What If...
August 17, 2004 1:02 PM Subscribe
What If... Speculative fun with Indian history.
On censorship in India, this is also interesting: Perilous Speech, Dangerous Silence.
posted by homunculus at 1:15 PM on August 17, 2004
posted by homunculus at 1:15 PM on August 17, 2004
Excellent link, as per usual, homunculus.
posted by orange swan at 1:51 PM on August 17, 2004
posted by orange swan at 1:51 PM on August 17, 2004
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry christmas. Or Ramadan. Or something else.
posted by shepd at 2:14 PM on August 17, 2004
posted by shepd at 2:14 PM on August 17, 2004
Diwali would be what you're looking for there, shepd.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:22 PM on August 17, 2004
posted by mr_roboto at 3:22 PM on August 17, 2004
Great find, homunculus.
I read something disdainful about the 'what-if amateur historians' but it is an entertaining/novel way to discuss history. Cool site.
This quote surprised me.
>China... got into the UN Security Council only because Nehru, in his infinite wisdom, gave them the seat offered to India!
His article reads as axe grinding, criticising everyone sub-continentally governmental. So:
>By an accident of history India was not an independent state at that moment, and its only hope for representation at the conference was the Churchill administration, then in its closing days, which vehemently opposed India's national aspirations. As a result China - with a similar geographic size, population, and state of economic development - was given a seat on Security Council, but India was not.
So. I donno.
posted by philfromhavelock at 4:24 PM on August 17, 2004
I read something disdainful about the 'what-if amateur historians' but it is an entertaining/novel way to discuss history. Cool site.
This quote surprised me.
>China... got into the UN Security Council only because Nehru, in his infinite wisdom, gave them the seat offered to India!
His article reads as axe grinding, criticising everyone sub-continentally governmental. So:
>By an accident of history India was not an independent state at that moment, and its only hope for representation at the conference was the Churchill administration, then in its closing days, which vehemently opposed India's national aspirations. As a result China - with a similar geographic size, population, and state of economic development - was given a seat on Security Council, but India was not.
So. I donno.
posted by philfromhavelock at 4:24 PM on August 17, 2004
This is a fascinating set of essays -- many thanks, homunculus.
posted by Zonker at 8:32 PM on August 17, 2004
posted by Zonker at 8:32 PM on August 17, 2004
Humanist writer Latha Menon on Hindu fundamentalism and history.
posted by plep at 11:38 PM on August 17, 2004
posted by plep at 11:38 PM on August 17, 2004
I'm surprised we don't find "What if there had been no British occupation". Or am I missing it?
posted by taz at 12:39 AM on August 18, 2004
posted by taz at 12:39 AM on August 18, 2004
Nehru did offer China the seat [compare texts] which had been mooted for India, for complicated reasons.
First of all, the Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) had been a founding member of the UN and on the Security Council since 1945. In 1955, pressure was growing -- largely from Soviet quarters -- to admit the PRC and give it a seat on the Security Council, as a way to seal the brokered peace of the Korean War, in which the combined forces of North Korea and the People's Republic of China had fought a US-led force nominally under UN imprimatur (which had only happened because the Soviets had boycotted the Security Council in the first place, to lobby for admission of the PRC, back in 1950). What happened was that the US conceived a plan to block the admission of the PRC (to the UN broadly) by offering India promotion (to the Security Council proper) instead.
India, under Nehru's leadership, was conceiving its policy of non-alignment with both superpowers, and wisely declined to be a pawn in this game. (It's unclear whether it would have ever come to a vote, or whether it would have been approved.) Nehru was possibly also seeking better relations with the PRC and/or hoping for Chinese cooperation in its non-aligned bloc. In any case, the refusal did not transfer that seat to China -- the PRC was not admitted to the UN until the ROC was expelled in 1971.
I think it was a refusal of an abstract and probably unrealistic offer, so Nehru got points without losing anything.
posted by dhartung at 1:12 AM on August 18, 2004
First of all, the Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan) had been a founding member of the UN and on the Security Council since 1945. In 1955, pressure was growing -- largely from Soviet quarters -- to admit the PRC and give it a seat on the Security Council, as a way to seal the brokered peace of the Korean War, in which the combined forces of North Korea and the People's Republic of China had fought a US-led force nominally under UN imprimatur (which had only happened because the Soviets had boycotted the Security Council in the first place, to lobby for admission of the PRC, back in 1950). What happened was that the US conceived a plan to block the admission of the PRC (to the UN broadly) by offering India promotion (to the Security Council proper) instead.
India, under Nehru's leadership, was conceiving its policy of non-alignment with both superpowers, and wisely declined to be a pawn in this game. (It's unclear whether it would have ever come to a vote, or whether it would have been approved.) Nehru was possibly also seeking better relations with the PRC and/or hoping for Chinese cooperation in its non-aligned bloc. In any case, the refusal did not transfer that seat to China -- the PRC was not admitted to the UN until the ROC was expelled in 1971.
I think it was a refusal of an abstract and probably unrealistic offer, so Nehru got points without losing anything.
posted by dhartung at 1:12 AM on August 18, 2004
Thanks, dhartung.
Meanwhile, in the present: Indian state rolls out wireless broadband
posted by homunculus at 3:26 PM on August 18, 2004
Meanwhile, in the present: Indian state rolls out wireless broadband
posted by homunculus at 3:26 PM on August 18, 2004
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posted by homunculus at 1:08 PM on August 17, 2004