History of India Page 1 of 13 HISTORY Subject : History (For under graduate student) Paper No. : Paper - III History of India Topic No. & Title : Topic - 7 Decline of the Mughal Empire and Emergence of Successor States Lecture No. & Title : Lecture - 1 Decline of the Mughal Empire The decline of the Mughal Empire is a highly debatable issue since the middle of the 19 th century till almost today. Decline of the Mughal Empire historiography and sources (foreign sources) After the English had taken over first Bengal and then almost the whole of India, their historiography, i.e. the writings of the English officials dwelt upon the question of why the Mughal Empire declined and fell. One of the major writers and high English official stated that the principle reason for the decline of the Mughal Empire was
History of India Page 2 of 13 due to the orthodox fanatical Muslim policy of the Emperor Aurangzeb who had deliberately oppressed the Hindus. In other words it were the religious policies of the Mughals that had led to the decline of the Mughal Empire, according to the English officials. This view was more or less corroborated by other highly placed English officials and writers including Vincent Smith. Vincent Smith (1848-1920) and before that James Mill (1773 1836) had devised what is known as periodisation of Indian history: Hindu period, Muslim period and British period. This periodisation is more or less discarded nowadays, replaced by ancient, medieval and modern. But the basic objectives of the English colonial officials were to show that the Hindus and the Muslims were in an eternal conflict in India and the two separate races cannot be reconciled. This view obviously was done for a political reason, of maintaining their hold on India. Decline of the Mughal Empire historiography and sources (Indian sources) From the early 20 th century, one of the leading Indian historians Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870 1958) began to write on Aurangzeb and finished it in five volumes in which he had shown that the fanatical policy of the Emperor Aurangzeb
History of India Page 3 of 13 (1618 1707) was responsible for the Hindus to turn away from the Mughal Empire and as a result of which the Mughal Empire declined. He further elaborated this view in his another book called Later Mughals in which he tried to show that the reason for the decline of the Mughal Empire in the 18 th century was due to the weaknesses of the Mughal emperors, the intrigues of the nobility as well as the religious policies of the Mughals. This was nothing new. William Urwin in his book had already delineated this kind of view particularly emphasizing on the weakness of the moral character of the Mughal emperors. This view-on one hand the religious fanaticism and on the other hand the personal weaknesses of the Mughal emperors and the intrigues of the Mughal nobility-continued till independence and even after independence in many places. Decline of the Mughal Empire analysis after independence But from independence some of the Indian historians began to write and search for deeper causes of the decline of the Mughal Empire. One of them was professor Satish Chandra who wrote Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court. Here he showed two aspects very briefly: 1) there was great
History of India Page 4 of 13 oppression by the jagirdars / nobles on the peasants in the 18 th century (between 1704 & 1741) because the aspirations of the jagirdars or the nobles could not be met from the meagre revenue of the jagirs. This resulted in the second aspect 2) the politics in the Mughal court in which the Mughal nobles were divided. What is significant is that this division of the Mughal nobility is not based on religion. It is neither based on racial nor on communal lines. It is based on the personal affiliations, personal contact, friendship and relationship of the Mughal nobles. Therefore the division cannot be said to be due to the religious reasons, either anti Hindu or pro Hindu. After the book of Satish Chandra, there was the book of late Athar Ali who wrote on the Mughal nobility under Aurangzeb. This book is remarkable is many senses and it has more or less changed the historiography of the Mughal empire. Athar Ali showed that the fact that Aurangzeb was anti-hindu, particularly after 1670 because after this he turned toward the orthodox Muslims and became anti-rajput, is not true. Instead of the Rajput mansabdars he had taken the Maratha mansabdars, because the Maratha wars were going on. So the Marathas were recruited in large numbers and as a matter
History of India Page 5 of 13 of fact Athar Ali had shown that the number of Hindus in the Mughal administration at the higher level had increased very much from the time of Akbar to the time of Aurangzeb. For example he said that during the reign of Akar there were 23% of Hindus among the mansabdars. By the time of the end of the reign of Aurangzeb this number had reached 31 %. So, there was a very clear 8% rise in the Mughal mansabdari system in which the Hindus had got a good share. Therefore he argued that it cannot be said that Aurangzeb was an anti Hindu, he was certainly anti-rajput because of the Rajput wars and because of the Maratha wars he had begun to take the Marathas into the nobility. But beyond that he said that what was happening from the end of 17 th century was known as the Jagirdari crisis. There he had followed to a certain extent the line given by Satish Chandra that there was a crisis of the jagirdari system in two senses, 1) not much revenue was coming out of the jagir which was the salary of the Mughal noble 2) not many jagirs were available. Therefore no new mansabdars were being created because no jagir was available.
