WI Britain lose India in 19th century: Consequences for Britain

We will not have the Jungle Book if the British lose India as Kipling was born in India and returned as an adult and the chance of him visiting if the British were no longer in control is much lower. The Suez decreases in value as well without it being a connection to the Raj, no Afghanistan invasion potentially (depending on when they lose India) which will have an impact by not losing soldiers there so a look into the effects of losing in Afghanistan had on British politics and people would help. Containing Russia likely just got harder and they may see them as more of a threat so you would have more rhetoric against Russia. Even giving a decade for when India would be lost to the British would matter as that impacts which events have happened and which will be prevented. A loss of India near the end of the 19th century, especially if there was Russian involvement or influence is going to drive anti-Russian politics back home.
 
@Matteo, for a quick back of envelope trade as % of GDP in Britain 1850, about 10% (per Bank of England via The Economist - https://tinyurl.com/y8e2buzc). Assume 20% Britain's trade with India (seems optimistic and unsourced but OK).

20% * 10% = 2% of GDP. Not very much relative to 19th century growth rates.

(Of course, this 2% is not accruing to Britain's national account balance or economic growth, trade includes both in and out flows and trade as % GDP often is be multiples of GDP for small countries where goods flowing in and out are many multiples the size of production within the country.)

For a source on the % exports to India, best I could quickly find is - https://tinyurl.com/yasen4vh "Society and Economy in Modern Britain 1700-1850", Richard Brown - provides a figure of Asia absorbing 14.8% British exports in 1849-1851. Assume India has 2/3 of this, and 9.7% of trade is with India. That gives a rough figure trade to India = 1% of British GDP in 1850.

Your figures are about just exports of goods produced in Britain. Reexports were a major part of Britain's foreign trade in the 18th and early 20th centuries.

Global British trade is estimated to 20% of Britain's GDP in the early 19th century and it grew up to 50% of Britain's GDP in the early 20th century.
 
Your figures are about just exports of goods produced in Britain. Reexports were a major part of Britain's foreign trade in the 18th and early 20th centuries.

Global British trade is estimated to 20% of Britain's GDP in the early 19th century and it grew up to 50% of Britain's GDP in the early 20th century.

No, that's nowhere in the article - https://www.economist.com/blogs/speakerscorner/2017/06/brexit-and-election, or in the figure. Why would you think that? This is total imports+exports/GDP, including re-exports (however much those were as a ratio to exports of British produced goods). I'm not sure you understand how little the volumes of exchange and value through trade (or extraction whatever) were between Britain and other places relative to increases in GDP.
 
No, that's nowhere in the article - https://www.economist.com/blogs/speakerscorner/2017/06/brexit-and-election, or in the figure. Why would you think that? This is total imports+exports/GDP, including re-exports (however much those were as a ratio to exports of British produced goods). I'm not sure you understand how little the volumes of exchange and value through trade (or extraction whatever) were between Britain and other places relative to increases in GDP.

I did not say it was in this article.

But there are economic history datas and works.

https://ourworldindata.org/international-trade
 
OK, but "There are other sources with different percentages" is not "This excludes re-exports therefore is low".

Another source with the UK at 27.8% in 1850 here (http://www.tcd.ie/Economics/TEP/2008/TEP0208.pdf), which agrees with your link.

(Whether or not all this is less or more trustworthy for the UK than the Bank of England, I can't really say).

Still re-running what I did in the bit you quoted:

1850 - 28% of UK GDP, assuming share of trade to India 20% (again seems high and unlikely given trade "gravity") then trade with India 5.6% GDP. Or if 9.7% of trade with India, trade with India 2.3% UK GDP.
 
Saltpetre. Gunpowder.

If Britain loses their (not quite monopoly) on gunpowder, that will massively degrade the relative performance of both the Navy and the Army.
 
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