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A shameful episode and I’m glad to see efforts already well afoot to consign it to the dustbin of history. Let’s hope the proverbial moral arc bends a little bit tighter towards justice this time around.
 
Well, @BigBadBob, this is a cracker of an AAR, a real treat. I love the familiar feel of your world, despite the butterflies that are running away in your TL.

Vic 2 being Vic 2, I have to confess that I am enjoying the geopolitics more than the domestics, although that is entirely my preference and both are very well written. The whole has the feel of an academic text, and your updates have the authoritative tone of @El Pip's style, the highest compliment that I can bestow...
 
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The iberian nations must have been gutted when it happened. They had finally restored their empires with huge and wealthy African colonies, only to be almost immediately press ganged into an alliance against the two major colonial empires and the US. Whatever ended up happening in the war to come, they must have known that the UK wasn't going to ve defeated or invaded, and thus would probably keep everything they managed to seize during the war, which very likely would include most if not all of Africa.

The new world order after that great war will be an interesting one indeed, especially if the British do gain even more of Africa (probably not everything, to get the iberians or at least the Portuguese back on side) and thus have to figure out even more legislation and voting rights for new, pretty much wholly black and African colonies. This could well make the SA situation, far from a duel of wits between the ANP and the white gov, the big issue of the post war federation, since it would inevitably stretch to include all 'native' rights and voting causes across the map.

It would be a mess, yet would also lead to a swifter and possibly juster solution that could well end up saving the federation from eventually seccession.

There is a lot of hubris going around amongst potential enemies to the British World System during the late-Boer War and its immediate aftermath (cf. the Ottomans and Italy), so Spain was at least partially swept up in that, but Portugal is definitely a reluctant participant in the whole endeavour.

Today's update will show how there are definitely already local people looking at South Africa and seeing a genuinely multiracial Federation, rather than a continuation of empire in all but name. The question is the extent to which the existing Federation, if and when an end comes to the Colour Bar, is willing to make that a reality, or to treat South Africa as a one-off where they went a little too fast and ended up having to *gasp* practice what they preach about an inclusive, civilising Britain.

I am reminded of Tolkien's comment to his son about the situation in South Africa in one of his letters:

"As for what you say or hint of ‘local’ conditions: I knew of them. I don't think they have much changed (even for the worse). I used to hear them discussed by my mother; and have ever since taken a special interest in that part of the world. The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort[unately], not many retain that generous sentiment for long."

The last sentence being particularly pertinent.

God, I love that man. This is a great companion piece to his response when the German publisher of the Hobbit inquired about his heritage.

It is a very 'convenient' system for whites, and those who pass as such. Intoxicating for sure. I recall when my grandfather and father had south Africans as classmates, the bullying was intense. However, whilst the british were a weird symbol of hope for some non-whites in SA, and the british had no end of disdain for SA's policies, they did bugger all to stop it and quietly accepted it (and in cases of commonwealth immigration, Windrush generation etc, aspired to copy the practice themselves).

Probably a good example of majoring in Western hypocrisy.

ITTL, there's a similar hypocrisy to the whole thing, doubly so as the British part of the white population is the majority part this time around. The Anglo-Africans putting the blame on the Boer population is very much 'Oh, woe is me. For the sake of the nation, I must do something that happens to align exactly with my own preferences.'

I'm just kind of wondering about the demographics at this point. IRL, at the turn of the 20th century, for every white man there was in the Transvaal, there was somewhere between 1 or 2 blacks in the republic. Considering that both republics were mentioned as majority white, and I'm assuming that the Cape is now majority British, I'm just left wondering where that majority black population is? The Cape is still filled to the brim with Coloureds (and if you consider them "black" it's just rather cheap, they too joined in on the Great Trek), so it has to be the Xhosa and Zulu making up most of it, with the Swasi and Sotho backing up another large part. Can't imagine the Cape being split at this point, so the other commonwealths must be Bechunaland and Rhodesia (and whatever Namibia might be called as I recall the Brits taking it), which would be the only way for it to work.

But going on quotes, I can recall one from Verwoerd, and I can very well understand the sentiment, that in the multiracial South Africa, not only would the Afrikaners be disenfranchised, but also the British, Coloureds and Indians. Together, they only make up 20% of the population, and since the end of Apartheid, the ANC has ruled without any threat.

