Abstract and Keywords
This introductory chapter begins by taking into account the historiographical trends in the study of the Mughal empire during the late seventeenth and eighteenth century period. The question is posed here as to the imperial decline being a wholesale breakdown of economic and social apparatus along with Mughal political authority or that of degradation of imperial authority leading to new changes in the political economy of the provinces of the Mughal empire.It discusses the factors that contributed to the decline of the Mughal empire in the eighteenth century. Events such as the repeated challenges to Mughal authority posed by the Jat zamindars and the peasants in the Mathura-Agra region; the Sikh movements in Punjab; and weakening support from the Rajput chiefs who had previously made crucial contributions to the consolidation of Mughal rule helped corrode the bases of imperial power, which culminated with the collapse of the imperial edifice within forty years after the death of Aurangzeb. The chapter also sets out the book’s focus, namely the interplay of the forces of the centre and the region in two north Indian provinces — Awadh and the Punjab — both of which were extremely important to Mughal India.
Keywords: Mughal empire, imperial decline, imperialism, imperial power, zamindars, Sikhs, Rajput
chiefs, political order, Awadh, Punjab
IN 1707, THE MUGHAL EMPIRE had reached its farthest physical limits. The frontiers of the empire, in a determined thrust, had reached the southern edge of the peninsula, encompassing the vast fertile tracts of the erstwhile Deccan kingdoms of Golconda and Bijapur. The imperial principle had been established over almost the entire subcontinent. Yet, together with the expansion, the
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57Introduction
authority of the central administration in northern India had weakened. Within the heartland of the empire, in the Mathura-Agra region, the Jat zamindars and the peasants had repeatedly challenged Mughal authority. The revolts of the zamindars in the early 1700s marked an assertion of the power of local ‘despots’ against the Mughal system and perhaps were symptomatic of a kind of social resurgence. In the Punjab, the Sikh movements were emerging as a significant force. The Rajput chiefs who had made crucial contributions to the consolidation of Mughal rule were becoming lukewarm in their support of the imperial cause.
These developments corroded the bases of imperial power. Disputes arose on the nature and scope of the powers and the positions of the governor, the faujdar (area commandant), the provincial diwan (revenue minister) and the other local officials. The central administration was subjected to serious strains and stresses. While on the one hand competition for good jagirs (revenue assignments to state officials) brought to the surface the tensions within the ruling class, on the other, the jagirdars (revenue assignees), sought to maximize short-run incomes in an atmosphere of uncertainty and apprehension. This resulted in widespread discontent.
(p.2) Thus, there were unmistakable symptoms of a crisis in the making. The cracks and fissions in the Mughal system developed into breaches and chasms and the imperial edifice collapsed within forty years after the death of Aurangzeb. But while there was chaos and anarchy in some regions, an emerging political order tended to be constituted in the form of virtually independent principalities, which nevertheless continued broadly with the Mughal institutional framework.