Plausibility check: More Balkanized/Partitioned India at independence

Before we begin, a suggestion to the moderators of this board and others - there should be a Plausibility Check core thread sticky! At least in the Pre- and Post-1900 forums. Just a thought.

Anyway. For a timeline I'm working on/getting back to, I want to kind of subvert two of AH.com's common tropes. The bigger of the two, and the one I'm less sure about, is the idea of Unified India.

Now, I know that a united India post-UK is no sure thing, but I want to know, how divided could the subcontinent get? Say, with a POD of no earlier than 1930, and advancing forward no more than 1950, could something like the pic below happen? For the sake of argument, anything non-ASB you need to have happen in the rest of the world, can happen.

India.png
 
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At this point, why not just carve Pakistan off, too?

Okay, let's see:

Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Ceylon, and Burma stayed independent IOTL, so that's easy.

Somehow keep India from invading Hyderabad. Maybe a British guarantee of safety?

If Bengal was never partitioned between India and Pakistan, and instead wholly joined one or the other, it might be dragged into Pakistan due to the fact that the part that became Bangladesh has a lot more people than Indian Bengal. When they inevitably fight for their independence from Pakistan, I doubt that Bengal would split again for half of it to rejoin India.

A UN-administered zone in Kashmere becomes independent after a ceasefire in an India-Pakistan War?

India never accepts Sikkim as a state, possibly fearing war with China.

Eastern India remains independent rather than joining India.

Now somehow combine all of those...
 
At this point, why not just carve Pakistan off, too?

It's actually based on a map I found in one of the earlier map threads, though I can't find it anymore. That map actually additionally had an independent Sind and Bombay, but a later post seemed to make it clear that neither was very likely. In any event, that map didn't have a Pakistan. I'd assumed that any Muslims would instead see Baluchistan as the "Muslim homeland"; is that wrong?

Somehow keep India from invading Hyderabad. Maybe a British guarantee of safety?
The idea here is that there's no grand idea of "Pan-Indianism," though by 1930 is that unrealistic? Remember as well that the map above is only supposed to represent the subcontinent as of 1950, and an invasion after this point is entirely allowed. I'm just only interested in the state of the subcontinent as of 1950.

If Bengal was never partitioned between India and Pakistan, and instead wholly joined one or the other, it might be dragged into Pakistan due to the fact that the part that became Bangladesh has a lot more people than Indian Bengal. When they inevitably fight for their independence from Pakistan, I doubt that Bengal would split again for half of it to rejoin India.
So as of 1950, no independent Bengal/Bangladesh?

A UN-administered zone in Kashmere becomes independent after a ceasefire in an India-Pakistan War?
Possible. Oh, but I might be changing the name to Khalistan, as near as I can tell the name was invented in 1940 so it could be around by 1950. My goal here is just a Sikh homeland.

India never accepts Sikkim as a state, possibly fearing war with China.

Might be worth mentioning here that there's an independent Tibet ITTL. With no WWII Japan was more cautious in China, fearing European intervention if they overreached, so OTL China is divided into four states - Mengjiang, Manchuko, Tibet, and China proper. Manchuko and Mengjiang are outright Japanese puppets.
 
It's actually based on a map I found in one of the earlier map threads, though I can't find it anymore. That map actually additionally had an independent Sind and Bombay, but a later post seemed to make it clear that neither was very likely. In any event, that map didn't have a Pakistan. I'd assumed that any Muslims would instead see Baluchistan as the "Muslim homeland"; is that wrong?

The idea here is that there's no grand idea of "Pan-Indianism," though by 1930 is that unrealistic? Remember as well that the map above is only supposed to represent the subcontinent as of 1950, and an invasion after this point is entirely allowed. I'm just only interested in the state of the subcontinent as of 1950.

So as of 1950, no independent Bengal/Bangladesh?

Possible. Oh, but I might be changing the name to Khalistan, as near as I can tell the name was invented in 1940 so it could be around by 1950. My goal here is just a Sikh homeland.



Might be worth mentioning here that there's an independent Tibet ITTL. With no WWII Japan was more cautious in China, fearing European intervention if they overreached, so OTL China is divided into four states - Mengjiang, Manchuko, Tibet, and China proper. Manchuko and Mengjiang are outright Japanese puppets.
Over half of OTL Pakistan's population is in Punjab, even though Balochistan is the biggest by area. That's a lot of people to move, and a lot of these would work better with an independent Pakistan.

Alternatively, you could just have a sort of "Indian Confederation" including all of the countries on your map, plus Pakistan. Rump "India" would be called "Bharat" instead.
 
Well Travancore, and Hyderabad are fairly easy since both wanted independence anyways, ditto for Kashmir (but they only assented to Indian dominance because they feared being dominated by a foreign power). Madras is more difficult since it was close to the Pan-Indian movement, but if say India suffers from a violent civil war versus Ghandi style independence you could possibly see a split between the Northern and Southern rebels, Madras is the only difficult one foresee. Mysore is a tad more iffy since it's ruler at the time assented to become part of India and it would probably again take a nasty civil war to push them away from India.

As has been said why not just have all of Pakistan emerge as that works quite well.

