No WW II: what happens to India?

Suppose WW II does not occur. What happens to the British-India? One of the conditions India set to fight in WW II was that they got independence in return, but now there isn't one and so India likely won't gain independence by 1947.

Do we see an India that's slowly let go and then becomes a part of the Commonwealth or might we see the independence movement radicalize under the likes of Subhas Chandra Bose or someone similar who might or might not get support from the Soviet Union or, failing that, the Japanese Empire?
 
India would gain independence anyway and Winston Churchill would be spared the ignominy of a second lethal famine in India that killed millions of people that happened under his watch and be remembered forever for the Gallipoli disaster.
 

Maur

Banned
India would gain independence anyway and Winston Churchill would be spared the ignominy of a second lethal famine in India that killed millions of people that happened under his watch and be remembered forever for the Gallipoli disaster.
Hm. I think i like your scenario :D
 
Hm. I think i like your scenario :D

The one bright side for ol' Winny is that his worst crimes, such as in Kenya and India won't happen ITTL, so he'll have much less blood on his hands, but he'll still be a goat in the political wilderness and his primary contribution to British history unfortunately for him will be Gallipoli which if his OTL behavior is any hint he'd write memoirs about blaming the failure on everyone but himself. Well, everyone except the people actually defending at Gallipoli who did not win the battle, only British mistakes caused the British to lose it, mistakes entirely unconnected to Churchill.
 
Suppose WW II does not occur. What happens to the British-India? One of the conditions India set to fight in WW II was that they got independence in return, but now there isn't one and so India likely won't gain independence by 1947.

Do we see an India that's slowly let go and then becomes a part of the Commonwealth or might we see the independence movement radicalize under the likes of Subhas Chandra Bose or someone similar who might or might not get support from the Soviet Union or, failing that, the Japanese Empire?

No- WW2 just enabled them to squeeze the Brits into a proper timetable. India will not be slowly let go of with any POD after 1910 or so- the will for Independence was already present not just among the elites but among the masses. There is no way Britain can hold on to India without a fight. It may come down to a radicalised insurgency under Bose or someone like him targeting British officials and troops pushing the British into giving in to Congress' demands and giving India independence.

As the other person said ITTL Churchill will at least only have murdered the Australians at Gallipoli and not the Bengalis as well.
 
What I think gets interesting here are the details of Indian independence. Will the Indian Empire spend some time as a constitutional monarchy? Will there be some way found to integrate the princes into the political life of independent India, perhaps through a House of Lords analogue? Might an independent India break all constitutional bonds with the U.K. only to introduce a elective constitutional monarchy, granting its parliament to choose from its "house of princes" an Emperor of India to serve a life tenure?
 
India was already set on a path to independence under the 1935 Government of India Act, and it would probably have received independence under those terms by the 1950s at the latest. However, if the terms were un-amended the "Federation of India" the act envisioned would have remained something of an undemocratic British client. The Act proposed a federation of provinces and princely states, a limited franchise in the provinces, and reserved a third of all seats in both chambers of parliament to the princely states who were under no obligation to hold elections.

There's really a lot of different ways this could have gone. Many leaders of the Congress were willing to work within the system, so its possible that the Congress still takes power and - perhaps with a friendly Labour government in the UK - achieves repatriation of the constitution and amends it to expand the franchise and limit the power of the princes.

Or as in the Arab World, maybe the "independent" regime would have proven so unpopular that its overthrown by a revolutionary coup - led perhaps by Subhas Chandra Bose.

No partition in this scenario either, although there may well be lingering long-term tensions with Muslim leaders who were relatively overrepresented by the 1935 Act.
 
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