I was actually thinking something in regards to this just now. I was actually thinking that maybe influential pro-british Indian statesmen could actually ask for a member of the British royals as a way to keep economic ties to the island. Similar to how Mexico wanted to separate but share the same monarch as spain, but when that Idea fell through simply looked for another monarch, and after no luck simply made a general the Emporer....and then proclaimed a republic....and then an emporer..then republic again. Without all the back and forth though.
WI; British Raj continued under independent Emporer?
- Thread starter The Merovingian
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Yes. Be aware that millions of Indians fought in the name of the Mughal emperor against the British in the 1857 revolt. It just shows the depths of how strong the image of the Mughal Empire was, that even a century after its decentralization, millions still fought for him.
And they intermarried with local Indians, to the point that they were far more Indian than Uzbek, they promoted Indo-Islamic culture at their court, and they allowed Hindus to serve in the empire with little distinguishment for their religion. The Mughals were the first modern Indian state, and that image was never really forgotten.
And, of course, there was only really one truly bad Mughal ruler (rather than incompetent like Jahangir), which is a striking difference from the Emperors of India, who were not looked upon positively by the Indian population.
And how large is the Indian Christian population? It's hovering around one percent. Yes. One percent. That doesn't strike me as a very large amount of the population satisfied by a British emperor.
You are also deeply mischaracterizing Mughal rule. Other than a brief point under Alamgir, after Akbar, there was no jizya tax.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Given the track record of the Europeans when it came to the native Indian Christians, they'd rather pay the tax than have foreign missionaries harassing them and arresting them for practicing their traditions.
everything blue=Pro-british everything black=states in revolt. Let's not go painting the picture that every inch of India was trying to restore the Mughal emporer, he was simply the the obvious candidate for a figurehead for the revolution. In fact I remember reading that many Indian princes were very disrespectful to Bahadur (On 12 May 1857, Zafar held his first formal audience in several years after defeating. It was attended by several sepoys who treated him "familiarly or disrespectfully".) Many other princes either supported the British or were neutral. This gives the impression that his base of support was purely circumstancial. The period of British rule over the Mughals to my knowledge isn't characterized by many rebellions trying to reinstate Mughal Muslim authority, why would this be? I imagine it would be because many people especially Hindus weren't eager to see it return.
I don't see why a British dynasty couldn't intermarry with local Indians and be seen less and less as foreigners, do you truly think skin color is so important to people in India, were people range from pale to brown? Indian nationalism actually only came after this rebellion, and mostly in the middle class that only grew thanks in part to bum bum bum...the British, who took more direct control of governance after
the rebellion.
I said Indian Christians but on the greater whole I meant everyone not muslim as the Jizya was used on Hindus and buddists to. I'm not trying to characterize Mughal rule, it had its high point and low points, but lets not down play the rule of Auragzeb as a brief time when the jizya was reinstated. He also instituted the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri which from what I read "created a legal system that treated people differently based on their religion, social class and economic status." India is a large landmass of thousands of different ethnic groups, languages, and cultures. Lets not do those thousand a disservice by stating the period of Mughal rule was a golden age of race, and faith relations. I'm trying to argue from a point of realism not biased characterization, for the record I'm not British.
I wasn't trying to do that. I was just saying that, even a century after they were defeated, they still got a massive amount of support, which shows something about the longevity of their support.
This clearly shows that you misunderstand the nature of the Mughals. One of the things that separated Mughals from the Delhi Sultanate was that, apart from Alamgir, they treated Hindus and Muslims as equals, with several emperors even marrying Hindus without having them convert, and there were quite a few Hindu wazirs, or chief ministers.
And that tolerancd is why many Hindus were eager to see it return despite their religion. Sectarianism proved less important that being able to rule India themselves.
The British couldn't intermarry with Indians because they'd have to marry an Anglican, and as I noted, about one percent of India is Christian, as I noted. And even if they married that one percent of Indians, that very religion separates them from the rest of India, as does their heritage that goes back to the colonizers of India.
Also, the independent movement was caused by the English-speaking elite, not by any middle class. A major middle class only emerged in the 1990s.
In general, in modern historiography, "evil Alamgir" has been discredited, and the decentralization of the Mughal Empire has been put more on his expansionism, and much of his crimes, like banning music, has been caused by a single uncorroborated source.
