Had the British never come, it is plausible that a government of Marathas led by the Peshwas would have imported the railway system from Britain commercially, as the rest of Europe did, and put India on the path of a development war with France and Germany. This counterfactual history, which needs to be debated, would have been largely positive for Indians on its own, but could not, because of the favourable circumstances in which the foreigner found himself in India. It has been less positive in China for much the same reason.
