If India was never colonized by Europeans, would it still be India with so many states and cultures combined?  Or would it be lot of small countries?

如果印度从未被欧洲殖民，那么它还会是印度吗？还是很多小国家？

以下是Quora网友的评价：

Adrish Bose

The Mughal emperors deny the European East India companies the right to trade in India as they are worried about getting colonized like nearby African and Asian nations, they sign a defense treaty with the ottomans which scare the Europeans off

After the death of emperor Aurangzeb Infighting breaks out and India is now ruled by the Marathas, the nizams of Hyderabad and Bengal, and the Sikh empire.

莫卧儿皇帝拒绝了欧洲东印度公司在印度进行贸易的权利，因为他们担心会像附近的非洲和亚洲国家一样被英国殖民，于是他们和奥斯曼帝国签署了一项国防条约，吓跑了欧洲人

奥朗则布皇帝死后，内讧爆发，印度开始落入马拉地人、海德拉巴和孟加拉的尼扎姆以及锡克教帝国的统治。

The military leaders and generals of these kingdoms fight each other for decades without the outside world knowing much due to isolation and finally, the Marathas seize power in Delhi, They sign peace treaties with the Sikhs and the nizams. India goes back to being a prosperous nation in the late 18th century with a centralized government in place and now consolidates its power in Asia by building a very large navy and an even larger army.

这些王国的军事领导人和将军相互争斗了几十年，但由于孤立于一隅而鲜为人知，最后，马拉地人在德里夺取了权力，他们与锡克教徒和尼扎姆签署了和平条约。印度在18世纪后期重新变成一个繁荣的国度，有了一个中央的政府，还打造了一支非常庞大的海军和一支更大的陆军，巩固了它在亚洲的地位。

Now we go to the 19th century

Indian princes studying in England, Prussia, France, etc see the industrial revolution and wants to rapidly industrialize India and bring the factories and trains to India. They return to India and convinces the Peshwa to start trading with the Europeans, Large factories both Indian and European are set up and India starts mass exporting Cloth, cotton, and tea to Europe, this gives India immense wealth through which it builds an even larger army and navy and start signing military treaties with European countries, This cements its position in not getting invaded by European powers ever.

现在我们来看看19世纪

在英国、普鲁士、法国等地学习的印度王子们亲眼目睹了工业革命的发生，想要让印度也迅速实现工业化，他们把工厂和火车带到印度。他们回到印度，说服佩什瓦开始与欧洲人进行贸易，印度人和欧洲人都建立了大型工厂，印度也开始向欧洲大量出口布料、棉花和茶叶，这给印度带来了巨大的财富。凭借这些财富，印度建立了更大规模的陆军和海军，并开始和欧洲国家签署军事条约，巩固了印度免遭欧洲列强入侵的地位。

During this time in Europe WW1 breaks out, unlike previous european wars this one has global consequences and as the ottomans join the war, the Chhatrapati fears a repeat of the previous Afghan and Mongol invasions, as a result, he signs a treaty to join the allies, With the help of the British and Japanese armed forces India successfully defeats the ottomans and as the allies win the War India is given control over parts of the ottoman empire in the gulf.

在此期间，欧洲爆发了第一次世界大战，与之前的欧洲战争不同的是，这一场战争带来了全球性后果。奥斯曼帝国加入战局，查特拉帕蒂担心会再次发生类似阿富汗和蒙古入侵的事，所以他签署条约加入同盟国。在英国和日本军队的帮助下，印度成功地击败了奥斯曼帝国，盟军赢得战争，印度分得了奥斯曼帝国在海湾地区的部分控制权。

Here the Marathas discover Oil, with the discovery of machines and cars oil will be an extremely important resource, By selling oil to the western world India significantly improves its economy and living conditions. It's now one of the most prosperous nations in Asia along with Japan but the Chatrappati wants India to compete with the western world for which it would need colonies and an even bigger armed force, The Imperial air force is created and the Maratha navy starts building aircraft carriers and submarined a relatively new technology at the time .

