Eastern Raj

(Eastern Raj in Red)

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Capital: Shillong

Largest City: Imphal

Official Languages: English, Hindi

Government: Military Junta

Judiciary: Military Courts-Martial

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Lore

The Eastern Raj exists as the far eastern reaches of the British Raj, such as it existed in 1945. Upon the cataclysmic test of the atomic bomb that laid low the world, the extant Viceroy of the British Raj, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, declared martial law in the Raj and deployed the British Indian Army to establish and maintain control as the population began to panic.

In the early years the BIA was the arm of the civil service, assisting in evacuations from coastal regions of the Raj and the distribution of necessary goods to evacuees. As time progressed and the global order broke down, the Raj became more isolated from the rest of the Empire-- many of the island colonies vanished beneath the waves, Australia fragmented, and most worryingly communications from the United Kingdom grew more sparse as London and much of southern England washed under themselves.

The last solid communication from the United Kingdom for some time came in the late 1940s-- the royal family had relocated to Balmoral Castle, order had broken down in England. “God Save the King,” the call went out. After that, silence. Now isolated, the Viceroy was in effect the ruler of the Raj absolutely.

For the next ten or so years, the BIA became a larger organ in everyday life. Policing duties were taken up by the Army, and city police were absorbed into its swelling ranks. Recognizing that British supremacy would lead to a terminally unstable state, laws and regulations that maintained the colonialist divisions in society were loosened in the mid-1950s. British officers, soldiers, and civil servants were now integrating into the Raj more smoothly, leading to many beginning families with local women and the Raj looking less and less like the colony that it had been a decade ago.

Throughout the 1960s the BIA maintained order at the behest of the Viceroy, the two arms of government working together well enough. It was a relatively stable decade in the Raj as the government efficiently distributed supplies and organized the construction of new housing on higher ground inland from the old coastal cities. Old questions of independence were left dormant-- in effect the Raj was independent from Britain, and the British existing within its borders were less occupiers as time went on and more co-citizens in this new world.

Of interesting note are the social contracts in play. The Viceroy maintained good relations with the various rulers of Princely States in the Raj, a key to maintaining power. A close ally to him was the Nizam of Hyderabad State, whose lands formed a large portion of the center of the Raj. The two coordinated closely as Hyderabad was rushed by refugees from the coast, and the unflinching support from Delhi ingratiated the Nizam to the Viceroy. Elsewhere, the Maharaja of the Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu was supported by soldiers of the British Indian Army, winning his loyalty through the crisis. The message was the same in all the Princely States: the Raj was stronger together than dozens of independent states. The collapse of the Raj would mean war without end and even more immeasurable suffering.

Fighting was of course unavoidable, but the plain truth was that the BIA was the biggest, best equipped army in the Raj and could batter any smaller Princely State into submission. This happened numerous times in the two decades following the cataclysm, but never escalated to the point the conflict threatened the stability of the Raj.

The death of the Viceroy in the early 1980s posed an interesting problem. Neatly sidestepping the political considerations that would be imposed by selecting a successor Viceroy, the British Indian Army took control of the civil service and abolished the position of Viceroy altogether, replacing leadership of the country with a military junta. This actually was a popular change-- the Viceroy had been appointed by a faraway King and was the last vestige of the old colonial order, and many of the BIA’s officers were Indian-born. It was a more representative body and had sustained the Raj through the difficult period after the collapse-- and the BIA was strong enough to crush opposition to its rule at the end of the day.

Count Mirabeau once said that Prussia was not a state with an army, but an army with a state. The Raj had become an eastern Prussia, an army running a vast, diverse, and powerful state. As ably as possible-- perhaps less diplomatically than the late Viceroy-- the BIA junta ran the Raj and was sustained by it.

The country was divided into administrative regions run by military officers. The Eastern Raj was established as the regions formerly belonging to Assam and Bengal, as well as the remnants of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This was the most isolated of the military regions, separated from the Raj by the Bay of Bengal and the Bhutanese. What remained of the British Indian Navy was for the most part stationed in the various new natural harbors along the coast of Assam, facilitating transportation and supply with the island possessions in the south. The Raj was generally vulnerable to incursions into the Indian Ocean, as well, leading to increased emphasis on naval power being assigned to the Eastern Raj.

The Raj enjoys a rather rigid system of government, then, as it has been crafted to match the military command structure. Civilian courts have largely been replaced by military courts-martial for all but lower-tier crimes and nonviolent felonies (i.e. theft and other misdemeanor offenses). This is perhaps the least popular of the changes instituted by the BIA, but the fact that it is primarily government and military officials that suffer harsher military judgments means it doesn’t really affect most citizens of the Raj.

Freedom of religion is a strictly guarded right, with the mixture of Christian, Hindu, and Muslim citizens ensuring some peace by abolishing any notion of a “state religion.” For the most part the freedom of assembly is well enough abridged and freedom of speech is subject to skepticism-- subversive speech is discouraged and agitation can land one before a tribunal. For decades it has been hammered home that survival depended on harmony, and as such the general population has grown up with the understanding that survival and order are paramount goals and that considerations of faith, speech, and their likes are of lesser importance.

In the decade and a half since the death of Viceroy Mountbatten, the independent commands of the Raj have achieved a degree more independence-- the Eastern Raj more than the others. Delhi is days away by ship or weeks by land, and they enjoy a privileged position as the easternmost guardians of the rest of the Raj. The fighting in east Asia has only increased the importance of their role, leading to greater independence-- by this point, it is almost total.