Bengal and Assam could probably be partitioned rather like the map fairly easily.
 

libbrit

Banned
The only realistic scenario would be if certain Princely States refused to become part of India, and if Britain tried to create Goa/Pondicherry style enclaves on the coast
 
Well Travancore, and Hyderabad are fairly easy since both wanted independence anyways, ditto for Kashmir (but they only assented to Indian dominance because they feared being dominated by a foreign power). Madras is more difficult since it was close to the Pan-Indian movement, but if say India suffers from a violent civil war versus Ghandi style independence you could possibly see a split between the Northern and Southern rebels, Madras is the only difficult one foresee. Mysore is a tad more iffy since it's ruler at the time assented to become part of India and it would probably again take a nasty civil war to push them away from India.
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Travancore did not want independence. That was the work of the Diwan of the state. The people there wanted to be Indian.

With a POD in 1930, trying to split India is way too difficult. It is definitely a POD in the 1880s that would really help drive home a split on the subcontinent.

Pakistan was by no means an inevitability, so it wouldn't just pop up out of nowhere. If there is separatist tension throughout India, then that goes equally for the states that would be Pakistan.

And quite frankly, that was the only movement that had any real momentum- and it was one that only became absolutely certain in 1947, with Mountbatten in charge.

None of the Princely States will be getting any guarantees of security from Britain. They appointed Mountbatten with the purpose of getting out as quickly as they could so when the blood was shed they wouldn't be charged with it. Wavell was more for a cautious approach; he would have probably taken it to 1948 as slated.

One possible POD is 1911. Instead of moving the capital from Calcutta, and rejoining Bengal, the British Government of India chooses to stay. Calcutta was considered remote for the pan-Indian nationalists, so they met in Bombay. Bombay would continue to develop as the epicenter for the nationalist movement, while the Government of India ends up more focused on the Calcutta-Madras-Rangoon triangle.

National sentiment rises, but because the split of Bengal had a lot of Muslim support, there begins to be voices wanting to create even more provincial autonomy. The Presidency Armies are not organized into one Army of India. As a result national sentiment gets more violent- while agitation in British India is easily handled, in the Princely States, it is met with a different reaction. Soon the States begin to fully develop their own state apparatus, building standing armies, and modernizing their police. This won't happen everywhere, but you'll see it in Hyderabad.

War of Independence starts, and the more moderate faction in Madras (given the lighter hand in that Presidency, along with more support from pan-Dravidians) sticks with the British. Several Princely States join the British side, and the fight ends up in a split with some Indian States being independent, some being annexed, while Burma might split off, along with Madras. So basically, India in Malê Rising is the most you can really split the subcontinent.

Ultimately by the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, there was too much of a common feeling towards a united India, at least in the elite circles. But the elites were smart, and they courted public sentiment through both agitation and legislation. And throughout history, elites tend to lead revolution. This was helped by the fact that throughout EIC rule, it was ultimately said that the goal was to help set up India as its own country, led by men who were 'brown in colour and blood, but English in taste'- and in many ways, that's exactly what happened. The book 'India in Transition' from 1932 details that now those men appeared, Britain was afraid, they weren't quite ready for it. Similarly 'India at the Durbar' written in 1911, said that the ultimate goal of British rule was to prepare India as an equal partner in the British Empire, as the other Dominions were.

TO prevent the Union of India, you really need Britain to administer the place differently. With a POD in the 1700s, you can prevent the Governor of Bengal from exerting any power over the GOvernors of Bombay and Madras. With a defeat by the Sikhs in the Anglo-Sikh Wars, you can probably see the survival of one more Indian state as a way to block pan-Indian nationalism from forming. But ultimately once all that land is consolidated and administered as one place- once the people are brought into the administration and business of the country-even a little- the seeds are sewn for a united Indian state.

EDIT: Also, most of India's intelligentsia was Bengali; the notion of their own state literally only surfaced as a result of Partition, as a way to mitigate the damage of splitting Bengal.
 
A single Afghanistan is the lazy cartographer's way!
Hah!
Every Afghan valley is home to a different tribe, that fears the neighbouring tribe: Baluchi, Kazak, Pashtun, Pathan, Turkmen, Uzbek, Wazari, etc.
Try drawing all those tribal boundaries ... then try drawing all those tribal boundaries during the winter ... then try drawing all the boundaries where tribes enjoy seasonal grazing rights as they cross lands claimed by another tribe ...
Hah!
Hah!
Call me when you need a fresh pencil!
 
You could put not Vallabhbhai Patel, V.P. Menon and Lord Mountbatten in charge of the situation of the princely states, but persons less competent and more aggressive at the same time. Possibly with support from the British Conservative Party. Any ideas on that? Then, the obvious candidates are Travancore, Bhopal, Jodhpur (possibly also Jaipur and Udaipur), Hyderabad and Kashmir. Maybe also Nagaland.
 
You could put not Vallabhbhai Patel, V.P. Menon and Lord Mountbatten in charge of the situation of the princely states, but persons less competent and more aggressive at the same time. Possibly with support from the British Conservative Party. Any ideas on that? Then, the obvious candidates are Travancore, Bhopal, Jodhpur (possibly also Jaipur and Udaipur), Hyderabad and Kashmir. Maybe also Nagaland.

Again, after the war, the idea was "we're getting out of here before shit hits the fan." The British left expecting a civil war. It ultimately doesn't matter as to who is in charge, the states will be subsumed. If someone less willing than Vallabhbhai Patel or Nehru in charge, then maybe Kashmir would be a part of Pakistan. But Hyderabad will not stay independent, especially with the violence of the Razakars within the state.
 
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