What if Britain Never Conquered India?

millions winning have died from famine thanks for coming to my TED talk [Music] sometimes history seems like very unrealistic fiction like a private company from a small island somehow is able to conquer one of the oldest civilizations on earth to us today yeah it doesn't seem like fiction but even with Britain's modern equipment and exploitation of alliances during a chaotic time it's insane that the East India Company at all was able to ever get as far as they did in fact it's very likely had they made one wrong move their venture could have easily gone bankrupt but we ran our timeline and even though the East India Company and even the British Empire is long gone the echoes of their influence remain prominent today so what if history had gone more predictably India just isn't controlled by Britain but for the sake of this being an actually interesting video let's say no european nation actually conquers india maybe there's the occasional european fort but never as their direct control over most of the subcontinent simple enough right [Laughter] in an alternate 18th century the Mughals would still be on their way out British earn I'd the same cannot be said for the next major power the Maratha the Maratha Empire as it was called although it was more of a confederacy rose out of rebellion against the Mughals really it was fragmented between local rulers hence the title without the British in Bengal waging war on the Maratha in three separate occasions it's likely the Confederacy could have lasted at least another century or so the systems they set up brought in an era of prosperity but were fragile the power of the confederacy was fuelled by loyalty to individual charismatic leaders than any ideology or sense of unity think like Charlemagne's empire or the mongols once the old guard dies the bonds break down the Maratha dwindle in size and once again the subcontinent is a tapestry of small princedom Sultanate's and empires this isn't to say chaos or anarchy with constant warfare it's simply going back to how historically India has always been much like how Europe has split between different countries and nations okay so maybe there would be some warfare the point is what the Mughals and British did was unite various different ethnic and language groups by force in India formed without the boot of the British is one that is dis unified and fragmented but only because there isn't a need for that national identity of Indian as' it was a concept formed through the common interest to make the British Raj an independent state in this alternate timeline during the waves of 19th century nationalism there becomes some vague notion among the elite and educated upper class that a united India would be a good dream but the reality is far harder to implement without a common enemy any unification India would go through would be a bloody process just look at Germany and Italy those countries are far smaller than India any unification of India if successful isn't seen through a national identity but just a successor to the Mughals when this concept of national identity does eventually arise it'd be among smaller regions with perhaps even already tiny Indian states vulcanizing themselves just like austria-hungary did after World War one this leaves a question would India ever unify this is going to sound counterproductive to the points I just made but yes maybe just not in the way that we have India today India isn't ever officially a country but the concept of India is created near the modern day as a system of alliances much like the EU cooperation is seen as much more beneficial and keeps their states from being trampled on by larger outside influences however this is implemented the concept of this alternate India is born without the overall threat of a European Empire meaning situations like a Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India don't happen there would be various states that either favor Islam Hinduism or perhaps just have a mix of both and since the British don't create what is now Pakistan's western border the territory of the Pashtun is never simply split in half stell is going into a world on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution so what do [Music] India would not modernize like Europe did even if it was not under the control of Europeans this has nothing to do with culture or philosophy but simply population and economics northern India has always been one of the most heavily populated regions in the world and with such a high population labor was cheap wages were low everyone needed a job meanwhile in Britain the population was far smaller and not only did they have an abundance of coal to fuel new innovations but higher wages actively encouraged business owners to invest in machines that would replace their workers and save money innovation especially with industrialization came out of the need to make profit and avoid those high wages India didn't have this luck a textile machine would put far more Indians out of work than Europeans laborers out of work due to machines revolt against their rulers and rulers don't want that for a while India when it have industrialized as fast as Europe or East Asia however at least compared to our time line it would be far more wealthy it still have the products like cotton silk textiles and tea to sell to traders it's just this time the profits would go to the hands of the rulers or at least merchants in Indian states themselves there is however one main downside to now industrializing modern war European nations could simply fight a war more efficiently I think just as East Asia learned following defeats from Western Empire industrializing allows you to have a modern military and that be a question many states across the subcontinent would begin to ask themselves alright I know it's absurd that the British just avoid India altogether but in this alternate timeline let's just say that their only relationship to India is mutual trade this way their market still gets those leaves without the whole conquering part simple enough but buying and trading for goods from another party is far more expensive than owning production yourself without the EIC to force Indians to plant certain types of cash crops prices go up and the mercantile world having things like people planting food to survive or fairly dealing in a foreign market it's just bad business discouraging investment from home so from an economic standpoint the crown never has its jewel that geopolitical position of Britain as the massive power it was in the 19th century is gone without Indian cotton does the British textile industry just never grow well no it would still exist it'd just be smaller more reliant on American imports the raw goods the British economy receives is just shifted the main change is profit there are less cheap exports from India to take advantage of which means less wealth to spend on things that do affect history war global policy empire building I could talk about this a lot but we both know that you don't want me talking for 20 minutes about British textiles so let's move on to something else without having access to the poppy fields of Bengal the British don't have the leverage to sell opium to the Chinese market or more specifically create one of the largest drug smuggling operations in history because the only thing that Chinese would buy for the British was opium so yes while there are no opium wars I don't think this change would be that drastic Britain still has that technological advantage and could just barge in with their modern military and demand China concede to their demands and remember that famine that killed 10 million Bengalis well such a situation left the East India Company almost bankrupt to save the company Parliament implemented attacks on East India Company T to the Americas the colonists did not like this of course and started smuggling Dutch tea instead in protest Parliament allowed the company to sell tea directly to the colonies still out attacks and to the colonists this was seen as a monopoly on trade and one that hurt local smuggling of Dutch tea long story incredibly short this was what led to the Boston Tea Party and a weird twist of fate if Britain didn't have India there would never have been a Boston Tea Party does this change a lot for the American Revolution no there are still like twelve other reasons why America would ever bailed but I thought was an interesting fact and couldn't really fit it in anywhere removing India from the British takes the engine out of the car I don't know if there would have been an empire without it it fueled the growth and really by me imagining Britain without India it's the world without the British Empire which is a whole other scenario in itself it could be a situation where the balance of European powers is shifted so much that the first world war never happens or perhaps if there is a great conflict Britain isn't in the winning favor as for India themselves into this modern world the industrialization process would come eventually dramatically shifting Indian society but it'd be a change by India it wouldn't be an India as we know it but a system of alliances all acting independent from one another but occasionally uniting an alternate timeline where really any path for the subcontinent is possible like I said the only true thing to predict his millions don't die from famine this is Cody of altering history up [Music] you

Channel: AlternateHistoryHub

Views: 832,359

Keywords: AlternateHistoryHub, India, British Raj, British India, What if Britain Never Conquered India, India alternate history, alternate history india, alternate history britain, east india company, india colonization, what if britain never colonized india, history of britain, history of india, the company that took over a sub-continent

Id: UQdMxXcfMRc

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 15 2020