Also, the Jizya tax was used much more to fund his conquests than out of some desire to hurt Hindus. That has become the consensus of modern historiography
Um, yes? But that's just one person. You can't just say that a long line of emperors is evil because one guy did some bad things.
It wasn't. It was just far better than those under British rule, and better than those today.
But, I think, here we need to separate British rule and Mughal rule. The Mughals ruled India as their centre of power, and so they took the approach of unifying the subcontinent behind them. It's why they ruled on the principle of sulh-i-kull, or universal peace, and it's why the groundwork of an Indian industrialization began to emerge under them. In fact, Mughal tolerance may have just been the case because it worked, not because the rulers were tolerant. On the other hand, British rule is based upon reinforcing divisions within society and the threat of force. They saw India as a land from which they could get resources, as a colony, and colonies are never really treated well. And that is why the Mughals held much greater prominence in Indian myth and public consciousness than the British ever did.
So let me just say before I get started that I'm very happy to have someone who was so interested in my thread. I didn't think that this would get many responses let alone a very nice conversation to boot. I'm deeply honored you've felt so inclined to take the time out of your busy day to respond as you have. Let me also say this; I'm not British or going to try to ignore the atrocities the Brits did committed throughout the tenure of the empire. My mother is a full-blooded Yapese woman whos island history is characterized my being claimed by the spanish, sold to Germany, the japanese and is now a part of the FSM (Federated States of Micronesia). In fact I was born in Yap, but left when my father wanted me to have an American education in his home state; Washington. He is admittedly of British ancestory according to the Ancestry.com DNA test I took a year ago. I tell you this only so that you don't think I'm some Pro-British empire apologist, they did some things good, they did some things badly..even very badly. I am however under the opinion that they did more good than bad even during the British Raj.
Here your just plain wrong, several Englishmen married into Indian families and took Indian wives. Read " The White Mughals" by William Dalrymple, and there is nothing in the Anglican faith that says an Anglican can only marry an Anglican. You also say "that very religion separates them from the rest of India, as does their heritage that goes back to the colonizers of India" This is a blatant disregard for the history of the subcontinent, and you should be ashamed of this. On a purely sociological level The British were no different from the EARLY Mughals, or most early Muslim kingdoms. The Uzbek ancestors of the Mughals were as much 'colonizers' as the British and I've already proven that there was already a slow mingling of people, society is not so simple as "yeah but he's white." As for the Christian part of your arguemnt. Christianity is as foreign to India as Islam, and reached to continent first I might add (20-40 A.D). You would be right to say they never exercised as much historical influence as the Muslim faith I wouldn't argue there, but the Mughals are just an example of a minority ruling a Majority, and they had more wars, and more rebellions than their British counterparts. By that logic hindus were right to look at the Mughals as outsiders.
Is this a justification of the Jizya? I'm not saying he was malicious, just to orthodox in his faith. Taxing Hindus that don't want to kill Hindus so you can kill Hindus is not basis for good governance, but can last a long time in the memories of those you tax, and conquer.
I think this can be broken down into a perspective based argument. Bahadur was in my opinion..a figurehead for the rebelion..a scapegoat. He and the sepoys who raised him up had (despite their support) no were near the kind of support needed in india to proclaim a republic, and a national indian consciousness didn't come into being until the growing of the middle class MUCH later. One could even make the argument that its more impressive the British East Indian company despite some of the more racist overtones of their rule, were able to garner as much support as they did, especially amongst the nobility whom for the most part either supported the Brits or stayed neutral. Just my opinion on the matter.
You know I'm not even gonna argue on a couple of points to this. I'm not a Far east, or Indian histories major and I certainly didn't write a thesis on the Mughals but....whats you're point? I'm sorry if you think I'm accusing the Mughals of intolerance, I don't believe I ever wrote that, but try for a bit to understand something outside the realm of simple characterizations of Tolerance. No sihks for the most part are happy that their Guru's were martyred and killed by the Mughals and people (in general) have long memories, this rings true for hindus who had their Temples destroyed or Muslims who died at the expense of territorial conquest. Even Akbar was not above killing rowdy hindus or princes to drive home a message. I don't think the last thing on anybody's mind was " well at least it wasn't racially or religiously motivated." We didn't live to walk in the shoes of many under Mughal rule. I will not argue that the Mughals were (for the most part) tolerant, they were (for the most part). But they did have their bouts of brutal intolerance and discriminatory practices. Aurangzeb levied discriminatory taxes against hindu merchants outside of of the Jizya, and the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri formed the basis for Mughal governance from him onward. He was Emporer number 9...of 19.
