The Maurya Empire did'nt include the Southern half of Southern India or Sri Lanka; the Mughal Empire actually ruled more territory than the Maurya, but even at its height it still did'nt control all of the Sub-continent, not having control of the tip of the mainland or Sri Lanka.
Without European colonization would India ever unite?
- Thread starter Lateknight
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The Maurya Empire did'nt include the Southern half of Southern India or Sri Lanka; the Mughal Empire actually ruled more territory than the Maurya, but even at its height it still did'nt control all of the Sub-continent, not having control of the tip of the mainland or Sri Lanka.
The Mauryan Empire was the largest Indian Empire. It covered almost the entire subcontinent except the Southern tip containing the present states of Kerala, Tamilnadu and the Northeastern region. But the present day Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan were parts of the Empire. It had an area of about 50 00 000 sq.kms (19 30 000 sq.miles). At that time it had more than one third of the world population.
The Mughal Empire also covered almost the same areas under Aurangzeb but, it was slightly smaller than the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka. It was inhabited by a quarter of the world population. The large Indian Empires include the Pala Empire (46 00 000 sq.kms/17 80 000 sq.miles), the Chola Empire (36 00 000 sq,kms/13 90 000 sq.miles), the Gupta Empire (35 00 000 sq.kms/ 13 50 000 sq,mls) etc.
Note that the area of the present Republic of India is 32 87 263 sq.kms/12 69 219 sq,mls. The Maratha Empire had spread over an area of 28 00 000 sq.kms and if the European powers had not made the appearance, they could have conquered the subcontinent replacing the Mughals. The defeat at the hands of Ahmed Shah Abdali in the Third Battle of Panipat also had inflicted a fatal blow to their progress. But they had eventually recovered from it.
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With the Mughals, however recent information places their rule more and more south; Jaipur State archives only recently revealed Mysore's vassalship to the Mughal, and Tanjore was sworn as well. In practice under Aurangzeb's rule control would have been from tip to tip, since the major South Indian kingdoms proclaimed themselves to be under the Mughal paramountcy.
The Mauryas also ruled substantially more than you've stated as Kishan has pointed out.
If you note, I did'nt actually say what all either of the two included, I was talking specifically about Southern India.
As am I. Unless your definition of South India doesn't include Maharashtra, (although historically and geographically speaking it is, although culturally one might argue otherwise) Especially since the writ of the Maurya Empire extended into Tamil Nadu, and the writ of the Mughal Emperor all the way into Kerala by way of Mysore, and the tip of India by way of Tanjore.
And legally speaking taking the Nizam of the Deccan into account as a Mughal feudatory, and his own vassals the indigenous rulers plus the Nawabs of Arcot, the tip itself also fell under Mughal jurisdiction.
I think this is a case of existing geographical terms and referring to general things getting mixed-up; in this specific case I'm talking about the area that's now more or less Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the southern bits of Pondicherry.
From all the various stuff I've seen/read the Maurya Empire at its height did not include Kerala, Tamil Nadu or a bit of the Southernmost portion of Karnataka while the Mughals at their height controlled roughly the northern half of the aforementioned, while the southernmost tip fell outside of the Mughal Realm.
Given its hodgepodge of cultures, languages, beliefs, etc, I've always been impressed that India remained united after the British left. It seems to me that the concept of a modern India was imposed on the subcontinent from outside, and it's curious that modern "Indians" retained the idea. I'm not entirely familiar with modern Indian history, but was there some other factor at play that made and has kept the idea attractive?
As to the OP, I can see the subcontinent today, without imperialism, as several larger polities and a shifting collection of smaller countries.
ETA: And shouldn't the OP's question by rights belong in the Post-1900 forum?
As to the OP, I can see the subcontinent today, without imperialism, as several larger polities and a shifting collection of smaller countries.
ETA: And shouldn't the OP's question by rights belong in the Post-1900 forum?
