On August 15th, 2019, at around 11 PM GMT, the whole planet earth was suddenly covered by a blinding halo of opaque purple light which was visible from every corner of the world. For thirty minutes, the whole planet was in a panic while social media and news channels worldwide went mad with wild, hysterical claims of a potential alien invasion, while the governments around the world scrambled to detect what was going on.
Emergency calls were made between Washington, Moscow, Beijing, London, Paris, Islamabad, and Pyongyang among the nuclear powers to confer and ensure that all of them were experiencing the same thing. At that time, the first anomaly was noticed. Of all the nuclear powers, New Delhi was conspicuously absent. Pakistan instantly assumed the worst but was quickly rebuffed by the others and was warned not to play games when potentially the entire world was at stake.
Thankfully, the purple halo vanished thirty minutes after its appearance, and then as one, every single seismometer and global mapping satellite in existence went haywire worldwide, raising alarms at the highest level. The nuclear powers disengaged and returned to their countries to take stock of situation after agreeing to meet later once they had more information on hands.
After 15 minutes of careful vetting, at a level so thorough that the information could be considered as holy gospel, the information was undeniably verified, and the reason for India's absence ascertained. Ironically, the entire Indian subcontinent had been yanked from South Asia and transplanted right in the middle of Eurasia. Now instead of all the Baltic states and its former soviet republics, Russia curiously was faced with one gigantic neighbor who had covered its entire border with Europe.
The information was met with stunned disbelief all over the world, as everyone came to grips with the new reality. Barely settled panic bubbled up in Europe which was one misstep away from full-blown riots.
No 10, Downing Street, Two days later,
"Could you repeat that in a clear and concise manner, please?" Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the chair of the Royal Geographical Society, Nigel Clifford who looked rather put out at being questioned on what he considered as his matter of expertise.
"Prime Minister, through means unknown and utilizing a scale of power never recorded in history before, the entire subcontinent of India has been surgically cut off from its original tectonic plate and transposed right in between the land that originally acted as a border with the Russian Federation and Europe. The insertion of the subcontinent was done precisely and flawlessly, so much so that the continental tectonic plates did not register the movement at all. It is as if a higher authority decided to give our planet a facelift, if you want to use a term clearer to laypeople," the man finished while the members of the cabinet shared looks of outrage and exasperation in between.
"Thank you, Mr. Clifford," Johnson spoke out while the people from the geographical society walked out after completing their briefing. Johnson moaned in physical pain and covered his forehead for a moment before recovering.
"This is a clusterfuck," the Prime Minister swore while his ministers remained stone-faced, even as a few uttered a choice imprecation of their own.
"Right, what's the fallout with Russia and Europe?" Johnson asked Dominic Raab, his Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who looked like he had not slept for a straight week. Raab pointed to the new map of Europe on the screen and sighed. "As you can see, it is a shitshow! India has been neatly placed between Russia and the west in perfect symmetry. Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland (both with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, are all on the western side of India now, while Russia falls entirely on India's east. Simply put, there is now a buffering border of roughly 1,900 miles between Russia and all of them, and all of it filled with the second most populous nation in the world which also happens to have the second largest standing army in the world. But there were some hiccups in this plastic surgery of sorts," Raab read out from the hastily cobbled reports by his people, while Johnson winced.
He could already imagine the screams of denial and outrage from within the halls of the Kremlin, while the Baltic States would be doing the conga for this unexpected bounty on their laps.
"Hiccups?" he asked cautiously while fearing the answer.
"It seems Crimea went along the ride with Russia so to speak. This authority or whatever decided that Crimea was Russian territory and it was moved to the Eastern side of India and not its Western Side. Ukraine is understandably salty about this as you can imagine. Once the furore settles, you can bet that Putin will declare this as a divine mandate that Crimea always belonged to Russia or something," Raab pointed out with a wince on his face.
Johnson nodded in agreement. Ukraine would not take this kind of thing lightly. But it seemed now that Crimea was indeed a lost case. And any military attempt to regain Crimea, towards which the Ukrainians were planning (but totally denying its existence) would run into a very scary elephant named the Indian Military before even reaching Russia at that.
"Book a call with Zelensky within the next 36 hours. I hope he can calm his people down," Johnson noted, even as he took a sip of his tea to soothe his nerves.
"Going on, it was not all roses for the Indians as well," Raab continued, "They got only half of Kashmir along for the ride, and the other half under Pakistan remains where it is. The bad news is they lost half of Kashmir. The good news is that Pakistan and China are out of their hair, permanently. It is interesting down there for sure. The Kashmir conflict seems to have been settled, more thoroughly than anyone anticipated. Pakistan is squealing some, but it is China that has been left holding the bag. And yes, somehow, Bhutan and Bangladesh got left behind. But they have been curiously moved beneath Nepal, and it seems that the Himalayas have just moved enough to exactly cover Nepal from three sides leaving it completely landlocked and giving those three countries only the Indian Ocean as their new border!"
"Bet Xi loved hearing this report," Sajid Javid, the Chancellor snarked while others laughed at that point.
"Well," Raab continued, "It is curious, I admit. Sri Lanka remains in place and is still a full-fledged island. But somehow Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep came along for the ride. The Lakshadweep islands have been transplanted in the Black Sea, while the Andaman Islands have been placed near the Baltic Sea in the Gulf of Riga. There is now three thousand miles of new sea borders extra in the Baltic sea and the entire Indian Navy has found itself there as well. For very understandable reasons, the Nordic countries are concerned. For now, the Indian Navy is sticking to coastal patrols but once they set out to patrol their new borders, just by sheer volume and tonnage, they will become one of the most powerful navies in Europe," Raab finished, while Johnson took a deep breath.
