Question
What would have happened if the British never came to India? How developed would India have been? How would the system be in modern India?
Answer
Okay, let's actually run through this counterfactual in a realistically detailed way.
Two big modeling assumptions (that I was going to justify in 2000 words, but then deleted....)
Let's set up the simulation and hit "Go."
Initial Conditions: It is 1756, Robert Clive is about to attempt a political intrigue and trigger the Battle of Plassey. The Mughal empire is crumbling. The Maratha confederacy is past its early revolutionary stage under Shivaji and is now a mature imperial force that blends Mughal and Hindu governance models, but still has a kind of guerrilla "sons of the soil" DNA, reflecting its origins in robust yeoman type stock.
Elsewhere, the Rajputs, Sikhs and Deccan Sultans (Mysore in particular) are consolidating.
Counterfactual Fork Point: Robert Clive is defeated at Plassey in 1756 due to betrayal by his co-conspirators Amir Chand, Nabakrishna Deb etc. He gets kicked out of Bengal.
Phase 1: Rejection of European Colonization: 1750-1760
As has very occasionally been the case, a clear and present foreign threat creates some brief political and military unity.
This is the 25% scenario, in 75% of the cases, India under foreign threat continues to squabble and allow divide-and-conquer entry tactics for the external force.
Many candidates exist, for unification catalyst. From Ranjt Singh in the Sikh kingdom (1789 - 1839) to Tipu Sultan in the south (1750 - 1799) there were quite a few candidates who might have led a loosely-unified-opposition effort.
It is important to note that during the crucial period when the Anglo-Sikh, Anglo-Maratha and Mysore wars were fought, the British did not have decisive military superiority. Tipu Sultan in fact was more advanced than the British in his use of rocket artillery for instance. The Sikh military machine was quite remarkable at its height.
In actual history, they all fought the British separately and lost. But let's assume that by 1810 or so, a loose temporary confederacy of Sikh, Maratha and Deccan rulers, along with the token presence of a weakened later Mughal, had managed to declare a temporary truce to kick out the British (and the French and the Portuguese). As part of the peace agreement, the Europeans would have had weak port rights (much weaker than in China).
Phase 2: Post-Rejection Fragmentation: 1760 - 1820
This is where it gets tricky. What happens next? The culture would have been strong and steady as it always has been in India (much more so than the political state), but the political integration would have been heading downhill, not uphill, from the Mughal peak.
18th and 19th century British maps (see the Penguin Historical Atlas of South Asia) show hugely fragmented political situations, with as many as 300 princely states of varying sizes at the most fragmented period.
So realistically, we'd have to say that once the Europeans had been kicked off, political anarchy (but not active war) would have returned. India was on of its inevitable downcycles of creative destruction at the time, as far as political unity goes.
This process would have taken about 60 years.
Phase 3: Patchy Modernization: 1820 - 1860
So during about 1820 - 1860, very patchy modern state development would have taken place.
Punjab and Mysore, for instance, would probably have modernized early, and introduced railways, telegraphs, Western style universities, maybe even separation of religion and state. This would in turn have given them local unbalanced power, and allowed for a certain amount of expansionism. So the 300 states might have been reduced to maybe 50-100, as alliances formed around and against the early-modernizing states.
At the same time, the Europeans would have hung around as traders if not rulers. So we can expect that the major trading regions of India: Gujarat, Bengal, Kerala and Punjab (overland) would have developed strong modern infrastructure at their interface points with the rest of the world. Port cities would have developed the way the International Settlements in China did, but with a more domestic flavor, leading to large cities like Shanghai.
Bombay, Madras and Calcutta would probably still have developed to some extent, but other cities might easily have beaten them (Surat, the primary Mughal era port), Kochi (historically the most important port for the spice trade) etc. might have been the Bombay and Calcutta.
The most crucial feature of this patchy modernization would have been the development of a few Indian languages ahead of the rest, as the languages of domestic development of science-and-technology based liberal education. I think THREE languages would have leaped ahead? Which three?
