Why is a unified India so implausible?

Mughal India was not modern Britain.
Assuming a Britain somewhere around the 15th century though then the answer would be a resounding ‘most likely better’.

What about a region that was a good 20% of global GDP, and something a bit more advanced than the 15th century British economy?

I actually own an atlas of the Mughal Empire, but thanks. Yes, I am that big a geek.

Cool. What's the title of the atlas? I'd be interested to see if my local library service has a copy...

There is no question of the Mughal Empire rising again as a new version of its old self; it would have to transform itself into a modern state like Japan or the Ottomans did. It wouldn't be easy, but it's not impossible, either, and I wouldn't even call it extremely unlikely.

Fair point. And it would certainly be an interesting AH to see!

Interesting points but with regard to the bolded bit, could a problem be that after the 1790s or so there was no real opportunity to play off the colonial powers since by this time Britain had gained the upper hand over France in Asia? This is why I think we need an earlier POD with some late 17th or early 18th C Mughals being less lethargic.

Or maybe the Marathas doing better instead. Perhaps by getting rid of Nadir Shah?
 
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What about a region that was a good 20% of global GDP, and something a bit more advanced than the 15th century British economy?
That has nothing to do with the question...

But anyway, I've heard that argument used before and its rather wrongly aimed.

India didn't become poorer under Britain or under the Mughals, it gradually got richer under both. Its just Europe was developing a lot faster in the same time period. This is absolutely nothing to do with India being European ruled, the Europeans were just out ahead on their own.
 
That has nothing to do with the question...

But it does have to do with your comment:

Leej said:
Assuming a Britain somewhere around the 15th century though then the answer would be a resounding ‘most likely better’.

Your implied comparison being of the Mughal Empire and 15th century Britain. Thus my response. Also, for more on the GDPs thing see here.

But anyway, I've heard that argument used before and its rather wrongly aimed.

India didn't become poorer under Britain or under the Mughals, it gradually got richer under both. Its just Europe was developing a lot faster in the same time period. This is absolutely nothing to do with India being European ruled, the Europeans were just out ahead on their own.

I think you're missing the point.

To put it crudely there is a difference between solid advancement for your own benefit and clawing your way up despite colonial exploitation. India was held back by the BEIC, via de-industrialisation and so on, and without that might have advanced faster (or not, of course, but that's AH for you). The fact that it advanced at all was despite, not because of, that. Is it a fair comparison to compare a region being developed for its own advantage to one being developed (or otherwise) for the advantage of rulers elsewhere? I would say not.
 
Or maybe the Marathas doing better instead. Perhaps by getting rid of Nadir Shah?

Yes, there's certainly that.

Also, how about playing with tech a bit? As I understand it, a lot of late-18th C Indian rulers were very interested in modernising their armies and hired European advisors to do so. However, a lot of them tended to go for the more flashy side of modernisation i.e. artillery. As a result, Indian armies tended to field some of the heaviest proportional artillery wings of the century but this meant that they didn't spend enough time or money training their rank and file infantry, with the result that if they fought e.g. the Company Army, they'd flay holy hell out of the advancing infantry but inevitably, so long as Company troops could hold long enough to overrun the guns, the Indian infantry would usually break and run.

Perhaps a shift in this attitude might help some of the bigger Indian rulers push back the British and French? Again, this ties in to my comments earlier about events in Europe. If the Anglo-French wars in India can be extended, Indian rulers have that much longer to play both sides against the other and learn just how Western militaries really work.
 
That has nothing to do with the question...

But anyway, I've heard that argument used before and its rather wrongly aimed.

India didn't become poorer under Britain or under the Mughals, it gradually got richer under both. Its just Europe was developing a lot faster in the same time period. This is absolutely nothing to do with India being European ruled, the Europeans were just out ahead on their own.


Shouldn't this hurt your argument?

As a colony of a European nation, it should have easy access to European capital, technology, and so forth.

Yet India's economic growth still barely beats Malthus.

Compare to, say, Japan.
 