"This will need some delicate handling. And I mean delicate. Europe is going to have to get used to having another nuclear power within its borders and one which does not share its culture and history and is a stranger at that. Frankly speaking, Russia's relationship with India is far better than what most of Europe can claim. Only we, and the French have some pull. The rest are all strangers in realpolitik terms and have no real pull with New Delhi," Javid pointed out to which Johnson agreed with wholeheartedly.
Ben Wallace, the Secretary of Defense stood up and moved to the bank of screens while Raab came back and sat down. The maps were now replaced with a more militaristic version and Wallace took over the briefing to cover the implications from a military perspective.
"India possesses the 2nd largest armed forces in the world, with a standing army of 1.2 million and a reserve of another million. Add to that a Border force of 250,000 and other central paramilitary forces of around 750,000. That is three million men right there. Then, you have around 5,000 tanks, 2,500 APC's and 7,000 various types of artillery. This is excluding their missile forces which with a functioning IRBM capacity and suspected ICBM as well, which puts the entirety of Europe including us under their coverage. The Nukes need not to be talked about as everyone is aware of the implications of a new nuclear power in Europe," he finished, while many of the members in the room paled as they got the real gritty details about the military juggernaut that had been moved near their borders. And this is just their army, we have not even gone into their Airforce and Navy yet," Wallace finished while a heavy silence settled around the room.
"We get it, Ben, there is a new eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room," Johnson nodded. "What is the global fallout of this, potentially?" Johnson asked, while Wallace looked at the assessment drawn by MI6 and HQ London District. It made for grim reading
"For Europe, Putin's dreams of reconquering the Baltics and recreating the USSR or a new Russian Empire is dead in the water. Unless he is insane, he would have to fight a land war against one of the only two armies in the world which can outmatch every army in existence by sheer numbers alone. And compared to the level of combat experience the Indians have by honing themselves for the last seventy years in Kashmir and their northeastern states, the Russians would be mulched in combat, if it came to that. But given their historical ties, MI6 rates the possibility of a war between Russia and India as practically non-existent. Similarly, for the Baltics, Russia is now beyond reach, and this should reduce their strain on defense budgets, considerably, if this can be finagled into a permanent peace. But for this, we may have lost Southeast Asia for good to China as a payoff," Wallace admitted, even as he brought a map of South Asia, which looked weird without India in it.
"It was the potential threat of India that made China devote so much resources to its western command and bankroll Pakistan. They invaded Tibet just to gain strategic depth for this, and now, with India gone, they are free to focus their full attention on Taiwan and the South China Sea. With Pakistan guarding their flanks, they have nothing left to worry. Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh lucked out by having the Himalayas move around them in an impenetrable land border, which saves them from suffering the same fate as Tibet. But that is all they can do, and they are of no further use. With India gone, our navy will have a long transit to Southeast Asia without any friendly ports in the middle, and Diego Garcia just became invaluable to us as a transshipment and logistics point, as did Sri Lanka. China on the other hand is now free to focus on Taiwan without care, and that is bad news for us."
"Which means the Quad is as dead as a dodo," Raab added acidly as he looked at the other members of the cabinet. "India was meant to provide most of the muscle for the Quad in future, thought it had yet to develop to that point. As advanced as the Japanese and Australian forces are, they are pitifully, and I mean pitifully, small. Without India distracting China, it is going to be a mess. None of the other nations in South Asia, save Pakistan, have the heft to act as a counterweight to China; and Pakistan is almost a Chinese colony now in all but name," the foreign secretary finished while everyone remained silent.
"I have gotten informal feelers from Tokyo, mind," the defense secretary spoke softly. "Looks like Tokyo is thinking very hard about a constitutional amendment with regards to removing the title of 'sell-defense' applied to their forces," he finished, while Johnson looked at him as if he was insane.
"Please tell me you are joking?" the Prime Minister asked, to which the defense secretary shook his head.
"One world-ending crisis at a time, is that too much to ask?" Johnson asked wanly as he looked at his cabinet, only to find his Chancellor of the exchequer looking at him with a guilty look.
"Yes, Sajid, please give us your brief," Boris spoke out as all the cabinet turned to look at the man who held the strings of the purse for the entire nation.
"I have a more pressing concern, so to speak, Prime Minister, and I am sure Brussels, Paris and Berlin are getting this information as we speak," the chancellor spoke in a somber tone as everyone perked up. This was going to hurt to hear, seasoned politicians all, they had a knack for identifying such crises and they were not disappointed.
"This facelift or whatever which has brought our Indian friends close to Europe has had an unintended consequence," the chancellor admitted as he looked at his notes, and brought up a new set of maps which everyone turned around to look at. "Because of this facelift, India was inserted between Europe and Russia, and one of the consequences of that is that all the pipelines bringing in natural gas and other petroleum products from Russia to Europe, Nordstream and other such lines, have been totally cut off! If we want the supply to resume, we will have to hastily build a set of connecting pipelines for more than 2,000 miles across India. Frankly speaking, the only way for Russian gas to now reach Europe is through India and once everyone learns that the tap has been cut off, and that our reserves will last for three weeks at best while it will need four months to rebuild the connection, the ensuing riots will be the least of our worries! This will make all financial meltdowns look like a pebble on the road, and I am deathly afraid of how law and order can be maintained, and that is if we can stave off the panic stricken riots that will occur in the first place!"
After ten minutes of silence in the room, in which no one spoke, Johnson finally took the plunge. "Get Moscow and New Delhi on the line. I need to speak with Modi and Putin right now, and Dominic, speak with the US state department please. We do not need Trump messing this up even worse! God! I hope Washington is handling this better than we are," Johnson spoke aloud, while his aides moved around quickly to implement his orders.
AN: Something that would not leave my head until I got it out of my system. If my readers find it interesting, I will further develop this storyline.
