u/Capta1n_Dino

If the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem were restored, which dynasty would you support making monarch? The ones I've put in the poll above are all those who carry the title "King of Jerusalem". I personally would support the Habsburgs.

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As an Indian and a monarchist, this is something I have wondered about. I am not really sure who would realistically be restored. I believe monarchy is the ideal form of government, but in the Indian context it’s hard to say who would actually be a King should the country attempt to restore someone.

The most obvious one immediately would be to restore the House of Windsor and become a Commonwealth realm. They were the last Kings of India officially. However, this would face massive resistance, and be politically impossible. It would be seen as undoing independence and as foreign domination, even with strict constitutional limits and all the benefits monarchy brings. So while the historical claim is strong, practically it would be impossible.

Now, India has many royal houses and dynasties, a legacy of the princely states system of British India. They even had some official legal recognition until the 1970s, though no legal authority since independence. Many of these houses have recognised descendants and heads, many even hold political office, but the main issue is here you could not realistically crown one as King of all of India, since they are tied to specific regions, religious traditions, and dynasties that do not represent the entire country. Rather, if we were to restore these houses, I think they would have to be regional leaders, potentially with an elective system of monarchy, where one of the princes is elected by the other to be King or Emperor of India. It could be a HRE style system, but this would be very complicated to do.

Beyond this, the last native Indian dynasty to rule all of India was the Mughals. Even this is already hard, modern Indian politics debates whether the Mughals were truly native or if they were early colonisers, unfortunately political narratives don’t allow the kind of nuance necessary to understand the transformation of medieval dynasties, but oh well. Moving beyond that, the main issue is there is no single recognised claimant to the Mughal line. They have descendants for sure, but they are impoverished, scattered, and lack any real way to prove their genealogies, assuming they are even aware of them, which most likely aren’t. The British did effectively destroy this line. They are also Islamic, which is politically explosive in India today.

So now the final option is that someone pulls a Napoleon or Caesar and we get a monarchy that way.

If you guy have any more insights and thoughts they would be much appreciated.