Here your just plain wrong, several Englishmen married into Indian families and took Indian wives. Read " The White Mughals" by William Dalrymple, and there is nothing in the Anglican faith that says an Anglican can only marry an Anglican. You also say "that very religion separates them from the rest of India, as does their heritage that goes back to the colonizers of India" This is a blatant disregard for the history of the subcontinent, and you should be ashamed of this. On a purely sociological level The British were no different from the EARLY Mughals, or most early Muslim kingdoms. The Uzbek ancestors of the Mughals were as much 'colonizers' as the British and I've already proven that there was already a slow mingling of people, society is not so simple as "yeah but he's white." As for the Christian part of your arguemnt. Christianity is as foreign to India as Islam, and reached to continent first I might add (20-40 A.D). You would be right to say they never exercised as much historical influence as the Muslim faith I wouldn't argue there, but the Mughals are just an example of a minority ruling a Majority, and they had more wars, and more rebellions than their British counterparts. By that logic hindus were right to look at the Mughals as outsiders.
I don't Believe that Alamgir was by his nature Evil, simply ultra orthodox in his faith, and that he ruled with that orthodoxy in mind. His own father when the Taj Mahal was being built was straining the already considerable budget of the Empire, it doesn't surprise me that he instated the Jizya and installed an extra tax on Hindu merchants, but those actions, along with his disastrous Deccan campain which never fully pacified the southern indian states dogged the Mughals till its dying days. What is this single uncorroborated source of false hearsay?
Is this a justification of the Jizya? I'm not saying he was malicious, just to orthodox in his faith. Taxing Hindus that don't want to kill Hindus so you can kill Hindus is not basis for good governance, but can last a long time in the memories of those you tax, and conquer.
He was emporer #9...of 19, and the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri did not disappear after he died, and served as the basis of governance in the Mughal empire years after he died.
A principle is not a law, and if the law does not reflect the principle, all the worse.
This is HEAVILY opinionated. But then again most arguments are. Here our opinions also diverge, but for a variety of reasons. First of all the British Indian Empire, and the Mughal Empire were NEVER equals in my opinion. The British Raj ruled ALL of India, the Mughals dominated the North, and at its Territorial Height under Aurangzeb ruled much, but not all of the south. Yet even that rule was characterized by loose association rather than dominance, which is why they quickly declined thereafter. The Vijayanagara had a longer lasting cultural impact in the south, and not to the benefit of the Mughals. After the Sepoy rebellion there were no major challenges to British rule within India, which let to the direct rule of the crown which in tern introduced something the mughals NEVER did compulsory education, and it is from this that is the foundation for the industrialization of India. The mughals greatest contributions to (northern) India as a whole tend to be their monuments, quisine, and promotion of (semi) tolerance. You claim the Mughals created the foundation for later industrialization in India..maybe if you stretch that to mean they started trading with the British, but they weren't the first Indian rulers to do so. I respect and like many modern aspects of the mughals legacy, and the tolerance of Akbar is a model for modern faith relations. They didn't create modern India nor set up it's foundation, no more than the Vijayangara. That being said, people's opinions are typically defined all about what they value, you probably value other parts of society then me. This is a good exchange of ideas though,If I'm missing something please let's keep talking, this is a good learning experience for me
By that I'm assuming you are saying that the British did more good for themselves because if you are saying they did more good for Indians, then you are wrong
I don't really see the relevance of your heritage in the discussion of history.
Anyways, let's analyze the pros and cons of British rule:
Pros: The British made a good railway system.
Cons: Mughal hospitals were destroyed.
Mughal industry (karkhanas) were wiped out.
India's fraction of GDP in relation to the world went from 25% to just over 10%.
Massacres of the Sepoys and of many in the later independence movement.
The promoting of sectarianism as part of a philosophy of divide and rule.
The destruction of Punjabi schools (I'm not kidding, Punjab had a most impressive school system before the British came)
Taking India's resources without any fair trade with those who made it.
Martial race theory (I swear, I've tried to read British histories of India, but then martial race theory shows up and I can't read any more)
And I can keep going, but clearly the bad more than outweighs the good. It's just the sad truth about colonialism, that it is evil and undefencible. British colonialism was no worse than that of the French or the Americans, and it was better than that of the Japanese, the Portuguese, or the Spanish, but colonialism is fundamentally based upon racism and tyranny.
