Introduction to the Mughal Empire's Decline
The Mughal Empire, despite its magnitude and intricacies, began crumbling away from the end of the 17th century. The boundaries of the vast empire began to shrink, and the administrative apparatus witnessed an accelerated demise owing to a number of causal factors. There emerged a number of regional states which filled the glaring vacuum left behind by the declining Mughal Empire, which led to the final usurpation of power by the British colonial government. Why the 18th century is imperative for the better understanding of Indian history is because it symbolizes the crucial juncture which precedes the commencement of colonialism in India, whose impact can be felt even today and the transition into modernity. The decline of the Mughals has garnered scholarly views and has attracted different strands of historiography which dissect every aspect of its disintegration and provides us with a more holistic perspective.
Mughal-Centric vs. Region-Centric Perspectives
The gradual end of this Central Asian empire has been viewed from two very important standpoints: the Mughal-centric approach through which historians look at the structural failure within the boundaries of the empire and the region-centric approach which travels outside the precincts of the empire to provide a view of the instabilities and struggles in different geographical areas. One of the major distinctions that need to be drawn here is the difference between the term 'collapse' and 'fall'. While collapse indicates a more gradualistic decline, the latter symbolizes a more singular and sudden death. It becomes important to clarify that the empire witnessed the former rather than the latter.
Mughal-Centric Viewpoint
Dealing with the Mughal-centric viewpoint, one of the most comprehensive arguments has been put forward by the set of pre-independent scholars like William Irvine, Stanley Lanepoole, V.A Smith, Jadunath Sarkar among others. They associate the decline with the atrocities and restrictions imposed by Aurangzeb on the population which accelerated the destructive forces. William Irvine concentrated on the degenerate character of the emperors that succeeded Aurangzeb and their officers as well, justifying the advent of British rule, Jadunath Sarkar argued that the religious policy of intolerance towards the non-Muslims exercised rigidly by Aurangzeb culminated in a 'Hindu reaction' which only widened the gap between the different communities within the population and caused the breakdown of the imperial machinery. Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi, a Pakistani historian, argues contrastingly and holds Akbar responsible for including the Shias as well as the Hindus in the governing processes. He propounded that these classes could not have been loyal as they did not belong to the Sunni Muslim community and fell like a house of cards under the competence of Aurangzeb. Bipin Chandra also analyses the policies of the emperor, looking critically at the imposition of jiziya on the non-Muslims along with the ruination of Hindu temples and restrictions on the practising of Hindu religion, however he concludes that these processes should not be singularly magnified as they had been revoked in the years after Aurangzeb's death. He also pointed out that other groups that rose to power like the Marathas also committed their political expansion to the cause of plunder and power and hence was not a unique phenomenon.
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Bahadur Shah II, the final Mughal emperor of India, ruled from 1837 to 1857. |
The Jagirdari Crisis and Administrative Failures
In 1959, the publication of Satish Chandra’s Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court 1707-40 marked the first serious attempt to study the structure of the Mughal Empire. He intricately laid down the many facets of the most crucial administrative machinery, the mansab-jagir relationship. He argued that despite the slow agricultural growth, the wants of the nobles increased rapidly. Though trade was always present as an alternative income, it could never supplement the revenue appropriated from land and the exploitation of peasantry to squeeze every grain grew beyond leaps and bounds. He believed that the Mughal attitude towards the zamindars had always remained contradictory in nature; while they were considered the main threat to the internal stability of the empire, they were also judged the crucial intermediary for local administration which was indispensable. They were thus awarded the status of a mansab along with a piece of land for maintenance termed jagir. This system brought the internal contradictions of rural life to the forefront as zamindars were not willing to give up their influential positions. Peasant uprisings against the increased rates of revenue, uprisings by the zamindars, and the attempts to carve out separate kingdoms were the different ways in which the frustration of the rural classes manifested. He argued the emergence of the jagirdari crisis was a result of the inability of the jagirdars to procure the stipulated amount of revenue which were in turn required to maintain their troops. The situation was even worse in the Deccan where the vast influx of nobles could not find appropriate jagirs due to the infertility of the soil. Athar Ali postulated in 1966 that the absorption of Deccani and Maratha nobles against the backdrop of decreasing jagirs only eroded the system that was intrinsic to the smooth functioning of the Mughal Empire. Each jagirdar competed for better plots of land due to their increasing numbers. Nurul Hassan also added to this trend by arguing that agrarian relationships had developed in a pyramidal authoritarian structure with different rights being juxtaposed and the bulk of the revenue becoming the burden of the peasantry. With the change in dynamics after the death of Aurangzeb, the zamindars who were otherwise loyal to the state began succumbing to the economic pressures which culminated in the antagonisms between the state and this class. Their growing authority could no longer be kept in check, and they often undermined state power. Hassan calculated that the only solution available would have been alternative institutions who remained exclusive of the zamindars who could curb their increasing influence. Since this was not available, the dissolution of the empire became imminent. Bipin Chandra also added to this strand of economic writing by arguing that agriculture was no longer able to meet the increasing demands of the population due to the constant warfare and increased luxury of the nobles. He substantiated his arguments by propounding the marked distinction in the conditions in Europe and the Indian subcontinent, pointing to the newer technologies that were present in the former nation. In Mughal India, this growth was hampered by bad communications and by the self-sufficient nature of village economy. In the absence of newer advances in science and technology, India lagged behind Europe, both economically and politically, and eventually succumbed to the pressure.
