WI no serious attempt made at a united independent India

In view of the some of the other threads, suppose the British withdrew from India, but the project of having one country for the entire sub-continent was never taken seriously. It would just be always regarded as a fringe position and independence movements would be based in individual provinces and princely states, not really cooperating with each other.

So no India and no Pakistan either.

Researching this briefly I came up with this alternative:

Major countries

Bengal
Burma (OTL independent, but includes Assam ITTL)
Madhya Pradesh (Central Provinces)
Madras
Punjab
Uttar Pradesh (United Provinces)
Hyderabad (princely state)
Mysore (princely state)

Minor countries

Kashmir (princely state)
Napal (OTL)
Bhutan (OTL)
Sri Lanka (OTL)
Maldives (OTL)

The POD would be that no one is thinking in all-India terms, so maybe the British keep their central administration weak or non-existent and rely heavily on the the provincial governments.

Minor princely states and provinces not listed above would be absorbed into the neighboring existing countries. Delhi would be attached to whichever country develops out of the the United Provinces. The eventual disposition of the French and Portuguese enclaves would be butterflied.

One variant arrangement would include an united independent Rajahstan (sp?), since this was mostly minor princely states, and they might wind up with Delhi.
 
I had forgotten about Sind and actually I was going to write more about Punjab. The disposition of what became West Pakistan presents the biggest problem here, as does Punjab itself, a relatively wealthy barely majority Muslim province with Sikh and Hindu majorities.

The likeliest outcome is the partition of Punjab happening anyway, with western Punjab joining with Sind, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier to form something similar to what became OTL Pakistan, an independent Sikh state, and the Hindu portions either becoming independent, staying within the Sikh dominated Punjab, or joining the country formed from the UP. This would probably occur as a result of post-independence developments and conflicts.

But there are alternative outcomes, such as the Northwest Frontier being joined with Afghanistan to form a Pushtun dominated country, and an independent Sind, with Baluchistan joined to Sind or greater Afghanistan. An united Punjab not joined to Muslim majority areas to the west becomes more viable because it is not nearly as Muslim dominated and there is less reason for Sikh nationalism.

I do think that a good deal of the sectarian or religious conflict came from having a powerful all-India government at the centre, that could and did interfere in provincial matters, and it became important to either control it or break away from it. So with many Indias you get less of that. But Punjab could still develop into a flashpoint.
 
I am envisaging independent states based on the Raj administrative boundaries, with minor princely states and provinces mostly tucked into the larger ones, instead of redrawing the map along ethnic lines Wilson style.
 
The likeliest outcome is the partition of Punjab happening anyway, with western Punjab joining with Sind, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier to form something similar to what became OTL Pakistan,
I doubt the two nation theory would be a thing without an all-India independence movement
 
There likely emerges at least a Zolliverin-style customs union if not a looser federation, perhaps including Sri Lanka, OTL Pakistan, Bhutan, and Nepal.
 
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