Bahadur Shah Zafar was, on the contrary, a well-liked man despite his age. He held the traditional Mughal values of syncretism and believed Hinduism to be as great a religion as Islam. And like most Mughals, he was a borderline heretic, claiming descent through the sun through the Mongol princess Alanquwa, and was a tolerant person. He was also a pretty good leader - people like to deride him about his poetry, but poetry was a core part of Indian life before the British came, and a big part of diplomacy before the British came was poetry, strangely enough. And ultimately, British forces conducted a siege of the imperial palace, turning it into the ruins it is today, just in order to remove him from power.
The whole "Mughals were evil because they broke temples" stuff represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how the subcontinent worked. Destroying the temples of one's enemies was a fundamental part of Indian politics ever since late antiquity. If you look, you'll also find examples of Mughals setting aside money in their treasuries to repair and build new temples for their allies (which they had a lot of).
Also, while Akbar was a ruthless leader and I have little doubt that he killed many Hindus, he treated his Muslim enemies in precisely the same ruthless manner. And if you were a Hindu allied to any Mughal emperor from Akbar to the later Mughals, you were given large benefits from land to administrative posts. The Rajputs prospered very well under Mughal rule for that reason. And even Alamgir, for all that he's attacked for being intolerant, had more Hindus work in his administration than in any other time in the empire's history.
And universal peace was a Mughal law for most of its history after Akbar, with the exception of Alamgir, of course.
I've read "The White Mughals", and the book reaches the conclusion that those syncretic attitudes between Britain and India totally died out in the nineteenth century, as the British began to see Mysore and by extension other independent Indian powers as Jacobins (as Tipu Sultan was allied to Revolutionary France), and as institutionalized racism emerged. Also, in regards to the royal family, no, they can't marry non-Anglicans. Just look at the shit that happened when King Edward married Wallis Simpson, a Catholic. If a member of the British royal family tried to marry a "pagan" or "Mohammedan" hoo boy.
Also, are you really alleging that Islam is foreign to India? It's the religion of over thirty percent of the Indian subcontinent, it's been in some part of the Indian subcontinent for over a millennium, it's exerted influence on local traditions, et cetera.
And Mughals were not seen as outsiders to the subcontinent. In fact, I've read quite a few Hindu sources on the Mughals, and they all see the Mughals as Indian. Even those few that look upon them negatively see the Mughals as Indian. The Mughals are Uzbeks in the same way that the British royal family are Hanoverian: Yes, they originally came from there, but that old land has been almost entirely forgotten, and now they're as native to this country as anything else.
This is HEAVILY opinionated. But then again most arguments are. Here our opinions also diverge, but for a variety of reasons. First of all the British Indian Empire, and the Mughal Empire were NEVER equals in my opinion. The British Raj ruled ALL of India, the Mughals dominated the North, and at its Territorial Height under Aurangzeb ruled much, but not all of the south. Yet even that rule was characterized by loose association rather than dominance, which is why they quickly declined thereafter. The Vijayanagara had a longer lasting cultural impact in the south, and not to the benefit of the Mughals. After the Sepoy rebellion there were no major challenges to British rule within India, which let to the direct rule of the crown which in tern introduced something the mughals NEVER did compulsory education, and it is from this that is the foundation for the industrialization of India. The mughals greatest contributions to (northern) India as a whole tend to be their monuments, quisine, and promotion of (semi) tolerance. You claim the Mughals created the foundation for later industrialization in India..maybe if you stretch that to mean they started trading with the British, but they weren't the first Indian rulers to do so. I respect and like many modern aspects of the mughals legacy, and the tolerance of Akbar is a model for modern faith relations. They didn't create modern India nor set up it's foundation, no more than the Vijayangara. That being said, people's opinions are typically defined all about what they value, you probably value other parts of society then me. This is a good exchange of ideas though,If I'm missing something please let's keep talking, this is a good learning experience for me
You're right. The Mughals and the British Raj are not equal. The Mughals treated Hindus and Muslims equally, seeing tolerance as a must for the empire to survive. They saw the rise of karkhanas, or factories, and they saw the rise of modern Indian culture. They were arguably the first modern Indian state, yet they sadly collapsed due to overexpansion, financial issues, and Nader Shah's invasion. On the other hand, while they were larger, the British saw no great rises in new cultures, they destroyed Mughal hospitals and factories, and they left the subcontinent with a half-assed partition that led to the death of a million people. Clearly, the Mughals are far greater despite their smaller size.
