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Originally Posted by Astromancer
Not yet. But the Netherlands did come very close to an industrial revolution using wind power. The fact the Dutch came so close useing TL4 wind power suggests to me that an industrial revolution was going to happen somewhere.
Hey picture a world where India's culture was slightly different in the 16th and 17th centuries and both India and England are having industrial revolutions in the 18th century. Or move it forward fo a Napoleonic period with two industrial powers and Napoleon needing to play India and Britain off each other.
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Sounds like you need a different history of the of the Mughal Empire.
I'm not sure it's plausible, but maybe extend Akbar's reign and bolster his new religious dispensation/policy of tolerance? That might stabilize the empire. (It could have a very bad effect, instead...but I'm assuming that you'll go with a better outcome for a stronger Indian power bloc to resist French and British commercial imperialism).
Maybe a few Europeans even make it to India as religious refugees. bringing technical skills and scientific knowledge with them?
Maybe somebody in India invents a more advanced cotton gin, equivalent to Eli Whitney's improved model? They already had a simpler form of the technology, so this may not be a hard sell. The sort of cotton grown may be an important factor. The Indians grow our sort of cotton today, of hybrids derived from our American species,
LOTS of it. How feasible is an earlier importation and cultivation?