alternatehistory.com

POD:
In 1945-46, the British proposed a loose confederation which would unite the Indian provinces and territorys into regional groupings, which were based generally on religion. In OTL, the Muslim League accepted and the Congress rejected this plan, leading to the Muslim league's final unquivocal demand for Pakistan, which came to fruitation in 1947 August, with the rather unwelcome addition of E Bengal (Jinnah was actually hoping it would become indept).

In ATL, the Congress accepts, and India becomes a dominion under the British crown. Unlike OTL, its remains a dominion and British troops stayon in India, though there numbers are much reduced (in OTL, the British tried to sign a treaty with Pakistan, which they refused).

How dose India go forward? In OTL, the Congress agreed to partition, since they felt that they would be unable to keep 5 contigous muslim majority provinces, of which 4 felt that they were not really "Indian" (Frontier, Punjab, Kashmir and Balochistan). But, in 1946, the muslim league had been unable to win in Punjab and Frontier, which became the core provinces of the OTL Pakistan, Congress won there, until after the plan had been rejected, when they alll went to Jinnahs party.

OTH, in OTL, the Indians and Pakistanis have both suffered seperatist tendancies, E Pak comes to mind as well as parts of Balochistan for Pak, while India has something like 17 active insurgencies, notably Kashmir, Nagaland and Punjab. So would a united India have suffered the same fate?

In OTL, despite the media focus on its problems, Pakistan has done pretty well economically, when considered from where it began, when it had zero factorys, it now has a good level of industrialisation, its agricultural output it many times more than what it was in 1947, and it has moved firmly away from India in most respects. Many of these thing occured in the 1960's and 1970's. Its unlikely it would have occured otherwise.

Finally how would this dominion play out in the ATL cold war?
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