And the Mughals did see the rise of industry. Karkhanas were proto-factories, which probably could have turned into full-fledged factories. Yet, the karkhanas were destroyed, as the British didn't want competition. The same fate fell to Mughal hospitals and Punjabi schools.
I also don't understand why you think there was a middle class under British rule. There wasn't. Society was stratified into the English-speaking upper class, and everyone else. A real middle class didn't emerge until the market reforms in the 1990s.
Personally, I think that it is possible (harder to get Parliament to agree mind) - with an Indianising Monarchy that has to be very religiously tolerant to survive without converting.
To get Parliament sold however? I think you'd have to form a micro-UN/NATO (Or well, Imperial Treaty Organisation?). The United Kingdom, and United India as members, as equals, with a joint military and foreign policy. As long as the two are equals - that could be a long term working arrangement that takes the responsibility for India off of Parliaments hands and into the hands of the Government of United India.
Inevitably Canada and Australia would probably want equal status to India (which is interesting, having different Heads of State for each might a consequence), which could lead to the hilarious situation of India siding WITH Britain to ensure that Australia, Canada (et al) get Second Tier status, so they could be overridden.
A dynasty of Anglo-Indian rulers with a mix of Hindu & Anglican Emperors would be an interesting situation. I wonder if rather than fights along religious grounds, you'd have it over conservative vs monarchy grounds - where you have young people emulating the styles and habits of a popular monarchy (which is uniquely Indian and European, in equal parts), vs those who make a point of drinking Indian booze in moderation, vs the perhaps more decadent 'Booze Culture' of a younger generation getting lashed on the equivalent of Jaegerbombs.
(Side Note : Imperial Treaty Organisation does lead me to hearing the Canadian, British, Australian, Indian and (South?) African Empires as legit entities, which makes me think of South & East Africa backed by the rest invading French Territory all "FOR THE EMPIRE" as an Anglo-African Dynasty emerges. Garrick Zulu/Shaka Windsor anyone?)
To get Parliament sold however? I think you'd have to form a micro-UN/NATO (Or well, Imperial Treaty Organisation?). The United Kingdom, and United India as members, as equals, with a joint military and foreign policy. As long as the two are equals - that could be a long term working arrangement that takes the responsibility for India off of Parliaments hands and into the hands of the Government of United India.
Inevitably Canada and Australia would probably want equal status to India (which is interesting, having different Heads of State for each might a consequence), which could lead to the hilarious situation of India siding WITH Britain to ensure that Australia, Canada (et al) get Second Tier status, so they could be overridden.
A dynasty of Anglo-Indian rulers with a mix of Hindu & Anglican Emperors would be an interesting situation. I wonder if rather than fights along religious grounds, you'd have it over conservative vs monarchy grounds - where you have young people emulating the styles and habits of a popular monarchy (which is uniquely Indian and European, in equal parts), vs those who make a point of drinking Indian booze in moderation, vs the perhaps more decadent 'Booze Culture' of a younger generation getting lashed on the equivalent of Jaegerbombs.
(Side Note : Imperial Treaty Organisation does lead me to hearing the Canadian, British, Australian, Indian and (South?) African Empires as legit entities, which makes me think of South & East Africa backed by the rest invading French Territory all "FOR THE EMPIRE" as an Anglo-African Dynasty emerges. Garrick Zulu/Shaka Windsor anyone?)
Sorry if me telling you about my heritage put you off, I was just trying to set this conversation in a friendly tone by letting you know I wasn't trying to argue from a point of racial or regional bias, lets try to keep things friendly ok
.now to address your pro's and con's; One pro...really...now your blatantly being biased.
Pros: The British made a country wide damn good railway system.
Created the Asiatic society of Bengal to preserve indian monuments
Abolished a little thing called the 'Sati'....are you sad this is gone, or did you deliberately not mention this?
Restrained child marriage....are you sad this is gone, or did you deliberately not mention this?
Fought for the emancipation of women, and allowed women to remarry....are you sad this is gone, or did you deliberately not mention this?
The compulsory vaccination act passed in 1892 saved MILLIONS of lives in India...this if anything deserves to be hailed as something good, if there is any good worth mentioning it is this.
The cons you listed are worthy of being remembered as black stains on the history of the British empire but I'm confused about the "Massacres of the Sepoys and of many in the later independence movement." Are you talking about the Indian Rebellion of 1857? The same one that saw the Sepoy rebels kill other indians, and extort those that did not comply?
