Well I agree with your first point, They would atleast need to eatablish supremacy in Deccan to be considered powerful
Pan Indian alliance would not be directed towards Europe, but towards curbing wars and conflicts between Indian states and the create a stable system of order in subcontinent without which it would be a matter of time before subcontinent implodes into war
That's not my point at all, they need to avoid expansion into the deccan like the plague, focusing entirely on their eastern border.
What you're looking for is not an alliance then, it's a Treaty of Westphalia/Congress of Vienna. This is so much much more achievable than unification and a lot less destructive.
Establishing supremacy over Deccan and outright annexing Deccan are two different things all together
Congress of Kolkata perhaps ?, but it needs to be much stronger and more enforceable than Congress of Vienna as Congress of Vienna did fail, and did not really protect Europeans from warfare, especially after Prussia's rise,
Fine, establishing supremacy over the Deccan is what tore Vijayanagara apart. They presumed they could dictate a peace between the Sultanates and inspired resentment that lead to everyone ganging up on them.
My point is that if Europe can do it, there's nothing stopping India from creating a balance of power regulated by congresses and international treaties. Perhaps Delhi would even be a good place for this as neutral ground, as long as the Emperor remains militarily weak and unable to control the proceedings. It's centrally placed, treaties negotiated in the centre of the old empire and endorsed by the moral weight of the Mughal emperor will be more lasting. After all, if there was anything approximating an international states system in 18th century India it was the way states related to the framework of the Mughal Empire.
Well that is a bit true, however, it is in Mysore geopolitical interest to do so to avoid being cornered geographically
Well I agree to it, A balance of power and trade agreements between the powers of subcontinent, if this happens, again, hard but not impossible to achieve, you will have various Indian states pulling a meiji
I repeat my question to @Madhav Deval, but now with an addition: Assuming Hyder Ali/Tipu Sultan don't take Madras right after Pollilur, could they have defeated Eyre Coote (who defeated Mysore in three consecutive battles, the first of them despite being outnumbered five to one)? If that's not possible, could he suffer the stroke that killed him three or four years earlier?
This is alternate history- when it comes to illnesses and accidental death, there's a world of freedom. It would however be most beneficial for them to simply take Madras right after Polliur and press their advantage.
The fact that Indian kingdoms enthusiastically adopted European technology where it was useful and threw themselves into modernisation of fiscal and administrative structures in the competitive atmosphere of the 18th century gives the lie to this, for the 18th century the British were at most one of many competing and essentially evenly matched players of whom anyone could have made it.
In short yes. Wages for labour in South India were often as high as core regions of Europe and it had a massive service industry, surpassing many places in Europe, one of the people who has done the most work showing this is David Washbrook. Japanese society was also incredibly divided on class basis and so was European really. The 19th century saw the creation of much more solid hierarchies as population increase and forced peasantisation increase competition for land and resources. In short the divided nature of Indian society has been projected backwards onto early modern India when in truth it is in many ways a colonial creation.
Japan and Europe were highly unequal but lacked caste-related barrieirs against real change. I wasn't thinking overly powerful elites but say various castes using their traditional roles to block social/economic changes that might say drop their wages. Basically the kind of strangling net of endless minor petty traditional rules blocking change like what Mancur Olson's noticed in his work. We've seen setbacks of industrialization in societies that only had strong landlords and not a 3000+ year old caste system, Your "Wages for labour in South India were often as high as core regions of Europe and it had a massive service industry" indicates two things 1) Ability of castes to prevent competition that'd force efficiency and/or lower wages 2) India's social model not being a barrier to making it up to the advanced preindustrial level on it's own.
Although Japan was isolated for 214 years they did have friendly trade relations with the Dutch through the trading post of Dejima and thus allowed Western technology to spread a bit through the country. Compared to those nations, Japan was the furthest away from any nearby country and it already had fended off an invasion by the Mongols.
Yeah, if I remember correctly the only reason the Sikh were defeated by the British was because the generals who led them actually wanted to lose. Could Nau Nihal Singh conquer Sindh if he wanted to? Having a seaport is critical to ensuring foreign aid and investments get to your territory.
