No Nadhir shah

no nadhir shah

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1.its a well known fact that nadhir shah actually did persia a host of good by making it a strong power in southwest and central asia
although ,his realm ceased to exist by 1747 after his assassination.he also clearly checked out the growth of ottomon and moghul empires, actually his invasion of india
ended moghul domination and gave rise to marathas who occupied ahuge chunk of falling mughal empire.

2.so with a POD as nadhir shah not vcoming into power in persia, by any means has many knock on efeects on the history of asia for the next two centuries.

3.first with no nadhir shah,there is no ahmed shah abdali and no idea of a nation of afghanistan, with no ahmed shah abdali, no help is given in the form of his routine indian invasions, so marathas
route mughals early and easily take over all of north India(ruled by mughals ) by 1750.

4.so when british setting their foot frirmly in bengal in 1757 in OTL never happens, since they have confederacy of rajas that rule all of northern india and spreading into peninsular ones(the marthas themselves a peninsular force).
also since marathas have a strong coastal navy, european interests may suffer so there is a possibility of some wars leading to some kind of arrangement or even some european powers becoming an ally of marathas.

5.marathas spend the next 50 years unifying India and this may be possible only in 1790s or in 1800s.

6.the british finding their hopes not workinhg in india may concentrate elsewhere taking over east indies from dutch and philipines from spanish and madagaskar and east african possessions from portugese.
also some of the best soldiers of EIC may be sent to USA as there is no need for them in india, so the american revolution is crushed or not happens at all.

7.coming back to persia,its still messy with ottomons grabing the western parts and russians stealing from north and a central asian power gobbling up afghanistan and caspian regions.
also we may see british gaining foothold in south arabia early and may check russian and ottomon influence, a war of succession in persia by many groups, with each group supported by british russians and ottomons.
the success of british led group in persia may result in beginning of british hegonomy in west asia. with brits take over all of red sea and may even control many areas in north africa.

8.now as another effect , we may assume the american revolution happens with british concentration is elsewwhere, the british may try to occupy many areas in south america,
may be a war with portugese in 1750s may result in brits getting zanzibar,madagaskar,mozambique and even coastal areas in brazil.

9.so in the aftermath of industrial revolution . by 1800 we have a british empire that includes OTL canadian states(or all of british north america), coastal brazil(which may be a plantation colony),west indies,south africa, coastal east africa,
madagaskar,south arabia,malaya and indonesia and australia being a penal colony as in OTL.

10.if american revolution never happens the british may devote their whole attention in americas and may take over some lucrative central american territory or south american ones.

what will happen in the 19th century in such a scenario and
what will happen in the rest of our modern history?
any ideas or thoughts in this respect?
 
This is an interesting one! And given Nadir Shah's pivotal role one that would have a big effect, as you say.

I think Europeans and so would still trade into India, even if they didn't take it over as a colony. And I can see that India might suffer the same sort of problems as China with something analagous to the Opium Wars occuring there as Europe attempts to get money out of India (as, like China in the early 19th century, India in the early 18th was happy to sell to Europe, but had little interest in buying from it). How well this would go against a strong and unified India is another thing, however. I guess it would depend on Indian industrialisation, which I would imagine might be more likely to happen than in China...

Given how much this change would affect India and the Middle East, I think by the time you get to the 19th and 20th centuries things could go in almost any direction you like, so it's hard to say beyond that it won't bear any particular resemblance to OTL.

I'd certainly be interested in seeing this written up into a more detailed timeline!
 
I like this idea Sharma. The only problem I might find with the what you describe the british doing. I don't think they would expand against the european powers like Spain, Portugal or the Dutch, or at least not in the same overt way you describe. British expansion in persia or maybe japan could be very interesting at that time.
I think the Marathas could probably do it. I recently read that Akbar the Great had a love for european clothes and paintings, as a curiousity. I think it would be interesting if a unified india might end up whereing western clothes and reading western literature as show of wealth.
 
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