History of Indus
Birth of the Grand RepublicThe lands in which the Grand Republic of Indus calls home has been inhabited by humans since the Neolithic era, the earliest human civilizations to take root emerged along the banks of the Indus river, the natural wonder that has witnessed the rise and fall of countless empires.
However the origins of the current republic lie in the early 17th century when the Western and Eastern Roman Empires established their first colonies on the subcontinent. In this era the lands of Indus were divided between the militant Malwa Empire in western Indus and the fractured Kingdoms of the East. While the Malwa were, in theory, the rulers of those lands as well, in practical terms their control over the region limited to the occasional tithe or military expedition due to the need to defend against the Islamic Caliph and their perpetual attempts at invasion.
Thus the regions were ripe for colonization. While the first colonies were initial successes, in less than a century they were transformed by waves of adventures, criminals of all nations fleeing the law, unscrupulous merchants, and political refugees of all stripes, into unstable rogue cities that caused the eastern Raja's (Kings) to unite and wage the first of three 'Wars of Pacification' to bring the chaos to an end.
This prompted a strong response by the Roman states to retake their colonies, and by the end of the Third War of Pacification the bulk of the Eastern Kingdoms had fallen into the hands of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires.
Meanwhile in the west, the Malwa Empire limped on, having managed to achieve a 'Long Peace' with the Muslims, the Empire had turned in on itself. Endless coup attempts, massive corruption, a series of ineffectual Emperors, all of which led Malwa to be vulnerable to the offers by European trading companies for special rights and privileges. As the Malwa nobles and royals schemed and stabbed each other in the back for increasingly smaller slivers of power, the European merchants gained more and more power. However just when it seemed that Malwa would become part of a Colonial Empire, a western educated noblemen named Ranjit Singh rose to power in the region now called Punjab. Waging a vicious political campaign in the dying court of the Malwa Emperor, Ranjit managed to seize power, ruling through the dying Malwa dynasty as Regent. Ranjit then played the European powers off against one another in order to avoid seeing the Empire turned into a colony. By the time of his death the merchant trading companies had lost almost all their trading privileges in Malwa.
His son Kharak felt comfortable enough to depose of the Malwas and established a new state that would be called 'the Punjabi Empire' by historians. Turning his attention to the lands of the east, Emperor Kharak began the work of a lifetime. Through a combination of negotiation, secretly funded rebellions, and bribery, he was able to bring a large portion of the lost territories back under his control.
However disaster struck when he died of suspected poisoning at the age of 40, throwing the Punjabi Empire into turmoil since his successor, Emperor Nau, quickly proved to be both corrupt and incompetent. In response to this, nine of the most wealthy and influential noble families in the Empire banded together to murder him and the bulk of the Imperial family in what is called 'the Grand Revolution'.
However the nine were unable to agree upon a new Emperor and nearly split into factions, but were forced to band together when an allied general in the army warned them of a plot to restore the dynasty through a collateral relation. The Nine then gathered as many wealthy and well-connected noble families as they could, and along with generals and other leaders started what is now called 'the Grand Assembly', a convention to create a new, aristocratic government to replace the fractured Punjabi Dynasty. The new government would be ruled by a 'Primus', or a First among Equals, elected from amongst their own members, to govern the nation as a whole for a ten year mandate along with his (or her own) personal lands.
The 'Grand Republic of Indus' was born, named after the great river that nourished the lands of the countless dynasties and kingdoms that their peoples had dwelt in for thousands of years. The new republic faced serious challenges from the start in the remaining members of the Punjabi dynasty and the European empires, wishing to re-expand their colonial empires. But after the Second Battle of Lahore the last serious Punjabi Pretender, Duleep the Young died after being struck by an unknown shooter, the nobles of Indus then turned their attentions towards the needs of their new nation.
Expansion of the Republic and the Golden AgeWith the birth of the Grand Republic in the west, the Grand Assembly under the newly elected Primus Baji Rao, Peshwa of Ghaznavid (Modern day Kyber Pahunktwa, under FIS rule) voted unanimously to bring the various petty-kingdoms of the east under Indusi control. Baji Rao however was aware that this process would take time, as the European powers had expanded their companies into the various petty-states that had arisen due to Malwa's decline.
Under his reign, Baji Rao was able to negotiate the incorporation of several of the smaller petty-states. Though was forced to personally lead troops to suppress the rebellion of the Sidhu clan in Punjab, and later authorized invasions of two petty kingdoms in the modern region of Rajasthan. This set the pattern of Indusi expansion for the next two centuries, negotiation whenever possible, or invasion if the land was weak enough.
By the time that Rao's term as Primus ended, he had set the foundation for what became known as the Golden Age of Indus.
During the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, the population and territory of Indus grew by leaps and bounds, the arts flourished as European styles were introduced and experimented with, often being mixed with more traditional Indusi art forms. Hinduism, the native faith of Indus underwent a massive revival in which the great religious thinkers assimilated western thought into Hindu philosophy in order to modernize the religion. New forms of literature were created by creative writers under the patronage of the noble class, and the first universities since the fall of the Malwa Empire were constructed in this time.
However on the political front as the Eastern states were being slowly but surely incorporated into the Grand Republic, the influx of the newly elevated nobility from these regions lead to the birth of new factions within the Great Assembly. Roughly put there were two main factions, one was known as the 'Western Nobles' desired to incorporate the newly acquired lands into their own territories as much as possible, while the 'Eastern Nobles' fought to preserve their states within Indus in order to save as much of their old powers as possible. Within the two groups were countless subdivisions and cliques that changed with each political breeze, adding further complications.
Not to mention that each decade the elections for the office of Primus became more and more hotly contested between the two factions, however it was more often than not decided by a series of well placed bribes on the part of the wealthiest families that secured the elections. The reason being that wealthiest families also tended to have the most minor nobility on their side, whichever candidate that particular family supported would result in the nobles under their patronage to vote that way as well.
As a result of the infighting, the actual powers of the office of Primus bled out, while it's role in political arbitration faded and the authority of the wealthiest and highly connected nobles grew. The oligarchy envisioned by the founders of Indus was strengthened to the point of becoming a permanent fixture of Indusi politics.
The Great WarThe War of Muslim AggressionModern Era