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I am currently reading Ludwig von Mises' Human Action and find it rewarding in various ways. For instance, von Mises points out the following about volunteers' roles even around autocratic rulers:

Of course, it is possible to establish a government upon the violent oppression of reluctant people. It is the characteristic mark of state and government that they apply violent coercion or the threat of it against those not prepared to yield voluntarily. Yet such violent oppression is no less founded upon ideological might. He who wants to apply violence needs the voluntary cooperation of some people.

He alludes to the British rule in India by way of example of governing ideologies (the book was first published in 1949):

A comparatively insignificant number of Britons could rule many hundred millions of Indians because the Indian princes and aristocratic landowners looked upon British rule as a means for the preservation of their privileges and supplied it with the support which the generally acknowledged ideology of India gave to their own supremacy. England's Indian empire was firm as long as public opinion approved of the traditional social order. The Pax Britannica safeguarded the princes' and the landlords' privileges and protected the masses against the agonies of war between the principalities and of succession wars within them. In our day the infiltration of subversive ideas from abroad has undermined British rule and at the same time threatens the preservation of the country's age-old social order.

Now my question is this: Do we have evidence that British colonial politics opposite Indian maharajas was indeed shaped by such dynamics and whether colonial decision makers subscribed to similar ideas towards the beginning and end of British rule in India? (For instance, I am aware that Douglas MacArthur supported a continued role for the Japanese Tenno after World War II for partly similar reasons, but I was not aware so far that the Maharajas continued-if-somewhat-diminished influence e.g. in the 19th century should be mainly attributed to anything else but their families' political maneuverings in what from their perspective must have appeared as a struggle for survival.)

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Wasn't the idea as old as Rome? Or Golden Horde for that matter. –  DVK Feb 19 '13 at 14:31
@DVK you are probably right, and von Mises e.g. also refers to "the Tartars in Russia [...] the Turks in the Danube principalities and by and large in Hungary and Transylvania and [...] the British and the Dutch in the Indies". I think his (first) quote summarizes the pattern rather well. I'm also curious as to exactly how the same pattern played out under the Chinese Yuan and Qing dynasties; this may in fact become the topic of a future question. –  Drux Feb 19 '13 at 18:09
Nice book, is this fun reading or studying for something? –  grayQuant Feb 21 '13 at 4:39
I assume you mean how an outside minority like the Mongols and the Manchus respectively came to rule over the largest empire in Asia? In both cases the invaders became firmly assimilated into Chinese culture. The Manchus especially adopted Confucianism and especially favored the Song school, as mentioned in my question. Their own culture faded into the background as the dynasty aged and Han Chinese administrators were key. I would say it was different in China. history.stackexchange.com/questions/7617/… –  grayQuant Feb 21 '13 at 4:50
I will post this as a question and try to answer it myself. It's a topic that I've put in considerable time researching. –  grayQuant Feb 21 '13 at 17:46
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