Two would likely have been Punjabi and Kannada, the languages of the Sikh and Mysore empires respectively. There would have been early modern universities set up in Amritsar and Mysore that would be like the Harvard and Yale of India. Among the rest, Urdu would have declined rapidly with the Mughals. Tamil as always would have been the wildcard, but I'd say it would have declined as well, since this was a historical low for Tamil power, with respect to Kannada/Telugu.
The third would likely have been one of the leading trading city-states. The candidates would have been Gujrati, Bengali, Malayam and Marathi. In actual fact, Bengali developed fastest, but because it fell to the British earliest. The Maratha empire was already very weak due to poor rulers by the late 18th century, so I'd say they'd be out of the running. They'd have weakened and come under Mysore's sphere of influence. And (with apologies to my Marathi friends), it was never known for a strong intellectual culture even at its height anyway. So it would be down to Surat vs. Cochin. I'd give Malayalam and Gujarati a 50-50 chance.
So basically, you'd have, by 1860, a two major political powers (Punjab and Mysore), a few powerful port states (Surat, Cochin), and cultural dominance with three languages (Punjabi, Kannada and either Gujarati or Malayalam). Other states would scramble to follow their lead and modernize.
As you can see, the whole point of my answer is to argue that my native tongue, Kannada, would have been one of the winners.
Phase 4: Dominoes and Catch-Up
The effects of asymmetric development are hard to predict. Would Mysore and Punjab have gone to war to dominate the subcontinent? Would Maratha power have revived despite the weakness and infighting of the later Peshwas? Would a balance of power have emerged? Would they have mopped up the region between then?
I'll go with the second of the three as the most likely, simply because the technological leap-ahead would have been significant, but not decisive. In fact, the new technology was not decisively proven until the American Civil War.
So let's say that a Bismarck like figure would have emerged by 1860, perhaps from Punjab or Mysore. But more likely from one of the smaller states. Or from a revived Maratha nation in the middle. Let's go with the last option since the Marathas, while lacking a strong intellectual culture, did introduce a strong state culture under the Peshwas with capable diplomatic traditions and a region-wide presence, and an ability to bridge north and south (till today, Maharashtra is the only state that really manages to act as bridge between north and south Indian culture).
We have a major Bismarck type leader emerging from Maharashtra: Dhurendar Bhatavalekar (DB).
DB would stitch a subcontinent system of alliances for economic cooperation. Again, there is evidence in the real story. Early political leaders like Balgangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) who led the freedom movement to coalesce came from Maharashtra (and Gujrat... Gandhi).
As a result of DB's work, some loose India-wide political structure begins to emerge. Perhaps a grand train route from Amritsar to Mysore, via Raigadh.
Maybe development of the textile trade would have been pushed ahead, creating an East-West mercantile band from Surat to Calcutta, and passing through modern UP in the Ganges valley. This region would have been politically organized like the Dutch United Provinces and been considered neutral territory by the state poles perhaps.
Finally, the socio-cultural fabric of Hinduism (caste+Sanskrit) would have been seriously weakened by this point, especially since the two poles of early political development (Mysore and Punjab) would have had (likely very liberal, given their early histories) Muslim and Sikh political structures. Mysore might have developed like Turkey, Punjab perhaps like early modern Iran/Persia. Think Ataturk and the Shah. Separation of state and religion would have naturally accompanied technology-driven development, and the new urban centers would have had secular education systems.
Hindus, especially Brahmins, would most likely have dominated the educational institutions, the emerging modern banking system etc. as they did under the British as well. They would have done this under the patronage of Gujarati, Sindhi, Tamil-Chettiar and Marwari merchants in particular, who would have emerged as the leaders of the emerging industrial zones.
But not law. Law would have been the preserve of Sikh and Islamic communities, since both had evolved more modern traditions in that department compared to traditional Hindu law by the mid 1700s.
Eve of World War I
So around the eve of World War I, India would have looked like this:
World War I
Now, during World War I, what might have happened?