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Red Fort in Delhi (a key Mughal structure that witnessed the empire's fall, including the 1857 revolt) |
Structural Contradictions and Peasant Revolts
The trend of concentrating on the personalities of the emperors and their associated officers gradually gave way to a greater ambit of administration wherein Irfan Habib has done some pioneering work. The focus of Irfan Habib is on the structural contradictions of the Mughal polity that eventually led to the decline of the Empire. The Mughals did not allow the jagirdars to be at the same jagir for more than four years. This was done in order to ensure that jagirdars didn’t become powerful in their jagirs. Even though this policy in some sense made the centralisation of power possible in the Mughal regime, at the same time, this policy also made jagirdars oppressive in demanding revenues. They started demanding excessive taxes in places with fertile soil as they had no reason to think about the future implications of their act. As a result, the peasantry had to suffer tremendously. The payment of taxes left the peasants in a state of penury and poverty. This oppression was the driving force for peasant revolts. Throughout the Mughal regime, there were numerous peasant revolts. Sometimes zamindars also joined, supported, or started the revolts. These zamindars thought that the increased tax demands had left them worse-off as they were left with a lesser amount of the collected revenue. These revolts eventually led to the collapse of the Mughal Empire, especially the revolt of the Jats, Satnamis, and the Marathas. C.A Bayly takes a contrasting stand propounding that the death of Aurangzeb brought local and small leaders to the fore who benefitted from the collapse of the pyramidal structure and constituted the new emerging class. Many would indulge in non-farming activities such as trade or production of textiles. This growing ‘middle class’ benefitted from the increased economic trade. Bayly thus argues that the rich peasantry along with the small-scale rulers led to the downfall of the Mughal Empire. Rohan D'Souza views the crisis from the vantage point of the weakening military might. He affirms the idea that the equilibrium that had been maintained administratively had been tipped due to the protracted battles in the Deccan. They undermined the Mughal military prowess and added very few glorious resources in its treasury, as a result of which the precipitation of the jagirdari crisis had been even more profound. Bipin Chandra also comments on the characteristics of the nobility by asserting that the new entrants were seldom interested in the betterment of state and society and instead focused on their own selfish motives. The weakness of the Mughal nobility, according to Chandra, was not in the decline of the average ability or the moral decay but due to the selfishness and lack of devotion towards the state. The most able-bodied out of them were the ones who carved out their succeeding kingdoms. However, he also justified this argument by citing that this phenomenon was observed in other communities like Jats, Sikhs, Satnamis as well.
The Maratha Threat and Military Challenges
M.N Pearson scrutinized the role of the Maratha threat and concluded that the Mughals could never crush them entirely. He argued that Aurangzeb was confronted with the "aura of success," i.e., the rejuvenation of the alliances and the nobility's confidence in the emperor's person hadn’t happened with the Deccan. He was of the view that Aurangzeb granted the choicest of lands in the new territories as jagirs to the top end of the provincial elite and those fighting the Marathas and then made further expansionary thrusts. This was done to shore up his most substantial alliances and enhance his capacity to control over the nobility. The Deccan imbroglio was a clear signal that the political process that worked the institutions of rule were severely undermined, principally as a result of the new tactical context of guerrilla warfare employed by the Marathas. He argued that the nobility was tied to the concept of the Mughal Empire, and when the patronage directed towards them declined due to the military expansions in the south, this concept ceased to exist and hence caused distress. J.F Richards added a new dimension to this argument in the 1970s by propagating the view that the crisis of jagirdari was a managerial issue rather than an administrative one. He was of the opinion that Aurangzeb reserved the fertile tracts of the Deccan for the khalisa lands and failed to dispense the growing needs of the newly inducted nobles. The pacification of this class was not conducted appropriately and crumbled under the pressure. He also digresses from the viewpoint that resources were available for the smooth functioning of the empire; however, he never forged strengthened ties with the notable elites of the region to gain unfettered access to these resources. He failed as a ruler to provide military assistance to the jagirdars in the region for the collection of revenue and hence gave agency to these nobles to find security in the camps of the enemy. Hence, at a later stage, their contributions to the Mughal campaigns remained dismal. Thus, the crisis owed its origins to non-functionality and not bejagiri. However, he managed to eliminate the disastrous impact these campaigns had on these regions in his thesis.
