India

The Republic of India (Hindi: भारत गणराज्य Bhārat Gaṇarājya) is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world.

Home to the Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated there, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture.

Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread nonviolent resistance. However, at the same time, Muslim-majority areas were partitioned to form a separate state of East and West Pakistan. In 1971 a civil war resulted in East Pakistan becoming the independent nation of Bangladesh.

India is a republic consisting of 28 states and seven union territories with a parliamentary system of democracy.

Literary Comment
In the bulk of Harry Turtledove's works, the POD is prior to the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. For the purposes of this article, unless otherwise noted, "India" refers to the entire sub-continent.

India in After the Downfall
In looking for historical precedents to help him make sense of the strange world in which he found himself, Hasso Pemsel considered among others also the centuries-old British rule in India. This provided him with a example of a power which suceeded in an enterprise of imperial conquest and made it stick. Therefore, this example made Pemsel more inclined to throw his lot with the Lenelli and help their own war of conquest.

India in Atlantis
France controlled part of India until it was defeated by Britain in the mid 18th century. The whole of India passed into British hands. Indians were treated brutally at the hands of the British to curb the native urge for independence, an argument pro-slavery white Atlanteans would later use to advocate harsh treatment for rebelling slaves.

India in Curious Notions
In an alternate designated "3477" by Crosstime Traffic, India was a restive part of the world. German colonial troops resorted to machine gunning to put down a rebellion the late 21st century. Paul Gomes, a denizen of the home timeline, was chilled by an article in the San Francisco Chronicle which assured the readers that "only three white men" had been injured and none of them seriously.

Literary Comment
It is not specified if India had become an outright German colony, or remained a nominal part of a British Empire totally subservient to the Kaiser's Germany.

India in The Disunited States of America
India was considered one of the world's "great powers" in the late 21st Century, as it was equipped with nuclear weapons.

India in Gunpowder Empire
India was divided between two rival empires, both possessing gunpowder and cannon - evenly matched and able to hold their own in occasional wars with each other and with Persia to the west and China to the east. The two empires had some minor contacts with the Roman Empire further west.

India in In High Places
India was a critical trading hub in an alternate where the Great Black Deaths decimated 4/5 of the population of Europe.

India in Days of Infamy
When the Japanese entered the Second World War, India came under attack when the Japanese army invaded Burma. The Army of India was defeated and forced back into India itself, while the Japanese Navy forced the Royal Navy all the way back to Africa.

When the Japanese conquest of the Pacific was complete, Ceylon was subjected to numerous air raids. Footage of these raids were shown at the movies in occupied Hawaii.

After the Battle of El Alamein, the British were able to retake the offensive in India, bombing Rangoon.

India in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
India was taken over by the Greater German Reich following Germany's defeat of Britain early in World War II. India, which had had a pro-Axis anti-British stance, became a member state of the Germanic Empire and was administrated by the Colonial Ministry. As of 2010, India was the site of most of the Reich tea plantations.

Indians were declared Aryans by the Institute for Racial Studies, avoiding the persecution suffered by other conquered races. Indians were invited to study at German universities and were taught German culture.

India in Southern Victory
India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire during the 19th and 20th century. After the Great War, Britain's strength was greatly diminished, however their position in India was still strong.

In 1943, India came under threat when Britain's former ally Japan turned against them, and conquered the colonies of Malaya, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Many in the US believed if the Japanese did go after India, the British would be able to give them a difficult time in doing so.

Instead, Japan turned its attention to territory belonging to another former ally, Russian Siberia in 1945, leaving India be for the moment.

India in "The Daimon"
When Alkibiades gathered the grand alliance of Hellenes and set out to conquer Persia, his vision leaped even further and he anticipated (privately) that his future rule would extend all the way to India.

India in "The Last Article"
India was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1947, after a period of fierce guerrilla fighting led by British hold-outs. (Britain itself had fallen in 1941.) Mohandas Gandhi continued to employ techniques of Satyagraha against the occupation forces led by Field Marshal Walther Model. While the techniques may have worked well against the British, the Germans responded with violence. Despite Jawaharlal Nehru's urging that Gandhi to change tactics, Gandhi could not comprehend the horrific violence the Nazis were willing to employ, and refused. He was finally arrested and summarily executed by Model.

India in The Two Georges
India was the British Empire's most important holding next to the North American Union.

India's Princely States, in which native Indian rulers enjoyed considerable autonomy and controlled large territories - though under a clear ultimate British control - served as a model for giving a similar status to some of the Red Indian nations in the North American Union, such as The Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the Cherokee Nation in the southeastern part of the Union.

Ethiopia in Africa was a British possession subject to British India rather than directly to London or to one of Britain's other African holdings.

India in The War That Came Early
India became crucial to the British efforts against Japan during the Pacific conflict that began in early 1941. Arms and supplies were shipped from India to the China province of Yunnan throughout the summer of 1941. While it was a relatively small amount, it was enough to supply anti-Japanese forces in the province.

Unit 113, a bacteriological lab located in Burma, was able to release cholera baccilli and rodents infected with bubonic plague into Yunnan, which helped disrupt the rebels. Unit 113's comandant, Major Hataba, flushed with success, proposed a similar attack on India proper. However, that scheme was vetoed by the Japanese military, which realized that such an attack could have dire consequences if the British deduced what had happened.

After the end of the war in Europe, Bobbity Cranborne and Ronald Cartland met with Alistair Walsh in London and told him that Britain would have to let go of India. Walsh found the idea shocking, and it made him feel that losing India meant that the sun would at last go down on the British Empire. Cranborne told him that it was inevitable, given that the war had weakened Britain and strengthened nationalist in the Asian colonies; in India, both the Hindus under Gandhi and Nehru and the Muslims under Muhammad Ali Jinnah wanted the British to go, though once they have gone Hindus and Muslims might attack each other.

India in Worldwar
India had been a British colony for some time at the outset of World War II. When the Race's Conquest Fleet landed in 1942, it invaded India, overrunning all but the western most-half. Indians were divided on the question of whether to oppose the Race's invasion or use it as an opportunity to expel the British, as oppressed people across the world were doing with other governments. Mohandas Gandhi organized a non-violent resistance campaign in India against the Race throughout 1942. In 1944, after the British defeat in the Middle East, the Race ultimately defeated the British Forces in the Western portion and drove them out, claiming India as one of its Tosevite colonies. The claim was recognized by Britain and other major Tosevite not-empires under the Peace of Cairo.

In the years after the war, Indians frequently revolted against the Race's rule. The unrest rose in frequency beginning in 1964, when new crops and animals introduced by Lizard colonists caused famine throughout northern India. The ecological damage was something Atvar found to be unavoidable and didn't know how he could help avoiding it. One solution was relocating the locals from the affected areas but this created new problems as some of the locals would refuse to move. In addition, moving them to a currently inhabited area would only provoke more civil strife, and might deny them having having food since there would not be an excessive supply. Indeed, India was one of the most restive Race colonies on all of Tosev 3. Nonetheless, Indians, whose religious traditions were diverse and complex, accepted the Race's cult of emperor-worship when Atvar introduced it to Tosev 3 in 1965.

The Indian flag hung in the Emperor's throne room in Preffilo along with the flags of other Tosevite empires and not-empires conquered by Atvar, the pre-Race empires of Rabotev 2 and Halless 1, and the ancient empires on Home which were absorbed by the Ssumaz dynasty.