You mention a lot of points about Indian history. Most are right. One big factor in these things was the Caste system. With regards to the Mughals or other Central Asian cultures that ruled India. Most people in Geographical India just didn't feel the need to fight. Plus Mughals really intermarried and mixed with the local populace.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee(Former Prime Minister of India) said at one point in several key wars, there were more people sitting on the hills watching battles than actually participate in them. Most of it has to do with the Caste system barring participation, but the general point stands. A large section of people don't mind any political master ruling them as long as they are allowed to live in peace. This is why a general amnesty and treating local populations with respect, and just letting them be goes a long way in establishing your legitimacy over them.
In many cases when the political systems bought by an invading political force is better than existing political entity ruling them. Taxes are lower and they bring better ideas. In the case of India's independence. Watching movies and reading popular stories feels like the Independence movement was in peak intensity everywhere. In reality only major urban centers, and a few states saw these peak movements. Everywhere else it was business as usual. In states like Karnataka post the original wars between the Mysore Kingdoms and British, you barely hear any other stories. Even in the those wars, post defeat, the administration of Mysore Kingdoms moved in their entirety to British administrated political systems. The local public didn't really mind anything at all.
>>Aside from all this, contrary to some sort of received chivalric ideal of loyalty and fighting-unto-death, a great number of military engagements in every part of the world were decided by bribery and deception. People don't want to risk their lives and are often tempted by monetary gain. Countless forts have fallen to people opening the doors from within. There's instances of Sufi leaders being admitted into forts only to open the gates. Hyderabad was conquered by Aurangazeb in great part due to bribery, too.
Yup this is what happened in Mysore Kingdom. It is easy to label this treason or whatever. But people like Purnaiah and Mir Sadiq quite literally took money and made the British victory happen. Same thing happened in Bengal with Mir Jafar.
The success of a military system comes from it being able to muster strength in numbers, train and equip them appropriately. And all this depends on the economic system underneath.
A European feudal monarch might only have a few thousand men under his direct command, with the rest coming from levies from his vassals. This limits the amount of strength one person can hold on a battlefield, though the issue of lower-level leaders is already solved (this problem will always be present.) Compare this to nation-states being able to field massive armies under the control of one person.
In the same way, not being able to take advantage of all of the people in a society is a problem too. I am unsure to what effect caste inflected military participation. I doubt it was ever so strict as to prevent farmers from taking up arms. I'm unsure how many peasant rebellions happened in India, relative to other areas. China certainly had many. AFAIK, for much of Indian history there was more land than people to till it, so lords had to be careful to induce them to stay, lest they run away to better areas, with lower taxation and such.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee(Former Prime Minister of India) said at one point in several key wars, there were more people sitting on the hills watching battles than actually participate in them. Most of it has to do with the Caste system barring participation, but the general point stands. A large section of people don't mind any political master ruling them as long as they are allowed to live in peace. This is why a general amnesty and treating local populations with respect, and just letting them be goes a long way in establishing your legitimacy over them.
In many cases when the political systems bought by an invading political force is better than existing political entity ruling them. Taxes are lower and they bring better ideas. In the case of India's independence. Watching movies and reading popular stories feels like the Independence movement was in peak intensity everywhere. In reality only major urban centers, and a few states saw these peak movements. Everywhere else it was business as usual. In states like Karnataka post the original wars between the Mysore Kingdoms and British, you barely hear any other stories. Even in the those wars, post defeat, the administration of Mysore Kingdoms moved in their entirety to British administrated political systems. The local public didn't really mind anything at all.
>>Aside from all this, contrary to some sort of received chivalric ideal of loyalty and fighting-unto-death, a great number of military engagements in every part of the world were decided by bribery and deception. People don't want to risk their lives and are often tempted by monetary gain. Countless forts have fallen to people opening the doors from within. There's instances of Sufi leaders being admitted into forts only to open the gates. Hyderabad was conquered by Aurangazeb in great part due to bribery, too.
Yup this is what happened in Mysore Kingdom. It is easy to label this treason or whatever. But people like Purnaiah and Mir Sadiq quite literally took money and made the British victory happen. Same thing happened in Bengal with Mir Jafar.