马拉地人在当地发现了石油，随着机器和汽车的发现，石油成了一种极其重要的资源。通过向西方世界出售石油，印度显著改善了国内经济和民众的生活条件，现在是和日本并立的亚洲最繁荣的国家之一，但查特拉帕蒂希望印度与西方世界竞争，为此它需要殖民地和更大的武装力量，于是帝国空军成立了，马拉地海军也开始建造航空母舰和潜艇，这在当时是相对较新的技术。

Soon WW2 breaks out and unlike the previous time, this time The Chhatrapati at the advice of his military senapatis and peshwas joins the axs. India starts realizing its colonial aspirations and its desire to be powerful like the European powers and starts drawing out ambitious plans of the invasion of the rest of the gulf and Egypt where most of the European “ mandates “ and oil reserves lied. As Britain and France were busy fighting the nazis in Europe The Marathas sweep an easy victory on the Arab and African front. Next, they plan on invading Tib and ichang, A two-front invasion from India and japan leads to an easy axs victory but in this war, the generals have committed grave war crimes that the emperor isn't aware of. They successfully manage to persuade the emperor into joining operation Barbarossa and invade the soviet union from the south, The soviets who are hell-bent on defending Moscow cedes its natural gas-filled regions to India.

很快，第二次世界大战爆发了，与前一次不同的是，这一次查特拉帕蒂在他的军队塞纳帕蒂和佩什瓦的建议下加入了轴心国。印度开始实现其殖民愿望和像欧洲大国一样强大的愿望，并开始制定入侵海湾其他地区和埃及的野心计划。在英国和法国忙着和欧洲的纳粹作战时，马拉地人在阿拉伯和非洲战线上轻松获胜。接下来，他们计划入侵西Z和西昌。

印度和日本这两条战线同时入侵中国，可以让轴心国轻松获胜。但在这场战争中，将军们犯下了印度国王没有意识到的严重战争罪行。他们说服国王加入巴巴罗萨行动并从南部攻入苏联，坚决保卫莫斯科的苏联人将其充满天然气的地区割让给了印度。

The Maratha war machine seems unstoppable when the Japanese bomb pearl harbor, this leads to the Americans officially joining the war. Now India must defend its vast and thinly spread empire from three great powers, As Britain, America and Russia start a joint invasion on the middle eastern front. The Maratha empire is reduced to its capital in Pune, After intense naval and aerial combat the Marathas surrender. The Peshwa and his generals are tried for war crimes the emperor’s power is greatly reduced. A new constitution is drafted. A parliament is established and with the help of American money, the Indian economy quickly recovers from the war and turns itself into a global leader in manufacturing, technology, science, and finance. Most of the worlds’ technical innovations take place in India and Mumbai is the biggest financial center in Asia. During this time India as a firm US ally sends its soldiers to Vietnam to fight during the cold war, Hundreds of thousands of young Indian soldiers are sent to die and the public starts protesting, as a result in just 3 years India withdraws its troops.

马拉地战争机器似乎势不可挡，日本轰炸珍珠港，导致美国正式加入战局。现在，印度必须防守其庞大而分散的帝国，抵御英、美、俄三国在中东战线的联合入侵。马拉地帝国被缩小到首都浦那，经过激烈的海战和空战，马拉地人投降了。佩什瓦和他的将军们因战争罪而受到审判，国王的权力大大削弱。

印度起草了新宪法，成立了议会，在美国资金的帮助下，印度经济迅速从战争中恢复过来，并成为制造业、科技、科学和金融领域的全球领导者。世界上大多数的技术创新都发生在印度，孟买成为亚洲最大的金融中心。而印度作为美国的坚定盟友，在冷战期间派印度士兵到越南参战，导致数十万年轻的印度士兵战死，公众开始抗议，结果仅仅3年时间，印度撤军。

During the end of the cold war with the help of Indian and American intelligence officers, Najib is replaced with a de ocratic president who returns Afghanistan to normalcy. The berlin wall falls down and the soviet union collapses after a few years. India is able to handle the crisis and establishes a new world order along with the US and its allies.

冷战结束时，在印度和美国情报官员的帮助下，纳吉布被一位民 主总统取代，阿富汗恢复正常。几年后，柏林墙倒塌，苏联解体。印度有能力处理危机，并与美国及其盟友一起建立新的世界秩序。

Anonymous

To answer this as an example let us see history of Tamilnadu . Up to 13th century Tamilnadu was ruled by 3 kings (Chera,Chola,Pandya) later when under Vijayanagara empire , there were regions ruled by nayak chieftains for 500–600 years

We are saying that mugals ruled major portion. But in real they had control of those regions and administration was done by local kings. In the case of British they ruled and they administrated the land of India which was colonized.

As told by one answer it is hard to predict alternate history .