History of India Page 6 of 13 As a matter of fact he quoted one of the contemporary writers who said it is very difficult to get a mansab but it is almost impossible to get a jagir. Therefore it was a big jagiri without a jagir that had happened. Thirdly he showed that the earlier view of S.R.Sharma (that the civil war was on between Hindus and Muslims, the Hindus having sided with Dara Shiko and the muslims with Aurangzeb) was not correct. The number of Hindus on both sides was more or less the same. Therefore, there was no such communal divide in the civil war between Aurangzeb and Dara. Decline of the Mughal Empire Cultural failure In a later article Athar Ali had shown that there were certain other reasons for the decline and he had compared the Ottoman Turkish Empire, the Persian Empire and the Mughal Empire and had shown that all three had failed to take the advantage of the new technology that was coming: the technology of guns, ammunitions and many others. He said that it was a cultural failure. Not much effort or research has been made since then to go through this very important aspect that has been highlighted by Athar Ali. Apart from these two, the third one which came out was done by Prof. Irfan Habib. In his book, The Agrarian System of the
History of India Page 7 of 13 Mughal Empire between 1556-1707, he tried to show that there was great oppression by the jagirdars on the peasants for which he quoted the contemporary writer Francois Bernier (the middle of the 17 th century) and he also quoted the contemporary Persian documents to show that this kind of oppression was so much that the peasants were deserting their villages and going to other areas. The result was that there were revolts of the peasants, often led by the smaller zamindars and there were large number of revolts of which he had given the list and small descriptions as well in his later book. Here he quotes particularly two European writers 1) Peter Mundi in 1670s who said that in the Mughal Empire one revolt or the other is going at some place all the time 2) Niccolo Manucci, the Italian traveler writing in 1700 who said that the main problem was to confront the zamindars. In a document from Aurangzeb we see that he was also aware of this - that the zamindars are not paying revenue. As a matter of fact zamindars and faujdars were becoming powerful and as a result of this there was less revenue, although technically the revenue had increased since the
History of India Page 8 of 13 conquest of Bijapur and Golconda by Aurangzeb. It had increased by at least 23 %. Decline of the Mughal Empire Agrarian problem The reason of such oppression and revolts according to Irfan Habib, was due to the crisis in the system of agriculture itself and this crisis particularly in this system of agriculture, he had developed and described fully in view of a contradictory source. The contradictory source was that during the same time there was higher commodity production, higher trade. Yet this kind of agrarian crisis was going on and he said finally that it was a class war or the class struggle between the upper and the lower class. But the class war was hidden by two factors: 1) the religious factors or religious identity which one could see in the revolt of the Satnamis in 1670s in north India, revolt of the Matia in Bharuch in 1684, revolt of the Sikhs much later at the end of the century and early 18 th century. Therefore these religious wars had hidden the class wars. 2) Along with that there were the class and the clan affiliation of the zamindars. So, often the zamindars who belonged to the upper class joined the peasant s revolts and it had become formidable. To Irfan Habib it was a class war, the
History of India Page 9 of 13 oppression of the jagirdar and the revolt of the peasants that combined to take the Mughal Empire in its path of decline. Decline of the Mughal Empire failure of port economy Late Professor Ashin Dasgupta, who had worked on the merchants of Surat, gives his opinion that from the early 18 th century Surat port had declined. He had given his arguments and evidences from the English and the Dutch sources. Surat had declined from the early 18 th century and he said it was due to the Maratha warfare in hinterland and also that there were problems in marketing in western Asia, the problems of the Turkish and the Persian Empires etc. He did not dwell much into the Dutch conquest of the South East Asia where the Surat merchants used to go. What happened after the decline of Surat? According to some, one could very briefly say that there were two results: 1) the luxuries of the Mughal Empire had stopped coming 2) Biyana indigo, near Agra, had stopped its production and its sale at the same time. If the second result is taken first, we would see that it is not a very correct proposition because by 1670 the Biyana indigo
