholder, but I can guarantee many and loud complications.
Yes, that can be the coldest revenge, and it may well happen.
I'd be obliged for one more comment between now and the next update, which should be within a couple of days. BTW, those wondering what role the Mughals will play could do worse than remember where much of the family is still living at this point.