No Unifed Indian Identity

[LordTerra]

During the days of the British Raj the British government took the 'divide and conquer' policy and applied it to the Indian sub-continent.

Instead of a pan-Indian identity forming throughout most of India instead have the multiple cultural identities (e.g - Bengali, Kannadan, Punjabi, etc) remain and have the British government maintain a policy of pitting one cultural group against another.

How could this be done and how would this effect the Indian sub-continent in the future?

 

[Napoléon Caesar Augustus]

Kick the British out or at least drastically weaken them. Indian identity evolved out of a common Indian struggle against British oppression. If the Indians just continue to fight and oppress each other this will not happen.

 

[LordTerra]

Kick the British out or at least drastically weaken them. Indian identity evolved out of a common Indian struggle against British oppression. If the Indians just continue to fight and oppress each other this will not happen.

Kicking them out early on doesn't really solve much since another European power (most likely France) will take there place and it goes back to square one.

Just popped into my head of a way to answer my own question but what if India was separated into several different colonies instead of one...

 

[Colonel Levnekov]

Kicking them out early on doesn't really solve much since another European power (most likely France) will take there place and it goes back to square one.

Just popped into my head of a way to answer my own question but what if India was separated into several different colonies instead of one...

Maybe if Britain controls all of modern-day India, then they could divide it up into about 7 administration zones, ruled by a governor each, with states inside those zones, and then districts, and then towns.

Example:

British India
l
v
Vijaynagar
l
v
Vijaynagara District
l
v
Vijaynagara​

 

[TFSmith121]

South Asia looks more like Africa

Just popped into my head of a way to answer my own question but what if India was separated into several different colonies instead of one...

South Asia looks more like Africa, in terms of political geography...

Too many potential ripples to say better or worse, but certainly different than reality.

Best,

 

[snerfuplz]

Kicking them out early on doesn't really solve much since another European power (most likely France) will take there place and it goes back to square one.

Just popped into my head of a way to answer my own question but what if India was separated into several different colonies instead of one...

Or if it was colonized by several European powers rather than one

 

[Saphroneth]

Or if it was colonized by several European powers rather than one

Sounds like it'd work - that's how Malaysia and Indonesia came about, pretty much.

 

[LordTerra]

Or if it was colonized by several European powers rather than one

Good idea but this didn't work out in OTL. Mainly France and Great Britain fought to kick the other off of the sub-continent and as soon as one European power gets a big enough chunk India is open to them. Portugal only got to keep their enclave because if the Treaty of Windsor.

 

[TFSmith121]

But even a single power, if it organized multiple adminbistrations,

Or if it was colonized by several European powers rather than one

But even a single power, if it organized multiple administrations, could result in the same end state.

Look at South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, etc.

Granted, the white population in South Africa had a lot to do with it, but still - even the British could have kept the three presidencies (Bombay, Bengal, and Madras) and the result could have been a three-way split at independence, even without the Hindu-Moslem divides that led to India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh...

So 3-6 "Indian" nation states after independence is certainly possible, simply along that route; add in outliers like some of the princely states (Hyderabad, for example), Nepal, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, and it gets fairly complex.

Best,

 

[LordTerra]

But even a single power, if it organized multiple administrations, coulod result in the same end state.

Look at South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, etc.

Granted, the white population in South Africa had a lot to do with it, but still - even the British could have kept the three presidencies (Bombay, Bengal, and Madras) and the result could have been a three-way split at independence, even without the Hindu-Moslem divides that led to India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh...

So 3-6 "Indian" nation states after independence is certainly possible, simply along that route; add in outliers like some of the princely states (Hyderabad, for example), Nepal, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, and it gets fairly complex.

Best,

Got to agree with this...

 

[TFSmith121]

Be an interesting "arena" for a solid series of stories

Got to agree with this...

Be an interesting "arena" for a solid series of stories, both before and after decolonization.

Interesting stage for the Cold War post-1945, as well.

Best,

 

[Gloss]

First is plausible that the northern Indian province that were Nepalese before 1815 go back to Nepal? As far as I know Nepal was friendly to the UK.
Second how did the Indian nationalist react to the fact that Sri Lanka and Burma were not included in the new Indian nation?

 

[Socrates]

Kicking them out early on doesn't really solve much since another European power (most likely France) will take there place and it goes back to square one.

Just popped into my head of a way to answer my own question but what if India was separated into several different colonies instead of one...

The idea that it is inevitable that India falls in its entirety to European colonialism is rather insulting to the Indians, to be honest. The British were very effective at playing divide and rule in one war after another, and was boosted dramatically in power by the industrial revolution at home. Another European power less adept at playing this game, or one facing political upheaval or weaker growth at home, might not have penetrated India anywhere near as much.

A successful Sepoy Mutiny is another option.

 

[TFSmith121]

Sure, but the OP - more or less -

The idea that it is inevitable that India falls in its entirety to European colonialism is rather insulting to the Indians, to be honest. The British were very effective at playing divide and rule in one war after another, and was boosted dramatically in power by the industrial revolution at home. Another European power less adept at playing this game, or one facing political upheaval or weaker growth at home, might not have penetrated India anywhere near as much.

A successful Sepoy Mutiny is another option.

Sure, but the OP - more or less - suggested a point of departure from the Raj, apparently as it existed.

A South Asia that is open to the Europeans in the 1700s but is not imperialized per se is a different situation, but one that certainly would be interesting to consider and extremely complex.

Presumably the potential departure points there are huge - a healthy Mogul state? Less Anglo-French conflict? More, so much that neither power can spare much in terms of resources outside of Europe and the Med?

There are scores of roads one could take for that sort of scenario, some more plausible than others.

Be interesting, though.

Best,

 

[CarribeanViking]

Um...so were the Indians. The subcontinent is not a blank slate, it had it's own history including several substates that rose to hegemony then collapsed again, and the local rulers were quite adept at playing divide and conquer themselves;

quite a lot of the 'fits of absent mindedness' the British Empire is supposed to have expanded by were, on closer inspection, the result of one Indian prince manoeuvring against another and getting the British to do their dirty work for them.

This, I reckon, is why British India lasted so long; because they, too, were players of the game.


Tirthankar Roy's history of the East India Company too makes very interesting reading- he basically credits them for being the scaffolding the modern Indian economy grew on,

that British middlemen and British commercial law removed barriers and provided frameworks that increased Indian internal trade to the extent that at least there was no capital flight; that the EIC paid for itself and more, from the Indian point of view.