WI Britain promised to grant India independence at the end of the 1990's?

Thinking of the leased contract Britain had with China with regards to Hong Kong. What if in the early 1900's Britain promised to Indian independence seekers a future date set in stone whereby India would be granted its independence from Britain.

Assuming that date was honored for the most part by both sides how would an India under Britain have developed into the 90's?
 

SSJRED

Banned
Thinking of the leased contract Britain had with China with regards to Hong Kong. What if in the early 1900's Britain promised to Indian independence seekers a future date set in stone whereby India would be granted its independence from Britain.

Assuming that date was honored for the most part by both sides how would an India under Britain have developed into the 90's?
ASB. And an India under Brtian would continue to be what it was pre independence, an even poorer and exploited shithole. The British would juat continue to exploit India as they had done before and weaken local indian industry for the benefit of British companies.
 
ASB. And an India under Brtian would continue to be what it was pre independence, an even poorer and exploited shithole. The British would juat continue to exploit India as they had done before and weaken local indian industry for the benefit of British companies.
I don't think they would have had the ability to press that matter post-1945, to be honest. They'd just risk India unilaterally declaring independence if they did that. But this was the same country who did Iran and Egypt dirty during the same era without India around to bankroll it, so who knows...?
 

Jack1971

Banned
Only way to keep India past 1947 is for a British Empire crushing and quick victory over Japan in Dec 1941, or preemptively earlier, such as an aggressive invasion of FIC at fall of France. And treating the Indian leadership fairly, while preventing the Bengal famine.
 
ASB; India would unilaterally declare independence by the end of the 40s at the latest. Britain would be under massive American pressure to let India go, if they don't America refuses to support them in India, harsh British reprisals result in mass uprisings backed by Soviet arms, resulting in an insurgency that would make Vietnam look like a walk in the park. Or Britain's version of the Second Sino-Japanese War, with British war crimes up and including massacres of civilian populations, use of chemical and possibly even biological weapons in an effort to maintain colonial rule blackening the image of the Free World. Ends with the British economy collapsing at some point in the 50s and a Communist India emerging.

Yes, I am quite serious in that Britain would go that far. They did in Kenya during the OTL Mau Mau Uprising (up to and including concentration camps), so what's stopping them from doing the same in India ITTL?
 
Thinking of the leased contract Britain had with China with regards to Hong Kong. What if in the early 1900's Britain promised to Indian independence seekers a future date set in stone whereby India would be granted its independence from Britain.

Assuming that date was honored for the most part by both sides how would an India under Britain have developed into the 90's?

Hum the big elephant in the room was the castrating of the Ilbert Bill which itself was already watered down when proposed. This had already hugely damaged Indian trust in Britain's honesty in pursuing responsible Government in India. Getting the Indians on board with a proposal that does not become concrete until just before the year 2000 is going to be...a stretch to put it mildly. It is more likely that the fact of offering eventual independence would be seen in Britain and India and the wider world as a confession that the British had severely screwed up in their administration of the sub-continent.

That said it should be noted that many Indian nationalists were still in the 1900s Empire loyalists, which sort of means they will feel they are getting screwed both ways, the British are not planning to move to responsible government in their lifetimes but at the same time are ready to cast India loose in the far distant future.

What was really needed from the British was something looking a lot less like independence but a lot more like dominion status a lot sooner. Had the British attempted that then the new educated Indian elite (educated by the British) might have then concluded that the British were belatedly trying to honour the promises made in the 1860s and stuck with the Empire...there being a lot of advantages of being part of a big international trading block and defensive alliance underpinned by a member with a huge navy.

Really the Indians felt they were ready to be treated like adults or wanted out of the family home.
 
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