WI/AHC - Nationalist instead of Socialist India

The challenge is to have an ATL India that while still partitioned as in OTL, becomes an independent state as a sovereign, nationalist (instead of socialist), secular (or non-secular) and democratic republic.

Inevitably that likely entails butterflying away Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru though as yet do not know enough about this period to see which right-leaning leaders / figureheads would be suitable alternatives within the Indian Independence Movement.

How would a Nationalist India without the political dominance of the Nehru-Gandhi family compare to the OTL India?

And what-if a Nationalist India despite the challenges manages to end up being comparably developed or even more economically developed country (GDP, etc) then OTL China by the present day?
 

orwelans II

Banned
India isn't socialist IOTL. What do you mean by Nationalist? It's a very diverse country, rise in nationalism would break it apart, unless you mean Indian civic nationalism which is promoted IOTL as well.
 
I'd say a good way might be to somehow keep Japan from joining WWII. What this does is keep Subhas Bose as a force in Indian politics because he didn't commit treason by joining the Japanese, and from there all you have to do is have him win.
 

orwelans II

Banned
I'd say have a conflict between Pakistan and Iran in which the US strongly supports Iran. Avoid a Sino-Soviet split and India is surrounded by two opponents, both of them pro-Soviet. This would move it rightwards and towards the US.
 
Hmm... unfortunately we seem to be headed towards the right-wing rabid Nationalism anyway so I guess OTL fulfills AHC.
 
I'd say a good way might be to somehow keep Japan from joining WWII. What this does is keep Subhas Bose as a force in Indian politics because he didn't commit treason by joining the Japanese, and from there all you have to do is have him win.
However, he started off by trying to get help from Germany and Italy.
 
I'd say a good way might be to somehow keep Japan from joining WWII. What this does is keep Subhas Bose as a force in Indian politics because he didn't commit treason by joining the Japanese, and from there all you have to do is have him win.

The problem with Subhas Bose is that he seems to have later decided in OTL during WW2 that no democratic system could be adequate to overcome India's poverty and social inequalities, and wrote that a socialist state similar to that of Soviet Russia (which he had also seen and admired) would be needed for the process of national re-building.

Am after an ATL India that can be best described as roughly the right-leaning Indian equivalent of OTL Taiwan or ATL Nationalist China (in an ATL where the Nationalists defeated the Communists in the Chinese civil war).
 
'Socialism' was the 'advanced' 'progressive' option, especially for colonies seeking independence. Heck, it had such a cachet that HITLER included the word in the name of his party. You'd probably have to change that trend somehow. Dumping Nehru would help, I'm sure, but who to replace him?

As for 'nationalist', it was OTL, very, very much. The Socialist program was far less important than the Nationalist one.
 
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