But it does have to do with your comment:


Your implied comparison being of the Mughal Empire and 15th century Britain. Thus my response. Also, for more on the GDPs thing see here.
I was referring solely to the political situation.


I think you're missing the point.

To put it crudely there is a difference between solid advancement for your own benefit and clawing your way up despite colonial exploitation. India was held back by the BEIC, via de-industrialisation and so on, and without that might have advanced faster (or not, of course, but that's AH for you). The fact that it advanced at all was despite, not because of, that. Is it a fair comparison to compare a region being developed for its own advantage to one being developed (or otherwise) for the advantage of rulers elsewhere? I would say not.

You're missing the details of British politics of the time a little bit.
The EIC were in Britain solely for profit, that is without a doubt. However Britain was a very modern country.
Imagine the outcry today if one of our companies started exploiting 3rd world countries to such an extent. Back then it was the same if not even moreso.
Left up to the EIC India would have just been a place to rape and take advantage of as the Indian nationalists would have us believe happened. The British government however couldn't let this happen and they worked to activly improve India whilst money was being made there.
The British Empire was largely founded for two reasons: 1: To protect British buisnses, 2: To protect people from British buisness. It allowed the world to progress into the capitalist era without being totally screwed over by it.
The ultimate goal for India was always to develop up to modern levels and become a self-governing liberal democracy peacefully trading with the rest of the civilized world for mututal gain.

De-industrialisation: it really was not a big deal at all. It wasn't anything like so dramatic as many would make out. It was just buisness. Like today if a car company shuts down its factory in Britain because its cheaper to make things in China. It was the same only in reverse. That's capitalism.

Any suggestion of a united India escaping European domination, doing a Japan and becoming a world power is just...argh! Its right up there with America winning 1812 then going on to conquer the world or a independant Ireland becoming a world power.
I could well see a few parts of India perhaps managing to prosper without foreign take over (hard to achieve in itself). but the 'country' as a whole? China is far a better comparison for what would happen than Japan.
 
some thoughts on unified india

1.just because its not done-that is unifying india as a single entity-that doersnt mean its not possible or plausible.

2.before british the concept or idea called india existed in the minds of many rulers and the reason they didnt go about realising the idea is due to obvious reasons and also various reasons.

3.the idea called india as one unified block existed in the minds of many indians and also by many westerners as anscient as ptolemy.

4.also this idea is clearly prescribed and described in the minds of indian rulers and public from time immemorial.even in ramayana and mahabharata with both becoming part and parcel of indian cultural heritage , the heros of these epics bring peace and prosperity to all lands by only uniting all lands of india either by force or through otherwise.

5.so many rulers had the dream,zeal and capacity and need to have a unified india but many factors prevented them, one among them is the already existing cultural unity of india for long has in one way prevented as it at times prevented brutal wars.as we can see from history that two great empres of india the maurya and gupta had used marital and startegic relations as tools of empire building just like wars.

6.also the core area of india remained peace and prospered regardless of who ruled until the muslim invasion, in 1200s when muslims invaded all of india, india was pretty disorganised yet it was rich and sophisticated.

7.i read a book on the rise and fall of roman empire in which one of the cheif causes of the fall of roman empire is given as being extremely idealistic and philosophic that made rulers being utopian and highly incapable of handling
barbaric and unorganised invasions.

8.also too much resources spent on literary and architectural advancements but little was given to building sophisticated military technology as long periods of peace and prosperity turned minds away from brutal wars.

9.also one of the chief problems in indian military set up is the in the post gupta era upto muslim invasion horse cavalry as a powerful military force is hardly recognised by any indian rulers, they relied jheavily on elephants and archery and other indianised weapons, upto 500AD india's military technology has been on par with europe, but it had
remained almost same upto 1200AD with no advancements alsthough the elephants proved to be a effective force hard to defeat even for a ruthless conqueror like timur.

10.the mughals almost built a all india empire as large as mauryas by 1680s and only the intolerance of aurangazeb proved to be costly, had there been another akbar among moghuls indian empire, of course moghuls would have had a unified powerful india in 1700s.

