This is an old revision of the document!
Table of Contents
United, bland India
This could be seen as an alternate history cliché, or as an outright fault in many timelines: India rarely ever gets covered. Thus, timeline authors also hardly research India. Hence they will simply assume the current state of affairs, a united India. However, united India only came about due to British colonialism. Before it was as disunited as Europe, and it continues to be as culturally diverse as Europe - its provinces could well work as homogenous nation-states, too. The cliché is to always have an united India, no matter how early the PoD, and to always have it a “Here be dragons” territory in regards to the timeline, an area almost completely omitted from the timeline, and to have its cultural differences be simply overlooked.
Reactions to this cliché by AH.commers
Of course, the only member with a strong Indian association - Flocculencio - is the member who gets most irritated about this cliché, particularly when it is tied to pre-modern Japan possessing unrealistic power and dominating the historically culturally Indian East Indies (Indonesia).