I predict: nothing. Industrial war was not yet powerful enough that India would have had to be dragged in. It would have stayed neutral.
But culturally and socially, BIG changes would have happened. With secularization already underway, communist and capitalist ideologies, as well as democratic whispers, would have started. Figures like Che or Bolivar would have emerged, driving for democratic reform and accountable government.
World War II
But for World War II, due to the rise of the Japanese, India could not have remained out of it. Chances are, during the 1930s, furious and murky diplomatic activity would have occurred in South Asia, with the Germans, Japanese, British and Americans attempting to form political and military alliances across India.
It is really hard to predict how alliances would have lined up. In reality, India fought with the British, but a strong freedom movement, the Indian National Army under S. C. Bose, went off to ally with the Japanese and marched on Burma with them.
So it is safe to say that of the 30-50 nation-states in existence at the time (about the number of states in modern India during its independent history), a few would have gone Axis, a few Allied, and a few would have remained neutral.
Can this pattern be predicted? It would take some serious mathematical modeling to do so, and such things have been done for predicting European alliances before World War II. But this would be FAR more difficult because we are talking simulating a complex sorting effect at the 200 year point of a counterfactual simulation.
All we can say is that there would likely have been some geographic logic to the alliances.
And then there would have been a true World War II in India, with some horrific violence.
Post World War II
After World War II, the states like Punjab and Mysore would have become increasingly weak. The densely populated industrial heartland in the north would have been the source of spreading democratic ideas, and one after the other, various states would have democratized.
By 1980, we would have had something like a far poorer, and much more diverse version of Western Europe. Okay, more like Eastern Europe or Latin America. Democracy would have penetrated to maybe 80% of the states. There would be an uneasy local economic community across the country. There would have been a dozen small wars of approximately the size of the 1965 India-Pakistan war.
The end of the Cold War would trigger an uneven development race to liberalize and develop in capitalist ways. It would have been very much like the rise of the SE Asian tigers, except democratic, because the Indian political temperament fundamentally does not allow Lee Kuan Yew style benevolent dictatorship to emerge for the greater good.
21st Century
So by the 21st century, we'd have something that looks much more diverse than what we have today.
I could go on, but I'll leave it at that. Once you get the basic contours of the couterfactual narrative down, you can easily supply the details.
Better or Worse?
The hardest part of a counterfactual like this is asking the money question. Would this trajectory have led to a better or worse outcome for the region?
I've given you a reasonable comparison case. You decide.
I personally would probably have been far better off, since my family is from a region that comes out better in this scenario.
Two big modeling assumptions (that I was going to justify in 2000 words, but then deleted....)
- Socially and culturally, India would have been as coherent as in the British storyline. Nothing except Islam has ever significantly disturbed the social organization of India.
- The fact that the Mughal empire was coming off its apogee at the time the British came on the scene suggests that the political organization would have been heading downhill towards fragmentation, with or without the British.
Let's set up the simulation and hit "Go."
Initial Conditions: It is 1756, Robert Clive is about to attempt a political intrigue and trigger the Battle of Plassey. The Mughal empire is crumbling. The Maratha confederacy is past its early revolutionary stage under Shivaji and is now a mature imperial force that blends Mughal and Hindu governance models, but still has a kind of guerrilla "sons of the soil" DNA, reflecting its origins in robust yeoman type stock.
Elsewhere, the Rajputs, Sikhs and Deccan Sultans (Mysore in particular) are consolidating.
Counterfactual Fork Point: Robert Clive is defeated at Plassey in 1756 due to betrayal by his co-conspirators Amir Chand, Nabakrishna Deb etc. He gets kicked out of Bengal.
Phase 1: Rejection of European Colonization: 1750-1760
As has very occasionally been the case, a clear and present foreign threat creates some brief political and military unity.
This is the 25% scenario, in 75% of the cases, India under foreign threat continues to squabble and allow divide-and-conquer entry tactics for the external force.
Many candidates exist, for unification catalyst. From Ranjt Singh in the Sikh kingdom (1789 - 1839) to Tipu Sultan in the south (1750 - 1799) there were quite a few candidates who might have led a loosely-unified-opposition effort.
