63Empire and the Province

Eighteenth-century India needs to be studied in terms of its own structure, disregarding for a moment perhaps what preceded and followed this period. This has already been recognized in the writings on the late-eighteenth and the earlynineteenth century by scholars who have not been over-whelmed by the fate of the Mughal power.17 Most studies of the earlier phases of the eighteenth century appear to have been largely conditioned by the trajectory of the Mughal empire.

Richard Barnett has considered briefly political formations in Awadh against the backdrop of imperial disintegration. But his interest seems to be more in the latter half of the eighteenth century.18 (p.11) The process of the subordination of all offices and authorities within a region to the governor and, simultaneously, the governor’s acquisition of a practically independent and hereditary position needs to be studied in greater depth. Local political and administrative problems were reflected in changes in the actions and positions of the various social group, particularly, the zamindars; the madad-i ma‘ash grantees and the mansab holders, which in turn compelled governors to adopt new policies that could only be implemented at the expense of imperial authority or of those sections of the nobility which remained outside the province. While examining political realignments in the provinces, it can be seen that local and regional social groups were emerging as powerful forces. I have thus tried to study the history of the period in the context of the Mughal imperial centre, namely, the emperor, the nobles posted at the court or outside the provinces under review on the one hand and the region, on the other. The interaction of these elements have also been scrutinized.

The stages of the breakaway from the centre—of individuals, of social groups, of communities, and of regions—have been studied with a view to understanding the nature of political transformation in the eighteenth century. My primary purpose is not only to explain the Mughal imperial decline. Several aspects of the history of the eighteenth century tend to be overlooked when one examines the problems of the period solely with the objective of explaining the decline of the Mughal empire. This perspective has often prevented us from going out of the precincts of the Mughal empire into the regions to look for the causes of turmoil or stability in different parts of the empire. One remains imprisoned within the narrow confines of Delhi to the exclusion of significant developments eleswhere.

No study of the eighteenth century can, however, overlook the debate regarding the causes of the decline of the Mughal empire which has been briefly reviewed in the preceding pages.

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64Introduction

The focus of this book is on the interplay of the forces of the centre and the region in two north Indian provinces, Awadh and the Punjab. Both these provinces were extremely important to Mughal India. They lay in close proximity to the capital and were fully integrated into the empire at the beginning of the period of our study. The Punjab (p.12) linked the Mughal empire, through commercial, cultural and ethnic intercourse, with Persia and Central Asia. Control over the Punjab was necessary not only for its own rich agricultural and non-agricultural production but also because Central Asian and Persian horses, Kabuli fruits and Kashmiri shawls passed through the province, on their way to Delhi and Agra and thence to different parts of the empire. The province was of strategic importance for watching the movements of armies beyond Kabul and Qandahar, as well as the hill chiefs in control of the Himalayan range from Kishtawar and Jammu to Srinagar Garhwal.

On the other hand, Awadh—together with the northern parts of the Mughal province of Allahabad—was the gateway to the eastern provinces. As the routes through and along the Yamuna became vulnerable by the late-seventeenth and the early-eighteenth centuries, in the wake of the Maratha and the Bundela risings, the roads from Delhi via Bareilly, Lucknow, Jaunpur and Benaras to Patna, Murshidabad and Hugli acquired special import. Moreover, a large number of smaller mansabdars, petty commanders of the troopers and the associates of the nobles came from the qasbas of Awadh.

Both the Punjab and Awadh registered unmistakable economic growth in the seventeenth century. In the early-eighteenth century in both provinces, politics and administration appear to have moved along similar lines. The local officials faced stiff resistance from the zamindars and the peasants to the exercise of imperial control. The governors sought wide powers in order to bring provincial finance and all other offices eventually under their own control. During the later phases of our period, however, developments in these provinces began to diverge. In Awadh the governor could mobilize local social groups around his own banner and was thus able to place nawabi rule on firm ground; in the Punjab the new subadari (governorship) collapsed and there was total chaos and confusion towards the end of our period. Given this divergence the history of these provinces appears to be especially amenable to an examination of issues concerning both the decline of the imperial authority and the circumstances that caused and accompanied emergent political formations in the provinces.

My purpose here is to assess the nature of the problem facing the Mughal administration; and given the limitations of my sources, I am (p.13) able only to offer some details about the Himalayan chiefs, Jat Sikhs, Rajput and Afghan zamindars, Khatris, the Muslim madad-i ma‘ash holders, and the Shaikhzadahs— together with instances of defiance of imperial regulations by local Mughal officials.

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