History of India Page 10 of 13 days were over. We have the testimony of Bernier who said that the Dutch who were the principal buyers and had their house at Biyana as well as at Agra, had withdrawn. Actually they had gone to Gujarat to get Circage indigo. About the luxuries coming from Surat, it did not stop. It continued to come from the east coast. In the east coast there were two ports, Masalipattanam and Hoogli. Masalipattanam was practically closed by the vandalism of the Dutch by the end of the 17 th century. So, there was Hoogli and consequently the rise of Patna that led to the import of luxuries. There are great detailed Persian descriptions of Delhi just before 1739 to show that Delhi was still prosperous. Decline of the Mughal Empire Financial crisis Now if we look at the Mughal Empire, we see that the financial crisis is actually jagirdari issue in a broader sense. This was nothing new. In the early 17thcentury after the death of Akbar, Jahangir had liberally appointed mansabdars, so much so that by 1615 most of the mansabdars were trying to find out jagirs which they could not get. It has been estimated that between 1605-1621, the number of mansabdars had doubled but the jagirs did not double, they remained the same so therefore there was the question of
History of India Page 11 of 13 payment resulting into acute financial crisis. As a result Jahangir had to reduce the salaries of the mansabdars, and this kind of financial crises continued till 1647 or almost to the end of the reign of Shah Jahan. By 1647 he could manage to reduce the financial crisis to almost its one-forth. But it still remained and it accentuated during the civil war, for 3 yrs, between Aurangzeb and Dara. So, therefore, it is nothing new. It was already there, latent and suppressed, sometimes partially resolved and therefore it continued and accentuated at the end of the 17 th century and early 18 th century. Decline of the Mughal Empire Political problems If we look at the 18 th century we will see that there were various political problems, apart from the economic ones. In 1739 Nadir Shah occupied Delhi, which had reduced the prestige of the Mughal Empire, to everybody including the Europeans. In the middle of the 18 th century Ahmed Shah Abdali made several invasions; in the first one he was defeated and he fled. Then he became very bold and finally occupied Delhi as well. Therefore 18 th century was a century of major political upheaval.
History of India Page 12 of 13 Then the Marathas began to dominate north India, the Rajput kingdoms refused to pay the revenue, and the empire of Emperor Shah Alam stretched from Delhi to Palam. He had to beg to Mahadaji Scindhia of the Marathas, to get the revenue from the Rajputs. He made the expedition, but could not pay fully and he had to pay huge amount of money. Therefore the problem remained. This problem was accentuated when the British came. They took over in 1765 the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Up to 1770 they paid revenue according to the fixed agreement to the Mughal Emperor but after that they gradually began to stop it. Summing up The question of the decline of the Mughal Empire does not really depend upon religious policy, or political intrigues of the Mughal nobility, but it continues because of the various other permanent and long standing problems, which the Mughals could not solve. The Mughal mansabdari system was highly efficient till the middle of 17 th century. After that new technology and new techniques had come particularly from the overseas, and the Mughals failed to adapt the new technology and techniques to suit their times. Therefore there are various and multiple causes for the decline of the Mughal
History of India Page 13 of 13 Empire, and one should not look for one cause or one reason but for several causes in the multiple complexity of the situation of the Mughal Empire.