Q.

Discuss the decline of Mughal Empire and the rise of regional polities in the light of
eighteenth-century debate.

A. The eighteenth century India is characterized by two major transitions. Firstly, the decline of
the Mughal empire and the rise of regional polities and secondly, the rise of the East India
company to a position of power. Many reasons have been cited for the decline of the Mughal
Empire. Some attribute it to economic crisis and exploitation by the ruling class. Others claim
that it was a result of regional assertiveness due to economic prosperity.

There is a debate whether the eighteenth century was a period of ‘Dark Age’ or economic
prosperity. The early historiography which dealt with the idea of imperial decline focused on the
administrative and religious policies of individual rulers and nobles. Sir Jadunath Sarkar focused
on Aurangzeb as the emperor who brought about the imperial decline. He argued that
Aurangzeb’s religious policies and his Deccan campaign were the chief reasons behind the
decline of the Mughal Empire. Sarkar argued that these orthodox policies of Aurangzeb led to a
‘Hindu reaction’ in the form of peasant rebellions which ultimately endangered the stability of
the Mughal Empire. Sri Ram Sharma and Ishwari Prasad also emphasized the religious policies of
rulers as the factor which led to the decline of the Empire.

From the 1950s, Marxist historians started to explain the decline of the Mughal Empire in
materialistic terms. Satish Chandra blamed the structural issues in the jagir and mansab system
for a fiscal crisis in the late seventeenth century which led to the decline. According to Chandra,
the failure of these systems was most prominent during Aurangzeb’s reign.

Irfan Habib has explained the decline in fiscal terms. He argued that high revenue demands led
to peasant migration and rebellion and weakened the Empire. Athar M. Ali argued that the crisis
was not due to high land revenue demands but a shortage of jagir lands. This was because the
Empire had expanded into less fertile regions like the Deccan. This had led to an increase in the
number of nobles without a proportionate increase in jagir land. J.F. Richards has countered
this argument and argued that there was not a shortage of usable jagir lands in Deccan. In the
1980s, Satish Chandra argued that as jagirs became less in number and less fertile, there was a
growing gap between the estimated revenue (jama) and the actual yield (hasil). This harmed the
stability of the Empire.

As Europe emerged as a commercial centre, it attracted luxurious goods from the East. This
increased the price of luxuries in India and added to the troubles of the ruling elite who were
used to luxury goods themselves. In order to compensate for it, they turned to heavy taxation.
All these theories label the eighteenth century as a ‘Dark age’ which was characterized by
political chaos and economic decline.
J.C. Heesterman comes with an argument for the resilience and durability of the Mughal Empire.
He says that it was not the fall of the Mughal Empire; it had rather been swallowed by a larger
political system. But historians do not agree with Heesterman’s theory. They find other factors
for the imperial decline. Contrary to the concept of a ‘Dark age,’ scholars also emphasize on the
power of regional economies that signaled prosperity.

Ashin Das Gupta finds that while inland trade increased, the export trade and port cities like
Surat and Dhaka declined. During the period, however, colonial port cities like Bombay, Madras
and Calcutta excelled. B. R. Grover opines that even during the decline of the Mughal Empire,
local rural commerce was running successfully in the provincial markets. Karen Leonard finds
that the commerce moved from Delhi to regional centres which strengthened their political
economy.

Muzaffar Alam and Chetan Singh focused on regional political orders. They found that in the
eighteenth century Delhi, which had a central role, took upon coordinating between the regions
and different social groups. The regional powers could assert themselves more during the
decline based on their agrarian economic strength. Awadh is a case in point which showed
enough economic growth and prosperity. The zamindars of the region rose against the Mughals
and as a consequence it resulted in political autonomy of the region.

During this period, regional powers like Awadh, Bengal and Hyderabad earned autonomy and
the Sikhs, Marathas and Satnamis also gained in strength. Tipu Sultan and the Malabar kingdom
also consolidated their powers. They could defy the imperial control and chart their own destiny
through economic adjustments. The notion of eighteenth century as ‘Dark Age’ can thus be
negated through these researches.