In hindsight, I should have put far more thought into the full demographics of SA ITTL. If I had done so, I definitely wouldn't have made the republics majority-white, but hey, what's written (and commented on) is written.

Now for some ad hoc justification; overall, it's much the same as IOTL, although the higher level of British migration into SA means that the non-black population is closer to 35% of the whole. The Anglo-Africans are fairly evenly distributed, although the centre of population is very much the Cape. The Great Trek was more intense on the part of the Boers, but less so on the part of everyone else.

Just going off the actual save-files, Natal is actually the most populous state in the Imperial Commonwealth of South Africa, and by far the one with the smallest share of whites.

I wonder if the South Africans will
Live to regret agreeing to federation with Britain, if the ANPers succeed in bringing their challenge through the High Court - even if they will have to wait for some time yet.

I suspect there'll be regrets all round once the case does finally make its way to the Lords. Even should right win the day, the public exposure and dissection of such shameful practice (and the rank hypocrisy of London) will leave quite a bitter taste in the mouth.

Well...i suppose the inevitable with a federation is uniformity of law and suffrage, at least in the commonwealth realms. 'Colonies', crown dependencies and basically the Raj might get away with some discrepancy or stonewalling, but commonwealths won't. Remember they all meet up in the same parliment now and your peers will censure you if you're obviously flaunting the spirit of the law/suffrage order.

South Africa is basically looking at OTL levels of international and federation condemnation, pretty much as soon as the war is over. I don't know how long they'll mange to keep it going, but I would estimate a decade or so rather than nearly a century. Especially if the Great Depression hits and the federation suddenly has SA over a barrel. But I think apartheid isn't going to work in a federal system for long (indeed, I don't expect the Raj system to last for much longer without some adjustment/partitioning).

You are very much correct that a system (at least the blatant racial requirements of the Colour Bar) created for Federation is also far less likely to survive in Federation.

The 1900s have a lot of hard and fast domestic and geopolitical moves from a lot of actors that are the result of being swept up in big ideas (Imperial Federation/The Anglo-American Destiny/Britain is beatable). The war is, if possible, even more pivotal ITTL than IOTL because coming three years early means it also comes before any of these big moves have really had time to settle into equilibrium. It's akin to an absolutely massive rock thrown into a lake already full of waves from previous big rocks.

A shameful episode and I’m glad to see efforts already well afoot to consign it to the dustbin of history. Let’s hope the proverbial moral arc bends a little bit tighter towards justice this time around.

Let's hope.

Well, @BigBadBob, this is a cracker of an AAR, a real treat. I love the familiar feel of your world, despite the butterflies that are running away in your TL.

Vic 2 being Vic 2, I have to confess that I am enjoying the geopolitics more than the domestics, although that is entirely my preference and both are very well written. The whole has the feel of an academic text, and your updates have the authoritative tone of @El Pip's style, the highest compliment that I can bestow...

Thanks. I've personally always enjoyed AARs where things don't go completely off the rails and, were you dropped into that world's 2020, the feeling would be more like your furniture was rearranged without warning than your whole room ceasing to exist. It's why I love Vic II; it's close enough to the present to have an AAR like that, but also far enough that it allows writers to go completely off the rails.

The balance of essays remaining leans more domestic than geopolitical, but after that it's the Great War. With the UK as a much clearer primus inter pares in the Entente ITTL, there isn't a pie it can afford to leave its finger out of.

That is a high compliment indeed. I'm honoured.
 
MR GANDHI GOES TO WESTMINSTER
India and the Early Federation Debate
Henry Cairns-Watson

The British Raj was, above all, defined by the Indian Mutiny of 1858-61. The last great challenge to British rule on the subcontinent had created a deep paranoia in the ruling class. It brought down three prime ministers and the most powerful company in the world. To understand British India on the eve of the Federation Debate, we must therefore understand the Mutiny.

The roots of the Mutiny – also known as the Indian Rebellion, Sepoy Mutiny (after the Muslim Sepoys who formed the vast majority of the early mutineers), and the Indian War of Independence – can be traced to the rapid expansion of the East India Company in the 1840s and 1850s. The Company had no longer been a strictly commercial venture since at least the Seven Years’ War, but the Anglo-Sikh Wars, and the destruction of its last subcontinental rival, elicited overreach. The missionary instinct that had developed in some of the Company leadership, kept in check by the military leadership’s concern for keeping harmony amongst the various non-Christians that formed the bulk of its armies, now felt it could have free rein.