Jagirdari Crisis vs. Bejagiri
Satish Chandra, at this point, addressed the issue by marking a distinction between the crisis of the jagirdari system and bejagiri. He laid down the network of relationships that constituted medieval rural society, pointing to a tripolar correlation between the peasants, zamindars, and the jagirdar/mansabdar. The effective responsibility of the mansabdar/jagirdar was to collect revenue from the zamindar and keep the peasants under cultivation. Jagirdars required military might to maintain this relationship. However, in the 17th century, the social crisis of the Mughals reflected in the financial strain. The glaring difference between the jama and the hasil had gained greater prominence from the end of Shah Jahan's reign. The mansabdars, as a result, could not maintain their troops for periods longer than 5 months due to the income generated, which resulted in rapid shrinking of the armed forces. In the Deccan, this period was even shorter and lasted not more than 3 months. Once the military power suffered this attack, the tripolar relationship eroded. He pointed to two visible ways in which this disaster could be avoided. The first was that had the Mughals reconciled with the zamindars and come up with a settlement with Marathas, the outcome might have been diametrically opposite. But by the time settlement was achieved, after Aurangzeb, Marathas had become powerful, and the Mughal aristocracy had weakened. This further deepened the jagirdari crisis, which eventually led to the downfall of the Mughal Empire. The other method propounded by him was if there was a rapid development of the economy in both agrarian and non-agrarian sectors. Trade had always been supplementary, and no definitive proof exists to establish whether these finances were injected into the economy or reserved for the ostentatious lives of the nobles. However, merchants were not rich or powerful, and evidence suggested that Mughal administrative policy was always directed towards preserving the small peasant economy. Thus, they had very few options besides becoming sharecroppers and further deteriorating their positions. The only way they could grow was if they became intermediary zamindars or mahajans. As the agrarian development remained slow, this development never occurred. As a result, it could be concluded that the administrative system was reared on this structure, the two acting and reacting on each other. All the other factors like the growth in the size of the ruling class, the growing ostentatious lifestyle of the nobles which limited the surplus available for expanding production, and resulted in slow economic growth were contributory factors to the growth of the crisis.
The Great Firm Theory and Economic Shifts
Region-Centric View: Punjab and Awadh
Coming to the second broad classification of Mughal decline, the region-centric view is hinged on the extensive research by Muzaffar Alam in the comparative analysis of the Mughal subas of Punjab and Awadh and Chetan Singh's study on 17th-century Punjab. They shed new light on the instability that permeated the fringes of the Mughal Empire in the wake of its decline.
Instability in Awadh and Punjab
Looking at the empire through the regional literature of Awadh, Alam affirmed that the Mughal Empire acted as a coordinating agency among the several communities and conflicting strata that were existent. The basis of the empire lay in the negative as power was derived from the fact that these local elements could not gain power beyond narrow confines, and hence its structure remained flawed, leading to the lack of political integration. It was, to a large extent, conditional on the coordination of the interests and the political activities of the various social groups led by local magnates. This was accompanied by the latter realizing that they could not amass wealth by themselves as their position and power emanated directly from the emperor himself. They had no hereditary estates to pass on to their descendants, and they ultimately epitomized the Mughal representative. Yet, they had problems even within the confines of the nobility. The policy of jagir transfer was implemented to check the influence of the jagirdar in the local affairs of that geographical region but only went on to inconvenience those who resisted it as its execution varied from one place to the next. In some regions, this policy remained unenacted till the 17th century. The other local group that constituted lower-level officials from various communities was the madad-e-maash holders who created pockets of Mughal influence in far-flung regions of the empire to curb the powers of the recalcitrant zamindars. Thus, these power structures were inherent for the social and political well-being of the countryside. However, in the 18th century, it was seen that there emerged an inability to sustain this equilibrium between the peasant, jagirdar, zamindar, and madad-e-maash grantees. There was a diversion towards independent empires being carved out by zamindars and an increasing tendency to encroach on the property of the other class. This was not entirely incompatible with the structure of the empire, but at the time when the empire was already amidst a gradual decline with the loss of military might, it added to the pace of events.
