There is a little known Act called the Ilbert Bill passed in 1883 in British India by the then Viceroy of India Lord Ripon. It basically allowed Indian native magistrates to try the British-origin civilians residing in the sub-continent. Needless to say this caused a great deal of pain to the Viceroy when the British and the Anglo-Indian population in the sub-continent united in opposition to it and launched vitriolic attacks against the Viceroy.
This caused him to lose a great deal of political support back home and eventually drowned out his calls for better administration of the British possessions in the sub-continent.
My PoD is that in 1883 when this act was being conceptualized he realizes that it could politically back fire spectacularly and as such just keeps such 'politically extreme' ideas to himself. Let's just assume politically more pragmatic minds prevail in the discussion of whether to pass such a bill or not.
Another side effect of not indulging into a political slugging fest with his opponents was that the Indian and British bureaucrats supportive of the Viceroy and who shortly after formed the Indian National Congress, never really gained the same level of experience in how to go about organizing a political organization. As such the Indian National Congress formed during the rule of Lord Ripon's successor was a politically a slightly different entity.
This results in him losing no more political influence back home than he already had due to his previous 'radical' reforms in the subcontinent. He channels the remainder of five-year tenure as the Viceroy into implementing more important reforms like crafting a more robust famine relief response into the Indian Famine Code.
More importantly his work with the Famine code made the politically Liberal Lord Ripon realize that one of the important reasons for famines in the sub-continent was not scarcity of food but rather the scarcity of government action, the gross mismanagement of administration and laissez faire approach to macroeconomic management of the sub-continent.
But of course he never really had the time to address these issues as he was succeeded by Lord Dufferin at the end of the former's tenure in 1884.
Lord Ripon however had tried these issues to his successors attention before he left for the home country. But Lord Dufferin was soon occupied by more pressing matters, specifically the Panjdeh incident.
The Russian Empire had steadily expanded south into Central Asia reaching down till Merv in 1884. The story of how that came about is itself very interesting, but is unrelated to our little imaginary bubble. In OTL and ITTL a russian contingent marched down from Merv on the 30th of March, 1885.
OTL the battle on the Kushk River was a massacre. Russian troops under General Alexander Komarov wiped out 'to the last man' 600 afghans. ITTL the result was no different except for the death of the 2nd cousin of the then ruler of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan.
ITTL, just as in OTL, Abdur Rahman Khan was in Rawalpindi in British India (now Pakistan) in a meeting with the Indian Viceroy. The cousin was foolish enough to go into battle but he was dead nevertheless and this called for action. What in OTL the afghan ruler had dismissed as a mere 'border skirmish' was now a matter of avenging his family's honor. And honor is all that a Pashtun has.
So something of a state of war existed between the Russian Empire and Afghanistan at the height of the Great Game between Britain and Russia. The situation had to be handled delicately.
Lord Dufferin, then Viceroy of India was previously the ambassador to Russia and as such advocated a diplomatic solution to avoid war between the two empires. Lord Ripon, who in the meanwhile had become the First Lord of the Admiralty advocated a more direct response. Lord Lytton, Lord Ripon's predecessor as the viceroy of India died of pneumonia in the winter of 1884 ITTL, OTL he had lived on till 1891.
Oh BTW, the fall of the second Whig government under Gladstone in 1885 was butterflied away as the relief force for General Gordon arrived on December 25th, 1884, ITTL's late 19th century version of a Christmas miracle.
In the ensuing breakout General Gordon was convinced by Colonel Stewart, who was not murdered on a secret mission, to not throw away his life and live to defeat the Mahdi another day.
The Mahdi army was met in battle outside the gates of Khartoum and the army managed to retreat in order while taking some losses. But this gave the British just the window of opportunity to evacuate city. Four days later the Mahdi Army returned and the city surrendered, but General Gordon had managed to slip away.