Suddenly, records of religion that had been used primarily to understand who to task with tax collection were used by missionaries to identify convertible communities. The Company’s – always somewhat false – respect for the Mughal Emperor, whose vassal they technically were supposed to be, diminished visibly by the day. Along with this cultural assault, the Company attempted to standardise revenue collection, taking away privileges that had developed for those many tax collectors that had previously been left largely alone as long as the Company received its due.

The exact event that incited the Mutiny in the end is shrouded in mystery. The most likely and corroborated accounts have the culprit being ammunition cartridges greased with pig fat; as the end of the cartridge would have to be bit off, there were fears amongst Muslim soldiers that loading their weapons would, in fact, be a sin. After refusing to fire their weapons at practice, 85 soldiers in Kanpur were sentenced to 10-years’ hard labour, with the chains hammered on in front of the rest of the unit, under the watchful eyes of the British regiment.

The next day, the unit, perhaps fearing the British were coming to disband it completely, rebelled. They rose up and killed 41 whites – officers, civilians, women, and children – before the British regiment made it to their side of the station. As news of the mutiny spread, so did the revolts and rebellions. In the first phase, 1858, it was contained to the North Indian Plain. Despite this containment, the Mutiny brought down Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in London. When it spread to the Princely States and Bengal, and from there yet to South India, in mid-1859, it became an existential threat.


mutiny - Copy.jpg

The Capture of Delhi, 1858
This artwork, depicting the recapture of the Mughal Emperor’s seat in the first phase of the Mutiny, was hung in almost every official building, as both a reminder of the power of the Raj to Indian visitors and a warning to the British residents to be ever vigilant

The first phase of the Mutiny had been contained by existing British regiments in India, but even then, suppression would take years, and the Bengal and South India had been practically emptied. In 1860, before the arrival of more troops from Britain and South Africa, the need to keep from totally losing these areas had forced parts of the North Indian Plain to be abandoned, and the Princely States were practically on their own. Even as the crisis passed - and the new forces moved to suppression instead of containment and recapture - the beginning of a second phase, after blaming the Mutiny on lax management by Disraeli, had wrecked the reputation of the Conservatives. Lord Bristol’s government lost the 1861 election by a landslide.*

As it turned out, however, the new Liberal government agreed more on domestic policy than what to do with the EIC. Most acknowledged the Company as it currently existed had outlived its usefulness, and the British state would have to take a more active role, but they could not agree on the relationship to the Crown. Some wished to reinstitute Company rule with more oversight and a charter that had specific clauses to limit the missionary impulse; others wished to subsume all, including the Princely States, into an Indian Crown Colony; others yet (the eventual victors) wished to end Company Rule entirely, but have a more hands-off approach than in a Crown Colony, both in directly ruled areas and in the Princely States.

The new Prime Minister, Gladstone, fell into the first category. Being less of an imperialist, he did not want the British state yet further implicated in India, and hoped to keep the arm’s length Company Rule provided. Most of all, he opposed the third faction, because their solution included declaring Victoria the Empress of India, Sovereign of the British Raj. For someone who didn’t like the idea of empire in the first place, this was anathema. As the three-year battle over the Company ground down the second group, and Gladstone’s obstinacy over Home Rule reduced his cachet amongst the first, India finally became what brought him down. Hartington’s first action was to pass the Government of India (Raj) Act.


empress of india - Copy.jpg

Queen Victoria, Empress of India, 1865
This picture was the ‘Coronation Portrait’ of Victoria as Empress of India

This was the experience on which the Raj was built. Born in such circumstances, it was a naturally small-c conservative regime. Any change to structure or action in India had to prove, beyond any doubt, that it would not have the effect the missionary push did. Regardless of the predicted effects on India itself, rumours of change at the India Office would elicit worried interventions from No 10, ever aware of what the Mutiny had done in London.

This is why it was a minor miracle that, in the 1890s, the concept of the Indian Civil Service, known informally as the Civilians, genuinely including Indians became a reality. The sons of local Indian elites – tax officials, mayors, police chiefs, etc. – were sent to England, some straight to Oxbridge, others to the Public Schools first. They then came back to India with a legitimate claim to become Civilians. In order to head off the claims to rule of these English-speaking, educated Indians, the ICS produced an avalanche of documentation. It presented India as an unfathomably diverse entity, divided by caste, religion, race, language, region.

