STUPID IDEA: American Loyalists sent to India=A More Anglicized India?

For the sake of this conversation, let's say all or most of British North America gains independence in 1783. So, where do the Loyalists go? Again, for the sake of conversation, let's say they're sent to India. Now, what if they and other British settlers were to be absorbed into the Indian populace and create a mixed society, bilingual, that sort of thing?
I know the first problem would be that there would have to be a whole lot of British colonists to affect British society, but let's just throw in the hand-wave and ask what happens.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Statistics said it was approximately 500,00 Loyalists in the population of the 13 colonies. In OTL, a large part of the genesis of modern Canada and Confederation was Loyalists moving there after Independence.

Assuming the Revolutionaries take Nova Scotia, etc. and the ratio is about the same, it can't be more than a million.

I couldn't find an exact pop. statistic for India at the same time, but articles about events in individual provinces and regions about famines, etc. said 32 million in some cases.

May not make much of a dent, but any substantial increase in British population in India could affect things like decolonization and policy towards the inhabitants or whether Britain leaves at all.
 
They went to Canada because it was next door, you know. Shipping them to India would be implausible at best.
 
India poses certain difficulties. Remember that it's a tropical country, tropical diseases, completely different plants and seasonal cycles.

The loyalists would be weakened from long difficult ocean voyages. They'd be getting off the boats dehydrated, malnourished, exhausted and with vitamin deficiencies.

And then they'd start dying from everything from Malaria to Amoebic dysintery. A lot of them die off right there.

They wouldn't be able to succeed as farmers, without lots of local help. More die off, migrate to cities, or return to England, flee to Australia, etc.

They wouldn't necessarily be any more successful in towns and cities. As refugees they arrive without significant accumulated capital.

In the old loyalist settlement of St. John, New Brunswick, there's a big graveyard in the middle of the city with tombstones dated to the post-revolutlionary era, signifying a huge mortality of refugee loyalists arriving there. These people often arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their back, or esoteric but useless personal goods... a piano in one case. It was genuinely tough.

Without significant capital in towns or cities to base entrepeneurial enterprises on, without knowledge of local languages or customs, knowledge of local commerce.... it would be really really tough.

And finally, the climate would brutalize them.

I'm not saying stupid idea, but I think it would be extremely, incredibly tough to pull off. Maybe impossible.

The only thing I can think is if the Loyalists were deeded a 'country' or territory within India, had support re-establishing their own culture, and then grew rapidly and built themselves a niche as a semi-indigenous technical/warrior class in India whose influence extended far beyond their borders.

Stranger things have happened in India.
 
Okay, what conditions could lead to a more anglicized, hybrid society, mixed race India?

A drastic reduction in the Indian population? There are far too few Anglophones, who all have nicer places to settle, to be more than a drop in the bucket of the subcontinent. A greater cultural transfusion might be possible with the right set ups, but a mixed race India isn't.
 
A drastic reduction in the Indian population? There are far too few Anglophones, who all have nicer places to settle, to be more than a drop in the bucket of the subcontinent. A greater cultural transfusion might be possible with the right set ups, but a mixed race India isn't.
Okay, how is it possible, minus the mixed race thing for the most part (although I'd think more British colonists would help).
 
Okay, how is it possible, minus the mixed race thing for the most part (although I'd think more British colonists would help).

The problem is that India had a colossal (comparatively) population - roughly 300 million in 1800 - and these natives were aborigines or tribesmen but the citizens of long-established civilisations. The Indians were committed to an "advanced" religion (by "advanced" I again mean considering the numbers of tribesmen encountered who could be taught to see Christian practices as synonymous with their own more Pagan beliefs, etc), which they were not willing to abandon; they had social codes which they could not be persuaded to drop; they had culture and institutions which were too civilised or developed to be overwritten with English culture. Imagine, if you will, that say 20,000 people move to some part of the Eastern Seaboard of the USA tomorrow, and these people have a distinct culture and set of political and ethical values which they claim to be more advanced than our world currently knows. Will these 20,000 overwrite American culture? Well they might get a couple of ideas in, a few words adopted maybe, but by and large those 20,000 are going to have to adapt to American culture or by left by the wayside. Now for the British India situation, being outcasts from society is not an option as the Brits there are supposed to be the ruling class, or important merchants and such, and so they must be seen to interact with and be a part of society at large. So they are left with little choice - Europeans who went to India essentially became quite Indian, rather than vice versa. And there were actually quite a large number of Brits and other Europeans in India. Sending 500,000 Loyalists will probably no more than double the number of Europeans there, which is by no means a large enough influx to suggest a change in the balance of power - especially in some place as well-entrenched in its ways as India.

