WI: Nehru and Gandhi switch places?

maverick

Banned
Simple scenario: Nehru is assassinated in 1948 and Gandhi survives.

I don't expect Gandhi to become Prime Minister or anything, but what happens to India without Nehru? does that kill his political dynasty?

And what does Gandhi do with his life? Retire and write his memoirs? Get a seat in the Parliament? Does he condemn the Apartheid? (well, duh, but would this have a lasting effect?)

Note that Gandhi was 78 in 1947, though, so I personally don't see him living past 1958 or 1960 tops.
 
PM Patel, then when he kicks the can in 1950, PM Desai. This means a Western-aligned India. For sure (and thankfully) a market economy rather than a socialist one as was the case from 1947-84 IOTL. Patel was willing to use the RSS terrorists to deal with the Communist threat, which is playing with fire. Arroyo's experience with the right-wing militias on Mindanao during her presidency showed how spectacularly that can backfire. The Nehru dynasty gets butterflied, because no way can Indira overcome all the obstacles towards become PM, and with at best 10% of the name recognition of OTL. Sanjay is... Sanjay, while Rajiv is apolitical. Feroze was a backbench MP, so he might wind up in Cabinet at some point, though unlikely to be PM. Among other things his health is far too weak to support even a senior Cabinet post.
 
The question is could this create a Gandhi dynasty, with Gandhi's sons entering into politics and using the name recognition to become Prime ministers.
 
Gandhi was much closer to his political family in the Congress than his real family from the Indian political books I've read. Nor were they political. In any case, given their father's communatarian/socialistic outlook focused on the villages, I don't want to imagine what the Indian economy would look like under their premiership.
 
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