What are you arguing here? Why are you bringing in his age? I never said that he was a zealot or that his religious views weren't neutral, he was still the Mughal emperor, the Empire hadn't been dissolved yet, of course he was still well liked and respected. However I was saying he was nothing more than a figurehead and had no real power, in fact I feel bad he was forced to get involved at all. When the sepoys sentenced the Europeans in his court to death, he protested which I find admirable. Didn't matter, they killed the Europeans to implicate him, does that sound like respect to you, does that sound like power?
I think this discussion has degenerated to a point that you think I'm accusing the Mughals of being evil, did you get that impression from an earlier part of our discussion? If so I didn't mean to, I just don't think they lived up to their concept of universal peace. You continually seem to want to push the narrative that Hindu's and Muslims were absolute equals in Mughal society, if so why did the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri create a cast system with Muslims on top? Aurangzeb levied discriminatory taxes on Hindu merchants at the rate of 5% as against 2.5% on Muslim merchants. He ordered to dismiss all Hindu quanungos and patwaris from revenue administration. The taxes on merchants are vague, can you tell me if this stopped after he died? A lot of administrative documents have been lost, but his successors were known to be ineffective, and sometimes puppets I would enjoy it greatly if you could tell me were this formally ended imminently after Aurangzeb died.
Oh boy were to begin
. I feel your deliberately ignoring what I'm writing, and more importantly what YOU'RE writing. You said "The British couldn't intermarry with Indians because they'd have to marry an Anglican" You sound like you're describing the British as a people here, not just the Royal family, and as "The White Mughals" proves, there was nothing stopping them. You are also doing this thing were your ignoring the Thread . My original question was WI the British Raj continued under a different Dynasty, the implication being that it would be more autonomous, and therefore better overall for the children of Bharat. Why on earth would a different dynasty under a different government be bound to the Succession of the Crown act of 1707? Why are you so intent on making this thread say "Who was better Brits or Mughals?" I'm not gonna change the title, that wasn't my question, I know its sensitive issue. I think somewhere along the way we both felt we needed to defend a certain viewpoint, and I'm not quite sure were we are going with this.Thirty Percent!?! Hot damn if it was a Native religion it would be WAY higher. Maybe you don't use the standard term for foreign that I use. Did it originate in India...was Muhammad from India...no, and Neither was Christianity, but Christianity was there first since of that you can be sure. Then you reiterate the cultural influence of Islam in India....like I was arguing about it....why?
Let me rephrase the original thread question
Does anybody here think that at some point a different British Dynasty could have been made to rule The British Raj before or after the Sepoy Rebellion? When do you think this could have happened? Do you think administration would have provedn easier? Assuming they eventually intermarried with Hindu/muslim royalty how do you think the world would have reacted..that sort of thing.
For the record. Saying "No, because Mughals>British." Isnt the kind of answer I think makes for interesting discussion on a WI thread.
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The difference is, of course, that those foreign monarchs either weren't from countries that subjugated the country in question or they didn't happen in the age of democracy.
Honestly I think for a independent Indian Empire being set up, we need the British Parliament and government, decide to seek Indian independence, while trying to keep India connected with UK. So what we need is the recognisation pretty early (before WWI at the very least) that British Indian are not viable in the long term and decides to set up the necessary institutions to keep India pro-British and connected to UK. I think that's pretty close to ASB, but it's not entirely impossible.
I was listening to you credibly until you blamed the British for partition. Partition happened because Nehru insisted on a centralised, socialist state, and the Muslim League refused to live in a state dominated by Hindus. Then when the British did their best to keep as many people as possible in the "right" state, the Muslims and Hindus started slaughtering each other to change the state of play on the ground, and indulged in a lot of rape as a weapon of war in the process.
Anyone that thinks its the British that come out of that awful tragedy as the morally reprehensible ones just has a massive Anglophobic chip on their shoulder.
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Perhaps we'd need Company rule to be butterflied away and have the British government directly involved in the colonization of India?
But we are talking about the 20th century here. Installing a foreign guy as ruler became a lot less acceptable. (Note that the Greeks finally abolished the monarchy.) Even native monarchies often failed, if the monarch was viewed as too much of a foreign puppet (consider Bao Dai in Vietnam).
That would demand a radical change of the model of European colonisation into a context which would pretty much ensure that other countries would win out in India.