I've wondered a number of times on how this could be changed, and my main conclusion is that it would be very hard if possible at all. My current, though naturally flawed and incomplete, theory is to keep the percentage of the Indian land/population within the Princely States high - each of these states were generally on their own quite small and "quaint", and since the European powers dominated the coastlines they depended on the British for trade and contact with the outside world. Over time this gives you the chance to essentially make them reliant on the British for the importation of new cultural anomalies as culture changes over time - whereas a large Indian state such as the Mughal Empire or the Maratha Confederacy could generate its own cultural development, tiny petty states are unlikely to be successful in this, and thus are more likely to "follow the trends" that they see being practised elsewhere. Since each of the Princely State rulers were quite wealthy but little able to exercise their wealth alone, the rulers were generally quite receptive to British influence, too, thus allowing them if the British are able to so do to be inducted into British Indian High Society, which could provide a top-down impetus for adoption of certain traits. If you allow the native Indians to enter the ranks of the Civil Service a little earlier, too, you provide an incentive for the middle classes to consider themselves a part of the British machinery of state, a concept which was little able to develop before Indian received independence OTL. This, hopefully, will also encourage the disenfranchised lower classes to consider their ethnic countrymen to be both the bringer of social improvements, and the scapegoats for when things go wrong - in essence what this is doing is encouraging the average Indians to cast aside their views of the British as usurping all the power, instead apportioning equal blame for failures on their own countrymen (and thus slowly eroding the idea of the British as being solely responsible for all bad government in India) while forcing them to respect Indian government officials who respect and work with the British when things go well. What I essentially am proposing is that by setting up several and various methods of allowing British culture to trickle down through society then slowly the Indian masses could adopt a more Anglicised stance.
 
What I essentially am proposing is that by setting up several and various methods of allowing British culture to trickle down through society then slowly the Indian masses could adopt a more Anglicised stance.
But really, how much so?....
Methinks an earlier POD is needed...:rolleyes:
 
The problem is that India had a colossal (comparatively) population - roughly 300 million in 1800 - and these natives were aborigines or tribesmen but the citizens of long-established civilisations. The Indians were committed to an "advanced" religion (by "advanced" I again mean considering the numbers of tribesmen encountered who could be taught to see Christian practices as synonymous with their own more Pagan beliefs, etc), which they were not willing to abandon; they had social codes which they could not be persuaded to drop; they had culture and institutions which were too civilised or developed to be overwritten with English culture. Imagine, if you will, that say 20,000 people move to some part of the Eastern Seaboard of the USA tomorrow, and these people have a distinct culture and set of political and ethical values which they claim to be more advanced than our world currently knows. Will these 20,000 overwrite American culture? Well they might get a couple of ideas in, a few words adopted maybe, but by and large those 20,000 are going to have to adapt to American culture or by left by the wayside. Now for the British India situation, being outcasts from society is not an option as the Brits there are supposed to be the ruling class, or important merchants and such, and so they must be seen to interact with and be a part of society at large. So they are left with little choice - Europeans who went to India essentially became quite Indian, rather than vice versa. And there were actually quite a large number of Brits and other Europeans in India. Sending 500,000 Loyalists will probably no more than double the number of Europeans there, which is by no means a large enough influx to suggest a change in the balance of power - especially in some place as well-entrenched in its ways as India.