Economic Boom and Political Instability
Muzaffar Alam's main concern was to analyze what triggered off this imbalance in the 18th century and not at a period preceding it. He discovers that this was a period of economic boom, unlike the sentiments of Satish Chandra and others who felt that the empire was submerged in a prolonged financial crisis. Alam argued that it was because of these economic developments that the elements that had once been loyal to the state found agency to encroach on the rights and privileges of others. The political edifice of the company was bound to suffer amidst these circumstances. Alam concluded that these situations gave rise to a new subadari, and independent regional units existed in both Punjab and Awadh. The marked distinction was that in Awadh, there emerged a stable dynastic rule, while Punjab crumbled away.
Regional Dynamics in Punjab
Muzaffar Alam's line of argumentation has been carried further by the works of Chetan Singh in his book titled, Region and Politics, which looks closely not only at the political changes that occurred in 18th-century Mughal suba of Punjab but connects it to the much wider saw of political developments in the West Asian world. He argued that the administrative apparatus undoubtedly connected the region to the administrative core; however, this integration was subject to certain antagonisms. He further argued that the local society and polity were privy to certain stresses, and the administration responded by transgressing the formal administrative divisions and subdivisions of the governmental system. This held true for general as well as pragmatic considerations, which led to the inherent flexibility in offices and collection of revenue. Thus, with time, certain norms and conditions evolved, enforced by rules and regulations, which was the basis of stability in the Mughal Empire. Singh further analyzes the reasons for the collapse of independent alignments in Punjab and cites the occurrence of heavy silting in the riverine basin of Punjab in the 17th century, which led to a virtual standstill in traffic and an adverse effect on the highly commercialized economy of Punjab. The political developments in Turkey, the loss of Qandahar to the Shah of Iran, and the Mughal attempt to recapture it all added to the declining situation. This coincided with the Yusufzai rebellion in 1667 in North-West Punjab and the Afridi rebellion in 1678, which deteriorated the economic prongs on which Punjab thrived. Thus, Singh concluded that the economic stresses manifested in social upheavals. These rebellions were more prone to occur in regions of dense commercialisation as the effect of a disintegrating economy was more profound here. He pointed to the unequal distribution of uprisings owing to the distinction in the intensity of commercialisation in these areas. Hence, he propounded that these forces of decline had been silently at work even before it gained momentum in the 18th century. It is here that he adds a new dimension to the mooted question of 'crisis of the Empire'. He answers that while analyzing the various reasons for the dissociation of different regions, a very different image of the empire emerges, one in which the forces of demise had been at play even during the heyday of the empire. They worked gradually to erode and caused the severance of subas from the Mughal core and led to the emergence of independent regional successor states.
Conclusion: A Multifaceted Decline
It can thus be concluded that there emerges not one approach to defining Mughal political decline which encompasses every facet of its demise. It can best be viewed as a consensus between the centre and the periphery. The decline began when the equilibrium between these two spheres was dismantled, and the newly independent areas viewed their dissociation as a means to amass wealth by utilizing the opportunities that came with economic growth. Regional histories indicate the vanquish of socio-cultural bonds that existed between the centre and the peripheries. The heterogeneous linkages that had been delicately laid down between the two paradigms of Mughal rule inevitably severed due to the stresses it was being subjected to. It was thus logical for these regions to dissociate themselves from the core, thereby ushering in the downfall of the once mighty Mughal Empire.
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| Ahmad Shah abdali |
Lastly, the conclusion that could be inevitably drawn up from the sentiments of scholars was that the decline of the empire was initially conceived to have its roots in the maladjustment of administrative institutions that formed the base of Mughal stability and power. It was gradually that newer strands of historiography pointed to the shift in perspective to the regional entities which could not configure in the immediate history of the Mughal centre and added to a more holistic approach. Thus, it becomes inherently clear that the application of one clear theory which incorporated every strand of development across every region within the empire was not possible to be conceptualized as each geographical area was earmarked by distinct circumstances. The final blow to the empire came with the series of foreign invasions by Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Abdali, which were the consequences of the weakness of the empire, drained of wealth and military might. It was the emergence of the British challenge which took away the hope of revival of a crisis-ridden empire. Thus, the Mughal Empire that ruled in the subcontinent for two centuries drew to a close.
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Bibliography
- Satish Chandra - Medieval India: Society, the Jagirdari Crisis and the Village
- Bipin Chandra - History of Modern India
- Irfan Habib - India Historical View
- Internet