PC/WI INDIA as the "Arsenal of Freedom"

WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
Populations of INDIA (inc Bangladesh & Pakistan) & the USA in 1940. courtesy www.populstat.

INDIA 376 million
USA 132 million

Despite being neutral up to the time of Pearl Harbour, the USA supplied copious amounts of material to Britain and her Allies. These included steel and chemicals plus munitions such as aircraft, military vehicles and FV's and guns etc plus the famous "Liberty" ships which replaced the entire losses of mercantile shipping in less than 2 years.

What if, instead of using the USA, the British Empire plus it's Allies invested in building up the industrial capacity of the Indian sub continent in the same way as the USA?

Would this be possible?

Would it be more productive in regards to extra production due to a greater population?

Would this investment create the conditions for a post-war "economic miracle" in the same way as the Korean War laid the foundations of the post-war Japanese industrial growth?

Regards filers
 
This requires a POD decades before the war (at the very least), likely one huge enough to impact the events leading to it significantly.
Given the modes by which the British ran the Raj, industrializing India is very difficult under British rule. It went against the perceived economic interest of the British (at least the people running the show) to do that, not to mention that they'd been busy doing the exact opposite for much of the previous century and half. Problem is, Britain profited much from India, so letting Indians (with Indians elites more likely to have interest in industrializing the place) running the place instead would be unpalatable to many. And British capital investment would probably be needed to kickstart local industry.

Dominion of India in 1919/1920 is probably your "best" bet; but it's probably not a long enough time to even get close to the US industrial output of OTL, and hard to get anyway given the prevalent views in Britain at the time.
 
Wholescale industrilization isn't really something you can do in the course of a few years, especially with all the stress of war.
 
Problem, you are suggesting Britain build up India to the level of supplying everything during the war. This is impossible. The United States's industrial capacity didn't appear out of nowhere. In 1937 it was over 2/5's the world's industrial output already. Part of the cause of the Great Depression WAS that capacity, as the factories of America were building TOO MUCH for people to consume, driving prices down. There isn't the money, infrastructure or time.

Also, India isn't an equal partner with Britain like America could be, it was a colony. No way is Britain going to build it up surpass the Home Islands by an enormous margin.

So basically, it's not possible, and even if it were no one would do it.
 

guinazacity

Banned
Britain? actually developing a colony? yeah sure.

not possible, unless there is a pod way, way before the war.
 
You'd be better off getting large scale immigration from the empire to Canada and doing it there. Canada has all the resources that America does. India, by contrast, is sorely lacking in things like oil (and maybe coal too?)

Although importing that many people of colour into Canada might send the racists into a tizzy ala modern Europe.
 
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