Though India lacked political unity for long periods of history, there was always a cultural unity that was based mainly on the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions. When Shankaracharya set up his four matts as the foundation rocks for his philosophy in the nineth century, he chose the sites in four corners of the country, Sringeri in the South, Puri in the East, Badrinath in the North and the Dwarka in the West. The myths and the legends of the religions had more influence on the lives of the people than the kings and the rulers. These stories were common to all the people. The phrase, 'Aasethuhimachalam', meaning 'from the bridge (to Lanka) to the Himalayas' is not a new term to describe the country but an ancient term found in very old books. It was this cultural unity that helped to strengthen the political unity after the independence. While there are several centrifugal forces like differences of languages, religions, ethnicities, etc. there are even stronger centripetal forces like cultural similarities, economic interdependence, security concerns etc. that hold the nation together.
I lean against due to the remarkable diversity in race, religion, culture, language, etc. It would basically be Europe, 40 nations instead of 1.
Assuming the nation-state would become a widespread concept in this alternate timeline. Countries that only covered a single ethnic group or language were in the minority, historically.
This is *still* true. Only place this is the norm today is post-WWII Europe.
India without colonization seems to me to be very similar to medieval France and the frankish empire, sure Marseille speaks a different language than Calais and Brittany does it's own thing more often than even acknowledging a nominal overlord but every priest speaks latin and France the unified state is certainly a possibility.
Except parts of medievel France didnt practice a different religion and have completely different cultural traditions due to these different religions. All of medievel France had the same past of being controled by the Romans and then the Frankish peoples where India was never entirely united. The French generally had the same cutural base of being all Christians to fall back on if nothing else.
Ive always thought of comparing India and Europe in this kind of situation:
-both are subcontinents (both are part of the Eurasian continent)
-both are ethnically and culturally diverse (eg India has major groups Indo-Aryan and Dravidian and Europe has Indo-European and Celtic?)
-had empires/nations stretched across most of subcontinent
-talks of modern subcontinent wide unification exist/existed
-both are subcontinents (both are part of the Eurasian continent)
-both are ethnically and culturally diverse (eg India has major groups Indo-Aryan and Dravidian and Europe has Indo-European and Celtic?)
-had empires/nations stretched across most of subcontinent
-talks of modern subcontinent wide unification exist/existed
Different religions, but not completely different cultural traditions. Panchayat is still the law in a lot of rural Pakistan, the caste system still has strong roots regardless of faith (upper caste Sikhs discriminate against lower caste Sikhs) and, as previously stated, the idea of being Indian is no new idea. Religious nationalism wasn't really a thing in India, and arguably isn't to this day, as Pakistan has struggled to develop an identity of its own beyond 'Muslim India'. Partition contains a lot of complexity and is not as simple as Hindus vs. Muslims.
That being said, there is a gulf between the Dravidian and the Aryan halves of the subcontinent, and if an ATL Revolution happened, while many of the North Indian languages could be folded into Hindustani, Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam etc were actually becoming more diverse. Personally I'm a believer of larger states will consolidate with one another, but historically, whenever an Indo-Gangetic state had consolidated its powerbase, it always moved South, whether the Guptas, Mauryas, Mughals, or Tughluqs. For that reason an Indian unification isn't as far out as people seem to believe.
Another reason it's similar to medieval France is the whole issue of vassalhood. People tend to discount the Nizam of Hyderabad or the Nawabs of Bengal or Arcot from being in the Mughal Empire, but legally and formally they were. The same way Kublai Khan was the Great Khan and his vassals had a lot of freedom, such was the way the later Mughals functioned. And indeed even when they surrendered territory, it was done as a lease; the Durranis ruled Punjab and Kabul in service of the Mughals, although in practice it was all theirs.
Plus up til 1857, the EIC ruled India as Mughal functionaries; there is a direct continuity between Mughal, Corporate, and then Crown rule.
This is a fair point. Vassalization is a form of unification too - it certainly was under British India, not to mention the German Empire (where the non-Prussian kingdoms were in a kind of vassalship to Prussia).
It's easy to imagine that a surviving, reformed Mughal Empire stretching to include most of what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and maybe even southeastern Afghanistan. This would be similar to how the Ottomans consolidated and centralized their rule throughout much of their territory in the 19th Century. Maybe the Southern tip and Assam / the Northeast would have been separate states.
OTOH, had the Mughals been fully overthrown earlier on, I could see India semi-balkanizing. There's still likely to be some consolidation, into a handful of states. Perhaps a Western, Maratha-based state, 2-3 southern states, an Eastern/Bengali state, and a state encompassing most of the Indus and Gangetic plains. Maybe a few other small states scattered around the periphery.