Is it plausible that the British Empire could move its capital, or at least a large amount of its administration, to India?
The way I see it, it is the population and geographical center of the empire - Britain herself is a little far-flung.
Is it plausible that the British Empire could move its capital, or at least a large amount of its administration, to India?
The way I see it, it is the population and geographical center of the empire - Britain herself is a little far-flung.
About the only way I could see this working would be if you managed to butterfly OTL's racial theories almost entirely, and have national identity be based upon culture rather than genetics.
I actually had an idea about it not too long ago.
The problem is that if England was threatened, they would move to Canada, right? But what if Canada was not a possibility?
I don't know American foreign policy well enough, so it may be a tad ASB, let me know. But what if France and the US team up to fight against the UK? The US attack Canada, forcing the UK to intervene, taking some of the defense potential away from the British Isles. Taking advantage of that, the French attack and invade the UK (at least London) while propping revolts in Catholic Ireland and Quebec.
The government is forced to flee to another part of the Empire. Australia is a barren land full of convicts who might not be too keen on it so they go to the crown jewel of the Empire, India. This forces them to merge culturally as the nababs did during the heydays of the East India Company, adopting the Indian lifestyle while modernising India with better railroads, etc... as it's not just a colony anymore.
If one loses control of its motherland, this is endgame. If Napoleon, for example, had successfully invaded and defeated Britain, the 10 million british people living in the island would not have taken boats to immigrate I don't know where.
Life must go on. And they would have striven to keep on living in their homeland like any defeated people did elsewhere.
If a government flees, it is quickly replaces by a new government. And it does not come back on its own. How do they reconquer England without a strong army and a strong economic/industrial base ?
Really unlikely to happen, and I've probably missed a large number of difficulties, but as a start I think these are some of the larger issues. Changing the way Europe/europeans view the world and still having a British India seems difficult - Strengthen the Indians to the point that the British respect them and the British will be unlikely to conquer them in the first place.
- Convince the British to try to Anglicise/Britanicise the Indian population in terms of language culture etc so that there is a significantly reduced chance of rebellion
- Have the Indians willing to be anglicised/Britanicised (the relative ease of conquering the Indian states would have reduced the value the British placed on things Indian)
- Convince all the Great Powers that Europe was not the centre of Culture and Civilisation.
- Make British citizenship obtainable by any subject of the empire.
- Make an Empire wide Parliament with representation for all colonies based in India.