Coming back to Afghanistan. So ITTL Lord Ripon was a lot more influential when the matter of the Panjdeh incident came about and the afghans themselves were looking for British support in their little vendetta on the Russians. Lord Dufferin in these circumstances had to be creative and authorized the deployment of three regiments into Afghanistan.
What was unique was that the three regiments deployed were mostly native regiments who were sent in as more of a show of force versus being of any actually military value, strategically speaking.
Nevertheless the commander of the expedition was inspired by the tales of Genral Gordon's adventures in Sudan and proceeded to engage the advancing Russian troops in small skirmishes.
This of course fared poorly for the commander as the native troops from the sub-continent were not as well equipped or trained as their Russian counterparts, resulting in a high casualty rate for the British Indian troops.
Fortunately before the matter could escalate any further the British had managed to bring the Russians to the negotiating table thanks to Lord Dufferin. Him being previously an ambassador to Russia helped every bit as much and then some in this endeavor as it had in OTL. And thus we have pretty much the OTL end to ITTL's Great Game.
Of course this entire crisis did in the end result in the fall of the Second Gladstone government.
Another development from this crisis was the availability of actual combat experience and combat reports about the performance of the Indian troops against the Russians. While predictable higher losses did occur but the Russian's did their share of bleeding. After all with the help of the Afghan auxiliaries and because of numerical superiority the native troops pushed the Russians back to around the modern day town of Kushka before the fighting ended after 4 months around the time the Russians and the British agreed upon establishing the Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission. All of this with a fraction of the domestic and international political after-effects of using Western Troops instead of native troops.
The next major development in our TL was of course the Return of the King... Erm, General Gordon! While the not so little border skirmish in Afghanistan was winding down, General Gordon managed to convince the now Tory Government to send an expedition into Sudan to exact his revenge. Lord Ripon who had been gaining influence among the Whigs, knew General Gordon first hand and supported him in this endeavor.
Not willing to risk too many precious British lives in such a venture, General Gordon was given a generously sized British Indian Army detachment to support the expedition, including one of the three regiments which participated in the short-lived Afghan expedition. Lord Dufferin, ever the political weather vane instructed the then Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, Lord Robert to provided the troops. He of course had to gain from getting in return less green troops for his ambitions in South Asia and a bit more political clout back home. Not to mention the Indian troops were better suited for operations in the punishing heat of Sudan.
In the mean while, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, i.e., the Mahdi hadn't died from typhoid in Sudan and had massacred the population of Khartoum in spite of their surrender four days after Gordon left. He had began raids into upper Egypt and was still a threat.
Fortunately for Gordon he did not have to wait too long for his vengeance. 7 months into the campaign at the Second Battle of El Teb. After a year long campaign against numerically superior foe in a hostile territory the Mahdiya state lay dead and rebellion in Sudan had been crushed.
An effect of this was the proposal of several reforms by General Gordon which aimed to improve the effectiveness of the British Indian Army. These included inclusion of more Indian junior officers, more avenues for advancement, better training, etc., Some of this were implemented in the Indian Services act of 1889. He also gained a life-long appreciation for the colonial troops serving under him and their 'martial spirit'.
Gordon himself had a certain personal beliefs such as personal honor and re-incarnation and his experience with the Indian troops who believed in much the same, like the Rajput's and the Gorkha's code of service, duty and personal honor, did help in this matter. He later got himself transferred to India where he was appointed as the Commander of the Bombay Army, accompanied by a young Lieutenant Colonel named Herbert Kitchener he had run into in Sudan. He successfully convinced Lord Robert, commander of the British Indian Army to implement quite a few of the reforms he proposed.
His book about his exploits in Sudan, quite the bestseller, helped foster the idea that maybe, just maybe, the Indian troops aren't the worthless rabble they are often made out to be.
Next major development in our TL is the Campaign in Upper Burma, where British Indian Army troops were used by the British to annex what remained of Burma. This task was a tad bit more difficult than OTL as the Burmese had obtained a tad bit more equipment from the French than OTL and Lord Dufferin realizing that it would be better and cheaper if more native troops were used than European ones. This was the campaign where 'Gordon's reforms' as they were unofficially called, started to bear fruit. Despite serious opposition, an organized guerrilla campaign, and an unfavorable terrain the British Indian troops did distinguish themselves.
