Panipat the other way

In the library, Gaitonde reads a history of India in five volumes. Up to the time of Aurangzeb, history is exactly as he knows it. The change comes in volume five.

In this history, the Marathas won the third battle of Panipat. (In our world, they lost it, in 1761.) The Afghan invader Abdali was defeated and chased back to Kabul.

The young Vishwasrao survived the battle. He became Peshwa, and with his brother Madhavrao, he spread Maratha power across India. The East India Company was reduced to a few ports on the coast.

Over time, the Peshwas embraced science and technology, and later gave way to elected bodies. India grew into a self-respecting democracy. It allowed the British to keep only Bombay, as a lease, a trading post.

Where exactly did history split? Gaitonde finds the clue in a Bakhar, an old Marathi chronicle of the battle: lively, but not always reliable. It describes a shot that only brushed past Vishwasrao's ear. In Gaitonde's own world, that bullet killed him.

One bullet, Gaitonde realises, made a different India.