为了回答这个问题，我们可以看看泰米尔纳德邦的历史。13世纪，泰米尔纳德邦由三位国王(Chera,Chola,Pandya)统治，后来在维贾亚纳加拉帝国的统治下，有一些地区由纳亚克酋长统治，长达500-600年时间。

我们说莫卧儿统治了大部分地区。但实际上他们只是控制着这些地区，实际的行政管理是由当地国王负责的。英国人来后，这些国王统治和管理被殖民的印度土地。

正如一个答案所说，这种假设性的问题很难预料。

Guhan Venkatasubramanian

It is very hard to predict alternate history. But by the time the British invaded India, Mughal’s were already waning down. I guess north/ north west would have consolidated into one country.

South would have grouped as well to resist advances from north.

North East/ East would be tricky to predict, but I gueas at some point China would have marched into present day Arunachal and taken most of the north eastern states. That would have given a completely different dimension during world war 2 and the whole world history might have been very different.

假设性的问题很难预料。英国入侵印度时，莫卧儿王朝已经衰弱了。我猜北方/西北可能会合并成一个国家。

南方会集结起来抵抗北方的进攻。

东北/东部很难说，但我猜中国也许会一路打到今天的阿鲁纳恰尔，占领东北大部分邦。这将给二战带来一个完全不同的局面，整个世界的历史可能也会因此变得非常不同。

Aathan

If India was not colonized then probably North India including Pakistan and Bangladesh would have been a separate country and places south of Vindhyas would have been more than 5 countries. North eastern states would have been more number of countries if they were not occupied by North Indian or Chinese or Burmese.

如果印度没有被殖民，那么包括巴基斯坦和孟加拉国在内的北印度可能会是一个独立的国家，而温德亚斯以南的地方可能会形成5个以上的国家。如果东北邦没有被北印度人、中国人或缅甸人占领，国家数量会更多。

North Indian regions were mostly under same kingdom and territories under the mughals would have easily formed as a separate country. In the case of south India, they were never under unified Government as in north India. During the 18th century, there were few large kingdoms and many small kingdoms. These kingdoms would have been unified later based on common identity of language. Bismark unified Germany which was then split in to various states based on the common identity of Germans. Such a phenomenon would have occurred in various states of south India and each of the present state would have been a separate country after long border wars between them. They would have not merged with North since the concept of India as a single political country would have not arisen had there been no European who brought all the regions under single administration.

北印度地区大部分属于同一个王国，莫卧儿王朝统治下的领土很容易集合成一个独立的国家。而南印度从未像北印度那样处于某个统一政府之下。

18世纪当地有几个大王国和许多小王国。这些王国后来在共同语言的基础上统一起来。俾斯麦统一了德国，然后根据德国人的身份分成了不同的国家。

这样的现象也有可能发生在印度南部的各个邦之中，现在的各邦在长期的边界战争之后都变成独立的国家。

他们不会与北方合并，因为如果没有欧洲人将所有地区置于统一管理之下，印度作为单一政治国家的概念也不会出现。

Orlando Barrios

All we can do is speculate.

Let’s see India before the British: after the death of Aurangzeb, the Mughal state started its long decline. India experimented a fragmentation period with smaller polities appearing here and there. Out of the carcass of the Mughal, appeared the Maratha Confederacy.

The Maratha state was pretty sophisticated, with a Peshwa supported by the Ashtapradhan in charge of a professional administration. Without the British, the Bengal and Madras Presidencies do not exst: instead, there are the Nawabs of Bengal and the Nizam’s Dominions to the south.

我们所能做的只能是推测。

让我们看看英国之前的印度：奥朗则布死后，莫卧儿国家开始了漫长的衰弱。印度经历了一个分裂时期，到处都出现了较小的政权，出现了马拉地联盟。

马拉地邦很复杂，由佩什瓦负责统治管理。如果英国人没来，孟加拉和马德拉斯的总统也就不存在了，取而代之的是孟加拉的纳瓦布和南部的尼扎姆自治领地。

The question is: could one of these polities united all India under its power? If so, which one?

The most obvious candidate is, of course, the Maratha Confederacy. However, I think that by the early X century, the Confederacy had reached its limits: there were clear signs of internal dissention and political upheaval that in our timeline the British used in their policy of divide and prevail.

Without an external power interfering, could the Confederacy eventually estabilize? I think so, but also think that the map of India in an alternate present would not be that different from that map of 1760.

问题是：这些政体中有哪个能把全印度统一在自己的权力之下？如果有，是哪一个？

最明显的候选者当然是马拉地联盟。但我认为到19世纪初，马拉地联盟已经由盛转衰，出现了明显的内部分歧和政治动荡的迹象，英国人在分而治之的政策中就利用了这一点。

如果没有外部力量的干涉，联盟能建立起来吗？我认为可以，但我也认为另一种假设下的印度地图和1760年的地图不会有太大的差别。