India in 2050 was forged from the crucible of the war between Pakistan and India in 2021. After Pakistan sent troops into Afghanistan to prop up the Kabul government the year before, several rounds of increasing rhetoric and “incidents” culminated in relations between Pakistan and India breaking down entirely. In late April of 2021, Indian intelligence captured agents from Pakistan who were reportedly planning a repeat of the 2001 attack on India’s parliament and on May 1st India launched a massive pre-emptive conventional strike across the border into Pakistani territory.

India was by now a superpower with the technology Pakistan lacked and advances were rapid. The Indian military had been re-designed across the last decade through technology-transfer deals with Russia and Europe and that paid off as pinpoint air strikes swept away much of Pakistan’s defenses – including most of its substantial nuclear force. In desperation, Pakistan used its dwindling nuclear arsenal. India lost Bangalore but Pakistan lost Faisalabad, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi as well as most of it’s military in the field to retaliatory strikes, as the superiority of India’s homegrown anti-missile defenses became obvious. Pakistan’s long-standing military ally China had it’s own Collapse problems and only made a few light probes on India’s flank before rapidly transitioning to watchful non-involvement. Bangladesh disappeared as a coherent nation, overwhelmed by fallout and warming-driven flooding. The Indian government re-occupied all the territory it had lost in the Partition and a goodly chunk of Afghanistan too, under the banner of offering humanitarian aide. In all, over 12 million died in the war itself, with countless more millions dying in the aftermath as plagues and famine – which climate change only made worse – almost overwhelmed the entire sub-continent.

Today, India has somewhat recovered. It’s incredible population growth is the catalyst which has seen the nation rise to be the most populous on earth – with the second largest economy and the third most powerful military. It’s problems are far from over, however. Although there is a pretense at democracy, in actuality the polls are routinely rigged by the Glitterati of the ruling Hindu technocratic elite and any political movement that would threaten their monopoly of rule (via three or four parties that are essentially policy-identical) is declared illegal and persecuted. The Indian story is still largely a mixture of grinding civil insurrection in rural areas and police state responses in urban ones. Now it has too large and hostile neighbours on its borders – China and the new Greater Islamic Republic. The three are embroilled in a tripartite Cold War, each sending covert aid to proxies among the others rebellious and disaffected minorities. At least it keeps them all from turning their eyes outwards.

Greater India’s 1.9 billion people, especially the rural poor, mainly live in grinding poverty which would beggar the imagination of even a Doler in North America – but what counts is the overall GDP that massive number of people willing to work for peanuts generates, once it is funnelled into the hands of the Glitterati elite. India boasts more megacorporation facilities than any other nation, largely concentrated in the great megacitiies of Mumbai-Hyedrabad, Delhi and Kolkata and in other urbanized areas. 800 million Indians live in the great cities of the sub-continent.