Imperial Federation, however, offered a potential counter to this. Perhaps Dominion status or independence were not the only routes forward for India. Perhaps the various parts of India could gain Responsible Government, to prove they could handle it. Perhaps they could even form a British Raj Responsible Government, akin to the joint Council and Parliament of the South African Responsible Governments. The early advocates who would bring this argument to India would be Western-educated Indians who had been in London during the early debate on Federation.


gandhi 1905 - Copy.jpg

Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1905

An Oxford graduate and practicing Inner Temple lawyer in London in 1904-1910, Gandhi was an avid follower of the debate on Federation, and what it could do for India

The most influential of these men would prove to be Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Educated at University College, London, he had spent over a decade in South Africa. Toward the end of this time there, he served as a stretcher bearer in the Transvaal and earned the Queen’s South Africa Medal. The indifference of London to the pass laws and the birth of the Colour Bar in the Transvaal deeply depressed him. However, he had made contacts amongst the movements opposing both. When he moved back to London to practice law in 1904, he would become one of the contacts for the African National Party’s ‘London Missionaries.’

Following the early Federation debate, however, sparked new hope in him. He attended every day of debate on the Imperial Federation Bill, despite having to stand at the very back of the Public Gallery, and thus often lose track of any speech that elicited more than mild reaction from the benches. He was even present for Asquith’s ‘England is Not England’ speech. Gandhi was invigorated by the last of these. Even though he knew that getting the English to include non-whites in their conception of England would be the very definition of an uphill battle, he had seen ‘a rhetorical wedge.’

Even more invigorating was his early work with Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the ANP’s legal expert in London. The ANP found a potential end to the Colour Bar, and Gandhi found a concrete cause with which to widen the rhetorical wedge. If black peoples in an Imperial Commonwealth could become equal with whites (at least, electorally), then certainly the Indian peoples that the Raj considered more civilised than Africans could not be denied the right to Responsible Government, especially if the white Civilians could be overridden.

By the time the Act of Union 1910 passed though, it had become clear to Gandhi that his long stint outside of India would hurt his argument. The Civilians, already presenting Indian Civilians in India as out-of-touch, would certainly go in twice as hard on the case of an Indian who had spent the last two decades in South Africa and England. Returning to the subcontinent, he took up a post with V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Indian nationalist and founder of the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company.


voc - Copy.jpg

V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, 1910
The founder of one of the first indigenous shipping companies in India, ‘V. O. C.’ had less faith in the British than Gandhi, but helped him make the argument for Responsible Government when he first returned to the subcontinent

‘V. O. C.,’ as he was known, believed that the minimum needed for India to flourish was Dominion status. His experience with setting up the SSNC, having to fight the Civilians, the local bureaucracy, and the general obstinacy of the Raj to change had convinced him there was no future for India under a system that still believed in Britain’s mission in India. However, he could see that Responsible Government, if achieved, would be as useful a steppingstone to independence as to Commonwealth Status.

For the next year-and-a-half, Gandhi did occasional work for the SSNC, but his main vocation was arguing for Responsible Government. To this end, he embarked on a subcontinent-wide speaking and glad-handing tour. Gathering larger and larger crowds as he went from Madras to Bengal and up the North Indian Plain, he caught the eye of the Civilians. Suddenly, Mohandas K. Gandhi was a name that was known by more than one person at the India Office on Whitehall.

As Europe slid into war in autumn 1911, Gandhi found, much like his ANP compatriots from London, the question of making the Imperial Federation more than a white project falling by the wayside in Britain itself. However, the assumption that Indian troops would be necessary to patrol the empire, as the scale of the war effort became apparent, would soon bring the conversation into sharp relief in India itself. For all sides and factions of the intra-Indian debate, except perhaps the Civilians, it would become clear over the course of the conflict that the very soul of India was up for grabs.


* The fact that Bristol’s government also became embroiled in a scandal over bribery by EIC officials, hoping to escape responsibility for their actions pre-Mutiny, did little to help.
 
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One is slightly intrigued by this representation of Gandhi.

One wonders what might have been if certain things worked out differently.
 
MR GANDHI GOES TO WESTMINSTER
India and the Early Federation Debate
Henry Cairns-Watson

Now this should be interesting...

Would the man have worked with the ANC so closely given his...views...on blacks etc?

