WI: Successful Indian Rebellion of 1857?

What if the Indian Rebellion in 1857 was successful and India regained its independence? How would India develop? Would it centralize into an empire under the Mughals or would the continent brake up into regional powers under the most powerful princely states? Would the Mughals remain Emperors or would a different dynasty be placed on the throne? Would Britain give up or would the British government send more troops to retake the continent? How would the rest of Europe view these events in India? Would they stay out of it or would some of the nations (France) help the Indians to weaken Britain?
 
The Indian Rebellion was not (at least at first) a revolt against British rule, just rather that the Brits were stomping all over some strongly held Indian beliefs.

If the Rebellion was sucessful it would see India shatter into warring states and would be at the mercy of Russia, France, Britain and other nations as , unlike Africa, India was a rich nation.

The Brits would return and would wade through the blood of India nationalists, who would look towards Russia for help.
 
The Rebels themselves never wanted to capture all of India, the idea that they were fighting for Indian independence is a modern spin, both the Mughals and the Marathas were just looking to free their own territory. So even if the rebellion had been a complete success, Britain would still have control over the south and the south east of the country.

If the rebellion has succeeded, India would have been divided into 3 big groups, with the Brits controlling the south and south east, Marathas controlling the centre and west and the Mughals controlling the North. We may see Russia and france supporting one of the factions, trying to balance the power of Britain.

The country would have been turned into a superpower playground with each countries fighting the other through their proxies.
 
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