You don't think Indians wouldn't have tried to preserve their monuments?
It was already abolished by the Mughals, and later Indian states, and then it was upheld by the Sikhs and Marathas. I've never understood why people think the British abolished it. I mean, sure, they upheld it, but they don't get points for abolishing it from me. That honour goes to Alamgir - one reason we can't view his reign in black and white terms. In fact, he did so in the Fatwa-i-Alamgiri, which is your go-to when you want to explain how evil the Mughals were.
What are you implying here?
I also don't understand these points. British rule of India began before child marriage fell out of favour, before the rise of women's rights movements, and before vaccination was perfected. So, I don't think it's very reasonable to include that as benefits of being a British colony, considering I do think Indians could have achieved that themselves.
Also, I heavily doubt that the millions saved by vaccines would even out the tens of millions killed in famines caused by the mismanagement of the British. It's rather striking that India, which historically did a good job of feeding its own population, suddenly descends into famine as the British conquer it.
So yes, British rule was far, far worse than native rule. Not that the blame goes solely on the British, of course. Colonialism is fundamentally based upon tyranny, and British colonialism was no different.
Your point? My entire point was that people rallied around him, despite how the British used him and his predecessors as puppets, and that it shows the strength of the national myth of the Mughals. None of this goes against it.
Ignoring the clear bias against the sepoys, yes, and also the later independence movement. It is often forgotten that many of the early protests were fired upon by the British, and only when members of the elite began to organize those protests, they began to stop firing upon them.
And rather strikingly, the massacre I linked happened right after Indians fought in the First World War, and right after India served to be an important breadbasket for Britain. So, it's truly a fitting way to thank India for its help in victory.
Hindus and Muslims were absolute equals most of the time. Hindus were the grand viziers of the empire, they financed the empire and Alamgir's entire revolt was financed by Hindus and Jains, Hindus came into the administration at a startling rate, and Hindus were selected as governors and generals. I even recall reading several Mughal poems that go as far as to proclaim Hinduism equal to Islam, something that I have always found rather striking and modern. And the fact that all of this was done in the same era as the Inquisition of Europe is even more startling.
And yes, the jizya was repealed by Bahadur Shah I, Alamgir's successor, because Indians discovered themselves that it was a bad idea. Honestly, the view that every ruler after Alamgir was a weak puppet or ineffective doesn't make much sense. Sure, you had the Sayyid brothers and Muhammad Shah's total defeat by Nader Shah, but you also had several resurgences. Bahadur Shah I, if he had lived longer, probably could have saved the empire, and numerous other rulers also saw resurgences and possible revivals - the last being Bahadur Shah Zafar. And you also saw ineffective rulers before Alamgir, like Jahangir, who was effectively a puppet of his smart and competent wife Nur Jahan.
Oh boy were to begin
My apologies. I merely meant the royalty. No, for everyone else, biases and racism are the main barrier.
Dalrymple also notes that, after the eighteenth century, new attitudes made such meetings like that between Kirkpatrick and the Hyderabadi princess impossible.
The White Mughals said:
The White Mughals said:
So, such attitudes declined over the 1800s. You'd need a really early POD to continue this syncretism, but such an early POD may very well result in Tipu Sultan beating the British, or the Sikh Empire defeating the British, or a resurgent Maratha Empire halting the British advance, and, well, you get the point.
I never made this about whether the Mughals are better than the British. I merely said that a Mughal emperor is far more likely than an emperor from the House of Hanover, which is something I stand by.
The thing is, Islam is as much an Indian thing as Christianity is a European thing. Sure, it doesn't originate from there, but it has shaped the subcontinent so tremendously, with Muslims playing a truly substantial role in creating its modern culture. Be aware that a united India would have more Muslims than any other country in the world, and that's the case for a reason.
Formerly foreign cultures have always made their way in India and became Indianized while also altering India itself, from the Greeks, to the Scythians, to the Kushan, to the Hepthalites. Islam is no different from any of those things, and you may as well refer to the Rajputs as foreign if you consider Islam the same.
This could have happened, if the dominion model was based upon local kings rather than confederations of colonies ruled by the same king. But such a dominion would likely be thrown off, much like the OTL Dominion of India, as the authority of the British weakened. There would be no intermarriage with Hindu/Muslim royalty as the royal family only ever marries Anglicans, and when something goes against it, like King Edward marrying Wallis Simpson, a Catholic, expect fireworks.