WI: British place the Untouchables in power?

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When the Belgians arrived in Rwanada during the colonial period they pretty much flipped the traditional socio-political power dynamic between the Hutus and the Tutsi groups via their preferred divide-and-conquer policy. (empowering the Tutsi over the Hutu while historically it was the other way around).

So what if the British did something similar in India?
Say, instead of sticking with the Hindu principalities to rule through, the Brits (starting with the East India Company) dismantle old regimes and flip the power structure in favor of the Dalit caste?(Untouchables)

Could this work? and if so, what would be the make and model of this Dalit-dominated British Raj?
 
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When the British arrived in Rwanada during the colonial period they pretty much flipped the traditional socio-political power dynamic between the Hutus and the Tutsi groups via their preferred divide-and-conquer policy. (empowering the Tutsi over the Hutu while historically it was the other way around).

So what if they did something similar in India?
Say, instead of sticking with the Hindu principalities to rule through, the Brits (starting with the East India Company) dismantle old regimes and flip the power structure in favor of the lowest castes?(Untouchables)

Could this work? and if so, what would be the make and model of this Untouchable-dominated British Raj?
Do you mean Belgians in Rwanda?
 
I wrote out a long paragraph but after awhile I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. The gist of it is, I don't think this could have worked, certainly not on a large scale. Maybe as an experiment on a smaller level, but the differences between the two peoples ( Tutsi and Untouchables) means that they're just not applicable. This is less like handing the keys to a marginal minority who have little in difference (so far as it comes to ruling) to the previous majority, and basically handing rule from an entrenched elite who are supported by every social, religious and government institution that is recognized by the rest of the population to what is basically a class of pariahs. I'm probably ignorant about the lengths to which the British took to make the Tutsi into a functioning ruling minority, but whatever they did couldn't compare to the amount of blood, treasure and social engineering they would have to take to do the same in India.
 
When the British arrived in Rwanada during the colonial period they pretty much flipped the traditional socio-political power dynamic between the Hutus and the Tutsi groups via their preferred divide-and-conquer policy. (empowering the Tutsi over the Hutu while historically it was the other way around).

Two problems with this statement:

A) Rwanda was a Belgian colony, not British
B) The traditional dynamic was not flipped by the colonizers. The Tutsis were economically and socially dominant in Rwanda before colonization. What the Belgians did was turn what used to be a more fluid, class-based distinction between Hutus and Tutsis into an ethnic/racial distinction. In the pre-colonial era, wealthy Hutus were virtually indistinguishable from Hutus, but under the Belgian regime, hard racial lines were established between Hutus/Tutsis.
 
If we're looking for a Hutu Tutsi rivalry in the subcontinent, I'd say that the Hindu Muslim divide is the best parallel there.

To put untouchables in power in India would be like... Gypsy-ruled Spain?
 
When the Belgians arrived in Rwanada during the colonial period they pretty much flipped the traditional socio-political power dynamic between the Hutus and the Tutsi groups via their preferred divide-and-conquer policy. (empowering the Tutsi over the Hutu while historically it was the other way around).

So what if the British did something similar in India?
Say, instead of sticking with the Hindu principalities to rule through, the Brits (starting with the East India Company) dismantle old regimes and flip the power structure in favor of the lowest castes?(Untouchables)

Could this work? and if so, what would be the make and model of this Untouchable-dominated British Raj?

The problem with doing this is there are too many interest groups and Hindu castes who would be offended as they are used to being above the Untouchables. It is one thing to promote a second or third tier elite in place of the old first tier elites because the people used to being below them do not notice much difference but in this case the majority of Indian society both Hindu and otherwise is used to being able to look down on the untouchables who themselves do not actually possess much in the way of social, financial or military power.
 
I wrote out a long paragraph but after awhile I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. The gist of it is, I don't think this could have worked, certainly not on a large scale. Maybe as an experiment on a smaller level, but the differences between the two peoples ( Tutsi and Untouchables) means that they're just not applicable. This is less like handing the keys to a marginal minority who have little in difference (so far as it comes to ruling) to the previous majority, and basically handing rule from an entrenched elite who are supported by every social, religious and government institution that is recognized by the rest of the population to what is basically a class of pariahs. I'm probably ignorant about the lengths to which the British took to make the Tutsi into a functioning ruling minority, but whatever they did couldn't compare to the amount of blood, treasure and social engineering they would have to take to do the same in India.

But really, outside of simply arming them to the hilt and drilling them in British military tactics, what sort of social engineering would they really have to do to get the rest of the populace to comply?
It's not like the co-opted princes of OTL were well liked by their subjects for their ties to the British.
Only in this case, this empowered Untouchable caste, while viewed as pariahs by their Indian compatriots, would be far more loyal to British interests as without them they'd return to outcast status.
 

King Thomas

Banned
It would certainly kick off major unrest. Think of a despised group near the bottom (be it gypsies, homeless people, Southern blacks before they gained civil rights or Shia in most Muslim countries ) and then imagine it being put in power by a foreign army, and the dislike it would cause.
 
It would certainly kick off major unrest. Think of a despised group near the bottom (be it gypsies, homeless people, Southern blacks before they gained civil rights or Shia in most Muslim countries ) and then imagine it being put in power by a foreign army, and the dislike it would cause.

Well to be fair, voting rights and the placement of Union troops in the south did lead to the rise of the Black political class in the Reconstruction era south
 
A problem with the high-caste Bihari Rajputs whom the Britons employed as Sepoys in Bengal Army was that, unlike Bengali Mohammedans, the Hindus refused to engage in social intercourse with Britons, such as eating together. Also, the local mistresses the Britons got were overwhelmingly Mohammedans, not Hindus. From practical side, those Sepoys stood to lose caste by a lot of activities, including sea crossing - and forced their requirements on their employees.
East Bengal did, in 16th century, have a large population of low-status rural Hindu/tribal people, who proved fruitful converts to Mohammedanism. That´s what founded Bangladesh - the hunters, fishers and farmers of very low status as Hindus converted to Mohammedanism while nobles and urban merchants remained Hindu.

Would 18th century Bengal have had a low caste population who might have been open to conversion to Christianity instead of Islam?
What would have happened if a Bengal Army had been recruited not from high caste Hindus and Mohammedans, but from low caste untouchable/tribal people of East Bengal, who stood little to lose by eating pig or cow fat cartridges or crossing seas as untouchable Hindus, and less once they were not even Hindus but Anglican converts?
 

Deleted member 94708

French rule in Syria seems to have a few relevant parallels, and we all can see how that has turned out in the post-colonial era.
 

RousseauX

Donor
But really, outside of simply arming them to the hilt and drilling them in British military tactics, what sort of social engineering would they really have to do to get the rest of the populace to comply?
It's not like the co-opted princes of OTL were well liked by their subjects for their ties to the British.
Only in this case, this empowered Untouchable caste, while viewed as pariahs by their Indian compatriots, would be far more loyal to British interests as without them they'd return to outcast status.
Come the 20th century there will be literally tens of millions of dead people from that class as the result of ethnic/class/w/e you wanna call it rioting
 

King Thomas

Banned
The black political class was crushed by the KKK until the 1950s/1960's and such a thing would happen to the untouchables or any despised group put into power when those who put them in are no longer there.
 
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