It is important to note that during the crucial period when the Anglo-Sikh, Anglo-Maratha and Mysore wars were fought, the British did not have decisive military superiority. Tipu Sultan in fact was more advanced than the British in his use of rocket artillery for instance. The Sikh military machine was quite remarkable at its height.
In actual history, they all fought the British separately and lost. But let's assume that by 1810 or so, a loose temporary confederacy of Sikh, Maratha and Deccan rulers, along with the token presence of a weakened later Mughal, had managed to declare a temporary truce to kick out the British (and the French and the Portuguese). As part of the peace agreement, the Europeans would have had weak port rights (much weaker than in China).
Phase 2: Post-Rejection Fragmentation: 1760 - 1820
This is where it gets tricky. What happens next? The culture would have been strong and steady as it always has been in India (much more so than the political state), but the political integration would have been heading downhill, not uphill, from the Mughal peak.
18th and 19th century British maps (see the Penguin Historical Atlas of South Asia) show hugely fragmented political situations, with as many as 300 princely states of varying sizes at the most fragmented period.
So realistically, we'd have to say that once the Europeans had been kicked off, political anarchy (but not active war) would have returned. India was on of its inevitable downcycles of creative destruction at the time, as far as political unity goes.
This process would have taken about 60 years.
Phase 3: Patchy Modernization: 1820 - 1860
So during about 1820 - 1860, very patchy modern state development would have taken place.
Punjab and Mysore, for instance, would probably have modernized early, and introduced railways, telegraphs, Western style universities, maybe even separation of religion and state. This would in turn have given them local unbalanced power, and allowed for a certain amount of expansionism. So the 300 states might have been reduced to maybe 50-100, as alliances formed around and against the early-modernizing states.
At the same time, the Europeans would have hung around as traders if not rulers. So we can expect that the major trading regions of India: Gujarat, Bengal, Kerala and Punjab (overland) would have developed strong modern infrastructure at their interface points with the rest of the world. Port cities would have developed the way the International Settlements in China did, but with a more domestic flavor, leading to large cities like Shanghai.
Bombay, Madras and Calcutta would probably still have developed to some extent, but other cities might easily have beaten them (Surat, the primary Mughal era port), Kochi (historically the most important port for the spice trade) etc. might have been the Bombay and Calcutta.
The most crucial feature of this patchy modernization would have been the development of a few Indian languages ahead of the rest, as the languages of domestic development of science-and-technology based liberal education. I think THREE languages would have leaped ahead? Which three?
Two would likely have been Punjabi and Kannada, the languages of the Sikh and Mysore empires respectively. There would have been early modern universities set up in Amritsar and Mysore that would be like the Harvard and Yale of India. Among the rest, Urdu would have declined rapidly with the Mughals. Tamil as always would have been the wildcard, but I'd say it would have declined as well, since this was a historical low for Tamil power, with respect to Kannada/Telugu.
The third would likely have been one of the leading trading city-states. The candidates would have been Gujrati, Bengali, Malayam and Marathi. In actual fact, Bengali developed fastest, but because it fell to the British earliest. The Maratha empire was already very weak due to poor rulers by the late 18th century, so I'd say they'd be out of the running. They'd have weakened and come under Mysore's sphere of influence. And (with apologies to my Marathi friends), it was never known for a strong intellectual culture even at its height anyway. So it would be down to Surat vs. Cochin. I'd give Malayalam and Gujarati a 50-50 chance.
So basically, you'd have, by 1860, a two major political powers (Punjab and Mysore), a few powerful port states (Surat, Cochin), and cultural dominance with three languages (Punjabi, Kannada and either Gujarati or Malayalam). Other states would scramble to follow their lead and modernize.
As you can see, the whole point of my answer is to argue that my native tongue, Kannada, would have been one of the winners.