I've wondered a number of times on how this could be changed, and my main conclusion is that it would be very hard if possible at all. My current, though naturally flawed and incomplete, theory is to keep the percentage of the Indian land/population within the Princely States high - each of these states were generally on their own quite small and "quaint", and since the European powers dominated the coastlines they depended on the British for trade and contact with the outside world. Over time this gives you the chance to essentially make them reliant on the British for the importation of new cultural anomalies as culture changes over time - whereas a large Indian state such as the Mughal Empire or the Maratha Confederacy could generate its own cultural development, tiny petty states are unlikely to be successful in this, and thus are more likely to "follow the trends" that they see being practised elsewhere. Since each of the Princely State rulers were quite wealthy but little able to exercise their wealth alone, the rulers were generally quite receptive to British influence, too, thus allowing them if the British are able to so do to be inducted into British Indian High Society, which could provide a top-down impetus for adoption of certain traits. If you allow the native Indians to enter the ranks of the Civil Service a little earlier, too, you provide an incentive for the middle classes to consider themselves a part of the British machinery of state, a concept which was little able to develop before Indian received independence OTL. This, hopefully, will also encourage the disenfranchised lower classes to consider their ethnic countrymen to be both the bringer of social improvements, and the scapegoats for when things go wrong - in essence what this is doing is encouraging the average Indians to cast aside their views of the British as usurping all the power, instead apportioning equal blame for failures on their own countrymen (and thus slowly eroding the idea of the British as being solely responsible for all bad government in India) while forcing them to respect Indian government officials who respect and work with the British when things go well. What I essentially am proposing is that by setting up several and various methods of allowing British culture to trickle down through society then slowly the Indian masses could adopt a more Anglicised stance.

That's a good try, but as you mentioned, you're talking about 300 million people in an ancient and advanced civilization. In order to Anglicize it you need about 299 million people to die first.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
For the sake of this conversation, let's say all or most of British North America gains independence in 1783. So, where do the Loyalists go? Again, for the sake of conversation, let's say they're sent to India. Now, what if they and other British settlers were to be absorbed into the Indian populace and create a mixed society, bilingual, that sort of thing?
I know the first problem would be that there would have to be a whole lot of British colonists to affect British society, but let's just throw in the hand-wave and ask what happens.

India-Draka. Is that what you wanted someone to say? I hear people tack that word onto stuff, and I don't really know what it means, but I guess I'll just throw it out there.
 
It doesn't make sense.
Canada is right next door and is familiar territory and under British control.
India is a foreign land (not British), totally alien and far,far away.

You could perhaps have some of the richer loyalists taking up business in India rather than moving to Canada but a mass emigration is, as said, unlikely at best.
If you have ASBs conquer Canada for the US then returning home to Britain seems the brightest idea for the loyalists.


That's a good try, but as you mentioned, you're talking about 300 million people in an ancient and advanced civilization. In order to Anglicize it you need about 299 million people to die first

*Leej strokes his goatee as he thinks for a moment. Suddenly hitting upon a bright idea he twirls his moustache, laughs manically and with a flash of his cape hops into his hot air balloon of doom and floats away into the rising sun....*
 
Well, I should specify. My scenario wouldn't so much Anglicise India as create a more Anglicised English-Indian culture which would be mutual inclusive of Brits coming from India, and the lower-caste Indians of the less significant Princely States (the ones likely to be at the bottom of the "trickle down" effect). It would be virtually impossible to fully Anglicise India. What my scenario was aimed at doing was basically creating an environment where the Indians felt part of the Empire, felt 'kinship' with the Europeans there, and yet had a culture which was achievable, and not ASB pro-British.

And in answer to your question, vultan, the steps I proposed - the introduction of Indians into the civil service, etc - wouldn't take that long to implement. However, that scenario by default requires the passage of time to warp and change both British and Indian culture to allow for this new Anglo-Indian culture. It would probably need about 100-150 years before the introduction of Indians into the ruling civil service, and another 100 years of recognised "mainly good government" from the Indian politician/civil servants to create the atmosphere of viewing ethnic Indians as equally responsible for the fortunes and problems in India. So IOTL you're probably looking at this finally being the state of affairs somewhere between 1950 and 2000 if applied to OTL, and that in turn relies on India somehow fending off nationalism, which could wreck the whole process. That's tough to avoid. It's like proposing to invent a sonic screwdriver to fix the problems with your time machine, but the best way of achieving this is probably by changing the TL even more to slow down the advancement of society in the world at large.
 
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