History of India
Page 1 of 13
HISTORY
Subject
:
History
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
(For under graduate student)
The decline of the Mughal Empire is a highly debatable issue
since the middle of the 19th 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 20th 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
18th 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
18th 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 17th 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 17th 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 18th 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 17th 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 17th century and early 18th
century.
Decline of the Mughal Empire – Political problems
If we look at the 18th 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 18th 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 18th 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 mone y. Therefore the
problem remained. This problem was accentuated when the
British came. They took over in 1765 the Diwani of Be ngal,
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 17th 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.