Phase 4: Dominoes and Catch-Up
The effects of asymmetric development are hard to predict. Would Mysore and Punjab have gone to war to dominate the subcontinent? Would Maratha power have revived despite the weakness and infighting of the later Peshwas? Would a balance of power have emerged? Would they have mopped up the region between then?
I'll go with the second of the three as the most likely, simply because the technological leap-ahead would have been significant, but not decisive. In fact, the new technology was not decisively proven until the American Civil War.
So let's say that a Bismarck like figure would have emerged by 1860, perhaps from Punjab or Mysore. But more likely from one of the smaller states. Or from a revived Maratha nation in the middle. Let's go with the last option since the Marathas, while lacking a strong intellectual culture, did introduce a strong state culture under the Peshwas with capable diplomatic traditions and a region-wide presence, and an ability to bridge north and south (till today, Maharashtra is the only state that really manages to act as bridge between north and south Indian culture).
We have a major Bismarck type leader emerging from Maharashtra: Dhurendar Bhatavalekar (DB).
DB would stitch a subcontinent system of alliances for economic cooperation. Again, there is evidence in the real story. Early political leaders like Balgangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) who led the freedom movement to coalesce came from Maharashtra (and Gujrat... Gandhi).
As a result of DB's work, some loose India-wide political structure begins to emerge. Perhaps a grand train route from Amritsar to Mysore, via Raigadh.
Maybe development of the textile trade would have been pushed ahead, creating an East-West mercantile band from Surat to Calcutta, and passing through modern UP in the Ganges valley. This region would have been politically organized like the Dutch United Provinces and been considered neutral territory by the state poles perhaps.
Finally, the socio-cultural fabric of Hinduism (caste+Sanskrit) would have been seriously weakened by this point, especially since the two poles of early political development (Mysore and Punjab) would have had (likely very liberal, given their early histories) Muslim and Sikh political structures. Mysore might have developed like Turkey, Punjab perhaps like early modern Iran/Persia. Think Ataturk and the Shah. Separation of state and religion would have naturally accompanied technology-driven development, and the new urban centers would have had secular education systems.
Hindus, especially Brahmins, would most likely have dominated the educational institutions, the emerging modern banking system etc. as they did under the British as well. They would have done this under the patronage of Gujarati, Sindhi, Tamil-Chettiar and Marwari merchants in particular, who would have emerged as the leaders of the emerging industrial zones.
But not law. Law would have been the preserve of Sikh and Islamic communities, since both had evolved more modern traditions in that department compared to traditional Hindu law by the mid 1700s.
Eve of World War I
So around the eve of World War I, India would have looked like this:
- Somewhere between 50-100 states of varying sizes, with the most powerful ones (kinda like France and Germany for Europe) being Punjab under the late Sikhs (covering modern Punjab in both India and Pakistan, as well as large parts of Rajasthan and UP) and Mysore under one of Tipu Sultan's successors (covering all four modern southern states: Karnataka, Andhra, Tamil Nadu and the interior parts of Kerala).
- Modernization would be spreading out from these early leader states in a domino effect. Mysore would have been Bangalore+Chennai combined.
- There would be very powerful port cities ruled by rulers with strong local power. They'd be in a constant state of tension with the hinterland countries wanting to take them over.
- There would be an emerging northern industrial band from Surat to Calcutta through the Ganges Valley, focused primarily on textiles and agricultural derivatives, but perhaps with some steel and oil in the east (as, in fact, happened under the British anyway). This would have been dominated by Gujaratis, Marwaris, Sindhis and Chettiars. Parsis would be a much smaller factor, since their rise to power had a lot to do with their more natural path to Europeanization (Persian culture being more European than Indian). Democracy would be slowly taking root in this band.
World War I
Now, during World War I, what might have happened?
I predict: nothing. Industrial war was not yet powerful enough that India would have had to be dragged in. It would have stayed neutral.
But culturally and socially, BIG changes would have happened. With secularization already underway, communist and capitalist ideologies, as well as democratic whispers, would have started. Figures like Che or Bolivar would have emerged, driving for democratic reform and accountable government.