Imperial Federation, however, offered a potential counter to this. Perhaps Dominion status or independence were not the only routes forward for India. Perhaps the various parts of India could gain Responsible Government, to prove they could handle it.

The issue in a nutshell is that a unified India is so completely a imperialist colonial idea and concept. It is far, far more likely in a federal system to split the place up into much smaller chunks along religious and culture lines, and along the coast and around the princely states. The chances of getting an independent and unified india in this timeline is highly unlikely, i think.
 
Gandhi working with the ANP is an interesting development. Some internationalism among the oppressed colonial subjects would be nice to see, but it seems a little way off yet. Very interested to see what happens in India after the War.
 
Gandhi working with the ANP is an interesting development. Some internationalism among the oppressed colonial subjects would be nice to see, but it seems a little way off yet. Very interested to see what happens in India after the War.

Well, federalism encourages internationalism across all potlcial spectrums really, since the international and national just got merged together, at least at the top level. I suspect communists and facists have an interesting time with internarionalism and nationalism rubbing against one another and overlapping in the empire even more than otl.
 
The British Empire becoming a sort of (white) British International would, I imagine, absolutely rile up the extreme left and right. I can imagine the Communist response being along the lines of a standard critique of liberal politics (ie, federation is to empire what social democracy is to capital). The fascists may well just go for the full “fortress (greater) Britannia” approach, which considering the history of British border law could well be on the way anyway.

In this sense I guess it would be not unlike attitude to the EU and associated institutions.
 
The British Empire becoming a sort of (white) British International would, I imagine, absolutely rile up the extreme left and right. I can imagine the Communist response being along the lines of a standard critique of liberal politics (ie, federation is to empire what social democracy is to capital). The fascists may well just go for the full “fortress (greater) Britannia” approach, which considering the history of British border law could well be on the way anyway.

In this sense I guess it would be not unlike attitude to the EU and associated institutions.

I suppose the EU mention begs the question of what do the other powers do/react, long term I mean. Short term they built alliances for war. But how does a quarter of the world federalising impact all the other empires and nations? Does it destroy nationalism or increase it? How does it impact amercia most of all (as it surely will, at least, make them want to incorporate and add more states where pribously they essentially had colonies)? Does france go ahead with its own ideas of making literally the whole empire the metropolitan? How does Russia and Austria react, considering they are the other two powers with lots of nations in them? How does Germany, built as it is on pure unifying nationalism?
 
I suppose the other question is how will the War change all of this, when it comes. Everyone doubling down on keeping to their own empires is evidently bad for truly multilateral internationalism, as everyone basically scrambles to shore up their own cartel. If the the postwar brings with it vague attempts at something like Wilsonian internationalism, obviously this will all change. Otherwise frankly I don’t see much good coming out of things as they stand.

Which is why I’m intrigued to see how India unfolds, seeing as it could make or break the idea (in my mind at least) that the Imperial Federation is just a cartel for the white guys. If this holds true, you can’t really claim (or I would have a hard time believing) that federation is any better than Empire, even if it might overcome some administrative difficulties.
 
I can see federation going lots of different ways, but what will also take certainly not happen is wilsonian internationalism since almost no one believed in it except Woodrow Wilson, who I hope never becomes president let alone decides the armistice treaty. That man went a long way to causing a lot of the problems of the 20th century.

But I suspect that the Great War might not be so destructive in this timeline, or as long. It could very well be, but maybe not for the British who can argue quite effectively that they need to focus on Africa whilst the other two allies focus in defending France. If they get Russia to join in, even better. Britian in 1914 was not ready for war otl, except for the navy. Not enough shells, not enough bullets, though at least the standing professional army was fully equipped, which no other power managed until later.

If we're aiming for reduced British cost and casualty, they need to focus on Africa and the seas until that content is brought to heel, then they can go elsewhere. Probably push from Egypt up to the ottoman heartlands. What we need for Germany to lose is a two front war, or for Austria to die. So either Italy or Russia is needed in Europe.
 
It all, then, would seem to await the outcome of the war. I'd be intrigued, here, to see how loosely you follow the game as I've had some bloodily horrific (and therefore realistic) experiences, while some just degenerate in tear-inducingly dull games of 'chase 1000 Germans round Africa'. If the British play to their strengths - maritime independence and dominance, and the ability to sweep up the colonies, they should prevail. I note that Pax Britannica seems stronger here than in OTL.