Berlin Conference was held pretty much as it was in OTL.
The Second Boer war broke out in 1899, the Boers made startling advances and pushed back the British forces. In this dark hour, the empire called upon its hero the great General Gordon and the ever ready, now Lord of Khartoum, Gordon took charge. Soon after replacing the able and respected but outwitted General Redvers Buller he died on the battlefield in January 1900. Lord Robert took command soon after. The rest of the campaign proceeded along pretty much the same as in OTL. Except more Indian troops would be deployed in rear formations and as support troops, which sadly enough were the formations most targeted by the Boers during the guerrilla phase of the war.
Lord Kitchener's attitude during the war had been fortunately more reasonable. His experience of having worked in the sub-continent did have an effect on him. The genocidal concentration camps, which were unbeaten in their inhumanity until the gulags and Aushcwitz of OTL came around were done away with. The camps ITTL made to house the Boer prisoners were much more ably managed and he hit on the idea of winning the hearts and minds of people to win a war years before our modern day commander learnt the same lesson in OTL.
On January 30th 1902, several volunteer ambulance drivers were caught in a crossfire and among the casualties was a young and promising Indian barrister practicing in Pretoria by the name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
In the end the Boer war played out much the same except for a lesser, but still nonetheless unfortunate, loss of life.
Moving on to the early 20th century, we come to the Boxer Rebellion.
OTL and ITTL the boxer rebellion kicked off in 1898 when the Dowager Empress Cixi, always pulling the string behind the throne, put the young Emperor Guangxu under house arrest and took charge.
In 1900 court opinion had turned in favor of the Boxers who the supports wanted to use to free the Qing Empire of foreign influence. By May 30th the situation had started spiraling out of control when a large Boxer force began moving towards the capital.
Alarmed the British Minster, Claude Maxwell MacDonald, requested for military assistance to be provided. On May 30th a multi-national force comprised of 75 French, 75 Russian, 75 British, 60 U.S., 50 German, 40 Italian, 30 Japanese, 30 Austrian and 120 British Indian troops left by rail to Beijing.
Things went from bad to worse when the rail line was blown up on June 4th, derailing a train to Beijing carrying a small British and American contingent and a group of junior diplomats from various western countries carrying important diplomatic dispatches.
This caused the foreign troops stationed in the Legation Quarter to go on alert as it meant that an attack could be imminent. Nevertheless within a week, on June 10th the Secretary of the Japanese delegation was attacked and killed by soldiers of General Dong Fuxiang who were guarding the southern gate of the city.
The situation further deteriorated when the German Minister Clemens von Kettller, ordered a young Boxer boy arrested and had the German troops interrogate him. Believing the boy to have been killed by the Germans the Boxers swarmed around the Legation Quarter and besieged it.
With only 550 men to defend the Legations Quarter and even more limited ammunition the diplomats found themselves facing off thousands of angry Boxer rebels. Fortunately for them the leader of the Chinese forces was General Ronglu of the anti-Boxer camp, but he too was powerless to stop them forever. But he did manage to distract and delay them.
The besieging forces’ attitude to the foreigners changed many times from clearly hostile to passive and waiting.
An expeditionary force under Admiral Seymour was launched from the port city of Dagu to Beijing. It promptly managed to degenerate in to a disorganized mob and only managed to survive in its retreat because it came across the undefended and previously unknown armory at Xigu fort.
There they survived for 15 days under constant heavy fire from besieging Chinese forces until relieved by a second expeditionary force which arrived.
40-days into the siege General Ronglu was found dead in his bath tub and pro-Boxer general Dong Fuxiang and Prince Dong took command, with the support of the Dowager Empress Cixi.
End of Part 1 of Draft
P.S. apologies for my atrocious grammar.