World War II
But for World War II, due to the rise of the Japanese, India could not have remained out of it. Chances are, during the 1930s, furious and murky diplomatic activity would have occurred in South Asia, with the Germans, Japanese, British and Americans attempting to form political and military alliances across India.
It is really hard to predict how alliances would have lined up. In reality, India fought with the British, but a strong freedom movement, the Indian National Army under S. C. Bose, went off to ally with the Japanese and marched on Burma with them.
So it is safe to say that of the 30-50 nation-states in existence at the time (about the number of states in modern India during its independent history), a few would have gone Axis, a few Allied, and a few would have remained neutral.
Can this pattern be predicted? It would take some serious mathematical modeling to do so, and such things have been done for predicting European alliances before World War II. But this would be FAR more difficult because we are talking simulating a complex sorting effect at the 200 year point of a counterfactual simulation.
All we can say is that there would likely have been some geographic logic to the alliances.
And then there would have been a true World War II in India, with some horrific violence.
Post World War II
After World War II, the states like Punjab and Mysore would have become increasingly weak. The densely populated industrial heartland in the north would have been the source of spreading democratic ideas, and one after the other, various states would have democratized.
By 1980, we would have had something like a far poorer, and much more diverse version of Western Europe. Okay, more like Eastern Europe or Latin America. Democracy would have penetrated to maybe 80% of the states. There would be an uneasy local economic community across the country. There would have been a dozen small wars of approximately the size of the 1965 India-Pakistan war.
The end of the Cold War would trigger an uneven development race to liberalize and develop in capitalist ways. It would have been very much like the rise of the SE Asian tigers, except democratic, because the Indian political temperament fundamentally does not allow Lee Kuan Yew style benevolent dictatorship to emerge for the greater good.
21st Century
So by the 21st century, we'd have something that looks much more diverse than what we have today.
- There would be no Hindi (a bastardized made-up "national language"), just a dozen Hindi-like dialects in the fragmented north (Bhojpuri, Maithili, Hindustani...). These would be lagging about 100 years behind Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati etc. in terms of modernization, and most of the natives would be furiously learning one of the more modern regional languages as part of playing catch-up.
- There would be strong regional cultures in 4-5 major languages, including advanced technical education and scientific publishing in those languages, like Japanese or German. Students would come from around the country to study in these cultural centers. North Indians would flood into Amristar and get their PhDs done in Punjabi, likewise in Kannada in the south.
- There would be far greater economic diversity, with some states having leaped ahead like Korea, and others being like states in the most dysfunctional parts of sub-Saharan Africa, riven by civil war and conflict over mineral rights. What is today the "Maoist" band would still be roughly that way. There would be a lot of states at medium levels of development, like Malaysia or Indonesia, say.
- The advanced states (Punjab, Karnataka) would be near-first-World. They'd be winning at least a dozen Olympic medals each.
- Due to strong cultural and social factors, there would still be a major IT industry, but it would not have grown out of outsourcing or Y2K, or have been heavily reliant on English. It would have much more of a unique regional identity (like Russia, Israel or East Asia). Maybe companies like SAP would have emerged from South Asia, or an industry with high competence in languages and translation.
- There would be no Bollywood or Cricket. Instead, there'd be highly developed and distinct regional cinema and literary cultures in the leap-ahead languages.
- There would be a major political effort underway to unify South Asia along the lines of the EU, with currency unification, a free-trade zone, freedom to work anywhere in the region, etc.
- I wouldn't be Indian, I'd be Mysorean. I'd be writing this answer about "What if the British HAD conquered the region?" in Kannada. Some damn Punjabi would be rebutting my answer with his.
I could go on, but I'll leave it at that. Once you get the basic contours of the couterfactual narrative down, you can easily supply the details.
Better or Worse?
The hardest part of a counterfactual like this is asking the money question. Would this trajectory have led to a better or worse outcome for the region?
I've given you a reasonable comparison case. You decide.
I personally would probably have been far better off, since my family is from a region that comes out better in this scenario.