It may also be noted that there was not a common denominator to define this process of
disassociation of the regional powers from the imperial centre. Different regions had different
ideas and processes of disassociation from the central power. C.A. Bayly has pointed out three
reasons for this: the establishment of a mercantile framework that also got involved in politics
and the emergence of new intermediaries. He had also pointed towards the group of scribes,
accountants and other groups that came into prominence by serving the local powers. The third
reason forwarded by Bayly was the ‘military fiscalism’ that included maintaining the army and
their participation in collection of revenue. These intermediaries, who had connections with the
Mughal military and fiscal organs and portfolios, have been identified by Bayly as the new power
centres. Their power could also be linked to their growing control of landed property.

Different regions behaved differently in bringing about the changes in regional power centres
away from the imperial glare. In the case of Awadh, early scholars tended to focus on individual
rulers and their politics, treaties and economic activities. Modern scholars, however, have
brought to the fore the deciding role of the social intermediaries like the merchants who had
access to both the state and the society. Muzaffar Alam shows how economic growth produced
powerful zamindars going against the Mughals. It subsequently resulted in the overthrow of the
Mughal influence in the new ‘suba’ of Awadh. Michael Fisher, however, identifies the continuity
of the Mughal imagery as the focal point even in early nineteenth century.

Richards and Karen Leonard identified the group that crystallized the social base leading to
political economy in Hyderabad, ruled by the Nizam. Leonard says that the polity of Hyderabad
was based on a 'patron-client relationship' where Nizam played the role of patron. He was
surrounded by nobles, vakils, military and financial elite. They were close to the Nizam and had
their own military and diplomatic connections. The vakils employed by the nobles formed
another powerful group. The Nizam was also supported by the rich merchant group. The nobles,
vakils, military and financial groups lent the power to the Nizam to claim political autonomy.

Bengal was economically prominent in the Empire as it had earlier integrated itself with the
world of commerce. It could earn profitably through its trade with the European Companies and
it, in turn, lent them political power. The trade and commerce initiatives of Murshid Quli Khan,
the ruler of Bengal, with the Companies yielded huge profit and he tended to gain more political
autonomy. While the financial health of Delhi was in bad shape, Murshid Quli Khan’s action of
combining two offices in 1717 made the Mughal government grant the creation of a new
subedari. In Bengal, the big zamindars and the landed gentry came together with the bankers
and merchants who had deep roots in the rural society. Together they established a new social
order for gaining power. A case in the point is that of the Burdwan rajas, who started off
originally as merchants and then turned into local administrative officials.

The regional polities of Awadh and Hyderabad ceased to pay tribute to the Mughal emperor in
the middle of eighteenth century and focused on more military expenditure. It was remarkably
significant that at the same time, other regional powers like Alivardi Khan of Bengal, Ali
Muhammad Khan of Rohilkhand and Peshwa Baji Rao in Maratha territory were all working
towards consolidating their economic and military powers.

The Eighteenth century caught the attention of the scholars studying Mughal history as well as
colonial history. During the first half of the eighteenth century, it was the collapse of the Mughal
Empire that was in focus in most of the studies. Based on the decline of the Empire and
accompanying conditions, it was described as the ‘Dark Age’ by the early scholars. Later
scholars, however, did not focus entirely on Mughal imperialism and looked deep into the rising
regional polities that witnessed economic prosperity. Away from the imperial centre, the focus
shifted to the changing social, economic and political equations in the regions. An intermediary
class of scribes, accountants, traders, warriors and others was also evolving in the first half of
the eighteenth century. They formed the basis of a bridge between the state and the society. 

These reasons paint the eighteenth century not just as a ‘Dark Age’ but one that witnessed
economic prosperity as well in the far-off regions that eventually gained autonomy while the
Mughal rule was in decline.