Abstract and Keywords
This chapter focuses on the changing relationships between provincial governors and the Mughal court. In Awadh, new subadar was involved in court politics in an attempt to reinforce his well-entrenched authority in the province and also to return at a higher office to the court. However this attempted ended after the first five years, when Burhan-ul-Mulk defied the orders of the Mughal emperor of his transfer to Malwa. He now focused solely on becoming powerful and autonomous in Awadh by increasing his influence over Allahabad, Benares and the eastern districts. The route of the Bengal treasury was diverted through Awadh at this time because of the disturbances on the previous route. The province of Awadh had also seen a steady growth in jama figures. Burhan-ul- Mulk and then Safdar Jang also formed peace treaties with the Marathas independent of any directive from the Mughal emperor. By the time of Nadir Shah’s invasion in 1739, the nawabs of Awadh had become virtually independent of Mughal authority and yet played a key role in the court politics of Delhi. Abdus-Samad Khan, the new subadar of the Punjab, like his counterpart in Awadh, also treated the province as his personal domain, making every possible effort to secure his authority there. When his rivals at the court, in a bid to weaken his power in the Punjab, secured his transfer to Kabul, he refused to leave the Punjab to take up his new assignment. However, the trajectory of developments in Punjab turned out to be different from Awadh. Abd-us-Samad Khan and his successor Zakariya Khan failed to consolidate their position within the province due to Punjab’s economic decline, their inability to extricate themselves from
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279The Imperial Court, the New Subadars and the Region
Mughal court politics and its vulnerability to attacks from West and Central Asia which was evident during the invasion of Nadir Shah. Finally, Shahnawaz Khan the Punjab governor after 1745 looked to legitimize his hereditary claim to the new subadari by looking for support from Kabul and beyond.
Keywords: Mughal empire, imperial power, local administration, governors, new subadari, court
politics, Awadh, Burhan-ul-Mulk, Safdar Jang, Bengal treasury, Punjab, Abd-us-Samad Khan, Zakariya
Khan
IN THE EARLIER CHAPTERS we have tried to discuss the decline of imperial authority and the beginnings of changes in the nature of imperial control over the provinces of Awadh and the Punjab, as well as the political, administrative and social circumstances within the provinces which influenced such changes. Developments in the first quarter of the eighteenth century immensely strengthened the position of the governor and gradually led to a total breakdown of the conventional pattern of his relations with the centre as well as with the emerging powers in the region. Whatever the governor did in this period was motivated by a desire to entrench himself further in the province. His relations with the neighbouring powers as well as his attitude towards the Mughal court were both oriented towards the independence which he wanted in matters relating to his province. For, the suba was now the suba-i mulki (home province) and the subadari much more than a mere administrative assignment conferred by the emperor. The governorship was practically self-earned and permanent (bil-istiqlal), tending to become hereditary, even though the governor was theoretically still a Mughal subadar.