11.also one must note that indian subcontinrets's area is 4.5 million sq.kms. aand its not a big one compared to persian empires and roman empires although india is not barren as like the most lands unbder these empires.

12.the invasion from north west has always been a menace and many rulers turned their attention only southwards and eastwards.also the absence of lucrative lands in the immediate neighbourhood of india had made many indian rulers thibnk nothing of going outside india,so they fought out with each other.
 
Shouldn't this hurt your argument?

As a colony of a European nation, it should have easy access to European capital, technology, and so forth.

Yet India's economic growth still barely beats Malthus.

Compare to, say, Japan.

Heh, that comparison. I actually read this after that last reply.

FYI India did have access to European capital, technology and so forth. Huge advances were made in India in the 19th century in just about every area. Then of course there are the social advances which can't really be measured but were nonetheless a resounding good thing (tm)

As said comparing India to Japan is just stupid. It would be interesting to compare individual areas to Japan (I don't have any of the data to do this) but still I wouldn't imagine this comparison would work too well since India was seen as more of a whole and problems tackled across the sub-continent without major concentration on specific areas.
To use the more rational comparison of China:
In 1850 China was somewhat more than twice as rich as India (or over $100,000mil)
By the 1930s (pre Japanese invasion numbers here, I'm being honest, not tricky. Though the numbers for China aren't too different after that.) the gap had dropped to ~$30,000 mil
 
De-industrialisation: it really was not a big deal at all. It wasn't anything like so dramatic as many would make out. It was just buisness. Like today if a car company shuts down its factory in Britain because its cheaper to make things in China. It was the same only in reverse. That's capitalism.

Actually, it would be like if a car company shut down its factory in Britain because a Chinese car company systematically set up a system to ensure that the company couldn't profit.

This ain't obscure knowledge, written by a few crazy Indian nationalists. This is well attested historical fact.
 
another version of indian industrialisation in 19th century

there is a version of india's economic history under british rule.it appeared that british started inrtroducing every bit of advancement under IR in india after 1857 beginning with railways and postal services and this relatively went well till 1900 and evntually fell of comparative to europe and it appeare that british didnt show the same inclination in periods post 1900 as it may be assumed that in the period 1850-1900 india was relatively free from trouble for british , but after 1900s the nationalistic surge and loud cry for freedom may have made british to go slow on further industrialisation of india.

they deliberately withheld many things in period post1900.
 
To use the more rational comparison of China:
In 1850 China was somewhat more than twice as rich as India (or over $100,000mil)
By the 1930s (pre Japanese invasion numbers here, I'm being honest, not tricky. Though the numbers for China aren't too different after that.) the gap had dropped to ~$30,000 mil

No Japanese yet, but the Taiping rebellion (1850-1864) and the Chinese revolution and the warlord period weren't exactly fun times either. And as in India, European control of tariffs, etc. were rather destructive of the local manufacturing economy. (India's population also grew somewhat faster than China's over that period).

Here's a GNP/cap growth chart, by the way: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2008/02/06/

seems that India did worse in per capita GNP growth than Indonesia, and the Dutch are rarely known as exemplars of colonial policy

Bruce
 
Hi, I have not read each and every post on this thread yet but it seems to me that the question of a united india pre colonial is implausible. Not because of economic growth or linguistic differences but simply because it seems that unification is very rare. It is important to remember that Germany was not united until 1871 and the question unified Scandanavian countries came and went as a passing fancy. Asking about a unified precolonial india is too full of modern politics. Why not ask about a unified Iberia or a conglomerated Austronesia?
 
Asking about a unified precolonial india is too full of modern politics. Why not ask about a unified Iberia or a conglomerated Austronesia?

Didn't this happen?

I mean, Portugal's an outlier, but Navarre, Aragon, and Castille are now one state.
 
You're right as long as you can define what united means. Has the EU united europe or what about ASEAN with south east asia? It seems like it would be important to define it.
 
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