VOC as an abbreviation is inspired, as it is also the abbreviation for "Volatile Organic Compound" and the old Dutch India Company, the "Vereenigde Ost-Indische Compagnie". Both seemed both inspired and apt!
 
I do have to wonder how the sectarian divide will affect India's approach to Federation. With the greater degree of granularity that has so far been used to draw up constituencies, I'm holding out hope that the disaster that followed in the wake of our world's 1947 partition can at least mostly be avoided...
 
I very much enjoyed these looks at the overseas territories of the Empire and their many injustices.
Such a shame that the war had to intervene in the South African voting issue but maybe their contributions in the war will make Westminster more eager to give everyone the vote like for women in OTL.
Finally a look at India! With federation looming there is certainly a discussion to be had on how many Indias should be present. Should they be joint or maybe adopt a Canadian solution?
And now I wait anxiously for the outcome of the war.
 
It all, then, would seem to await the outcome of the war. I'd be intrigued, here, to see how loosely you follow the game as I've had some bloodily horrific (and therefore realistic) experiences, while some just degenerate in tear-inducingly dull games of 'chase 1000 Germans round Africa'. If the British play to their strengths - maritime independence and dominance, and the ability to sweep up the colonies, they should prevail. I note that Pax Britannica seems stronger here than in OTL.

VOC as an abbreviation is inspired, as it is also the abbreviation for "Volatile Organic Compound" and the old Dutch India Company, the "Vereenigde Ost-Indische Compagnie". Both seemed both inspired and apt!

I suggested the british might avoid the horror of the western front, but only because they'll have the horror of cleansing Africa of iberian armies and patrols before perhaps fighting a guerilla war for a few years in various places. They might be able to sell the idea to the allies as them sorting out Africa, the far east and eventually the Middle East, and the sea of course, whilst the french and amercians hold the line in france.

Not sure they can manage that but would be beenficial if they did.

I do have to wonder how the sectarian divide will affect India's approach to Federation. With the greater degree of granularity that has so far been used to draw up constituencies, I'm holding out hope that the disaster that followed in the wake of our world's 1947 partition can at least mostly be avoided...

I can't see the eventual federarion commission suggesting anything less than several partitions, especially the obvious Pakistan, Bangladesh and Northern India divide. But they'll probably go further than that if they want to keep the empire there together but stable. India is too big, and too artifical after all.
 
I’m fascinated to see what you end up doing with India. There surely isn’t much prospect of it becoming a full member of the Federation - the lack of a white settlers population and its sheer size would surely make it unpractical. But could there be some sort of devolved relationship, with a federal India based on the structures of the Imperial Federation but not a part of it?

Of course, whatever happens in the Great War could put the willingness of Indian Nationalists to settle for any sort of halfway house and render these debates pointless.
 
VOC as an abbreviation is inspired, as it is also the abbreviation for "Volatile Organic Compound" and the old Dutch India Company, the "Vereenigde Ost-Indische Compagnie". Both seemed both inspired and apt!
I am glad I am not the only one who spotted that first one.

and your updates have the authoritative tone of @El Pip's style, the highest compliment that I can bestow...
That is a high compliment indeed. I'm honoured.
I am honoured my majestic style has become a useful benchmark of magnificence, even if the pacing is concerning. Concerning mainly because I remain ever envious of those who can produce such excellent quality at such a terrifyingly rapid pace.

For India anything that avoids the INC, or anything like it, has to be positive. Whatever happens you do not want people who combine the worst of the Raj with dreams of a command planned economy and far too much Fabian influence (i.e. any) into one disastorous economic trainwreck. I think India ends up leaving Imperial Federation, it is just too big compared to the rest for any kind of equal representation and even getting something like common tariffs is probably a big stretch (the needs of the UK/Dominion economies and India are wildly divergent, to say nothing of domestic and intra-Empire fights). The debate is when they leave and on what terms.
 
I am glad I am not the only one who spotted that first one.

I find it tacky to remind people of the Dutch company's existence. Or the dutch, for that matter...their museums are gorgeous but you have to pay to enter and tune out the disturbingly jingoistic patter splattered all over the info tablets. And exhibits just halting after the napoleanic era.

The debate is when they leave and on what terms.

Shatter em into 5000 pieces and sell all the ports to France. They will try to defend them.