Commonwealth of the Raj

**Dev. Status** | Conceptual

The **Commonwealth of the Raj**, **Commonwealth** or just **India** are an Echoes faction created by Psychotic Loner then reimagined by the Blue Alert group. They utilize waves of general and specialized infantry supported by rough and reliable vehicles.

## At A Glance

 **Motives** | Expansionism, Poverty, Security

## Background

### Rise of the Raj

India has been in Britain's crosshairs since the 1700s. Its magnificent wealth and enormous numbers of potential customers were impossible to resist and Britain ensured that come hell or high water, the Indian subcontinent would be its to control. First under the auspices of the East India Company, then under direct British rule starting in 1857 following a massive rebellion showing the weakness of private rule over the jewel in the Empire's crown. All other comers, from France to Portugal to the Netherlands and more could now but bask in the glory that Britain had gained for itself by absorbing the world's second greatest concentration of human life under its patrimony. The fact that regular famines exacerbated by Britain insisting on ensuring that India continued to export food for profit were killing millions nearly every decade was of little concern to the Empire. The resistance to Britain's mandates that India provide its hundreds of millions of sons to its armed forces was also largely ignored and suppressed by means of divide and conquer. While India had been heavily leaned upon for manpower during the first world war, it would be the American revolution that would change its destiny.

The Fuller government imposed a program of crash industrialization, enough to make India militarily useful but not enough to threaten British domination of the Empire. The money to engage in these programs would be raised by intensified looting of India's natural resources and increased food quotas and the abolition of most if not all safety and labor regulations in India to drive down the cost of business and make it more attractive to invest into. Vast swathes of land was sold off to the businesses of the Syndicate and other multinational corporations while India's people were being pushed towards the factories and towards schools. These programs were substantially harsher and more extreme than any proposed by the Liberal, Labour, or Conservative parties and far less concerned with their human cost if it meant that it would get done faster.

Famine, industrial accidents, and pollution would claim the lives of tens of millions of people over the years and repressions, massacres, executions, and prison camps would claim yet more lives still. But Fuller's extreme pro-natal policies ensured that the birth rate would offset the mass death. An information blackout and the mass infiltration and cullings of Indian independence movements combined with heavy propaganda, divide and conquer through the usage of chosen toadies who would enjoy some of the spoils, and boasting about the rise in "living standards" by dragging India kicking and screaming out largely feudal local economies would ensure that the colony would remain loyal. Nevermind the usage of Epsilon and the Union of Anti-Communists' brain washing techniques to ensure continual loyalty and love to the Empire and the great leader Fuller. All the while, India was being used as a great factory and boot camp.

Fuller wanted an army to make Xerxes' look like a scout troop. All across the alliance, millions upon millions were being trained for the military and massive amounts of equipment were being assembled. The armies recruited from India were certainly equipped to a lower standard than those of Europe and its "white dominions", still using bolt action long arms, having significantly fewer heavy weapons per soldier than their white counterparts, using older generation tanks, aircraft, and artillery, and getting an "Imperial Raj Navy" mostly made out of aging detritus pushed out of the modern navies of the Alliance for their obsolescence. All were born not only of the size of the military of the Raj, but also a conscious desire to save money on what were ultimately to be cannon fodder divisions like most non-white colonial forces.

With the start of the second world war, the Raj's forces would be committed across the world, particularly in Asia to try and help Jiang Jieshi overwhelm the Socialist federation of China and return from the brink of total collapse. Others were thrown into the Soviet Union's asian front to pull soldiers away from the fighting in Europe, or had been stationed in Canada to screen for the rest of their forces. Casualties were severe and morale was generally poor. Their white superiors treated them with disdain at best and they would be the first to catch any incoming bullets. When the alliance had to shift from offense to defense, it would be Indian and other colonial troops who would be sent out first whenever possible to slow down the enemy advance and allow for the more modern divisions to ready themselves and prepare counterattacks. The war's conclusion couldn't have come at a better time, as dissatisfaction with Fuller's government nearly threatened a revolution in India.

### Kashmir Sweater

The second cold war would span twenty five years before giving way to another six years of total war. Thornley's liberalization procedures were probably what saved the Raj, as he loosened up nearly a quarter century of heavy restrictions. He also reinstated a number of protections and regulations and ended the hugely exploitative policies for forced industrialization and profit creation at any cost. Reparations for the devastation caused by Fuller's policies were also instated and India began the process of transitioning to greater liberalism and more self directed policies of development. However there was a difficulty, the demands of the growing Indian economy were difficult to meet with the resources available to India and tearing up India's own countryside to find more was not a particularly popular move.

The solution was increased trade and relations outside of India, with Indian businessmen flocking to acquire shares or controlling interests or outright set up operations in places such as Africa and Oceania. Oil was purchased in bulk from across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific; particularly from the east Indies and the Arabian peninsula. Metals were bought from South Africa and Australia and elsewhere, and cash was raised through the production of cheap goods for consumption elsewhere. The Raj quickly became a place of great contradictions. A colony was in essence, acting as a colonizer by sending military forces abroad to ensure the security of its interests abroad; a country praised for its great economic growth was scorned for its tremendous and widening inequality. A nation that spoke of a unity of the peoples of the Indosphere was itself, an artificial colonial construction whose lingua franca was an entirely foreign language due to a lack of a broadly usable common tongue native to the subcontinent.

India was not entirely at peace however. A number of insurgencies were continually nipping at its heels. Nationalist movements motivated by religion or language came together under the world liberation army. Leftist rebellions unified under the banner of the Revolutionary Vanguard organization while the Solar Empire secretly supported a Pan-Asian nationalist movement that would align India away from Britain and its allies and towards Japan and its own under the banner of a solidarity of the colonized races. Its forces were also spread abroad to chase down and crush guerillas who were seen as threats to Indian economic interests while as part of its obligations under the Alliance charter it committed forces to the conflicts in south-east Asia to combat leftist insurgency in Thailand, Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia as well as against revolutionaries in Africa and Latin America; but most defining would be India's contributions to the Chinese conflict.

The initial zeitgeist blue China had when Fuller decided to rescue Jiang Jieshi from almost certain defeat was long spent. Nonstop waves of attacks were being thrown at nearly impossible to dislodge enemy lines as a grim charade of trench warfare ensued. A farce to do Luigi Cadorna's quixotic attempts to seize the Isonzo river valley proud was unfolding again, and again, and again in China and Jiang Jieshi was adamant that if he had more men and materiel, he could achieve a breakthrough. Perhaps foolishly, India

## Mechanics

### Technologies

* **Electronic Warfare:** Using modern technology to win the war, Electronic Warfare can create false enemy signatures, confuse the guidance of enemy weapons, and even stealth certain units in plain sight.

* **Nausea Gas:** Allegedly an improved teargas for the battlefield, the gas damages infantry over time and forces vehicles to button up.

* **Agni Munitions:** Filled with millions of fine metal shavings, Agni munitions act as lightning storms in a shell, creating a no-fly zone for any aircraft, friend or foe.

## Armed Forces of the Raj

### Aircraft

*Designated Bombing Zone: Incoming*

- An Ultralight pilot starting his run.