Introduction

From its establishment in 1526 by Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur (d. 1530), the Mughal Empire would grow over roughly the next two centuries into one of the largest, most populous, and most influential states of the early modern era.

After some early setbacks, including the near demise of the empire under Babur's successor Humayun (r. 1530-1540, 1555-1556), the Mughal state and its territories began to swell rapidly under the celebrated ruler Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar “the Great” (r. 1556-1605), and the empire reached the peak of its power, territorial extent, and global cultural and commercial influence under the last three of the so-called Great Mughals: Jahangir (r. 1605-1627), Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658), and Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir (r. 1658-1707).

At its height in the mid-seventeenth century, the Mughal Empire was roughly the size of Europe, and by some estimates nearly double its population. The Mughal emperors, with a few notable exceptions, were among the great patrons of literature and the arts in world history, and also promoted an eclectic mix of classical, devotional, and mystical religious traditions throughout their territories. This pluralistic atmosphere, along with the bustling economy of the Mughal Empire itself and its client states and satellite powers, attracted a global cast of merchants, traders, poets, and other adventurers to India, all of whom helped to create a vibrant and lasting early modern synthesis that in many ways continues to define the culture, politics, and society of South Asia to this day.

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, however, the central institutions of the Mughal state began to falter, and the empire faced a series of challenges from newly assertive/empowered regional client states and breakaway provinces—several of which had themselves been political and economic beneficiaries of the Mughal state's success—resulting in a rapid shrinkage of the empire's power and territory over the course of the eighteenth century.

The nascent Pashtun-Durrani Empire on India's northwest frontier, the Maratha Confederacy emanating from the western coastal region of India's Deccan Plateau, the brief rise of a state of expatriate Afghans known as Rohillas in the eastern Gangetic Plain, peasant resistance among the Jats in northern and central India, a rise in Sikh militancy in the Punjab, and the practical—if not entirely official—secession of erstwhile Mughal provinces in Hyderabad, Awadh, and

Rajeev Kinra, The Mughal Empire In: The Oxford World History of Empire. Edited by: Peter Fibiger Bang, C.A. Bayly, Walter Scheidel, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197532768.003.0027.

Bengal: all contributed, among other factors, to the devolution of Mughal power in the first half of the eighteenth century.

These “internal” difficulties were exacerbated, moreover, by challenges from beyond the subcontinent, most notably the Persian ruler Nadir Shah's invasion of northern India and sacking of Delhi in 1739, in the aftermath of which the declining fortunes of Mughal North India's social, cultural, and political life were mournfully eulogized (and sometimes bitterly satirized) by the city's poets and other intellectuals, many of whom went on to leave Delhi, seeking patronage in other North Indian cities like Lucknow. This sense of doom and gloom was only recapitulated—indeed heightened—after similar assaults on northern India by the Durrani Afghans in the 1740s-1760s. Meanwhile, intense competition between the British and French East India Companies to monopolize as much of the Indian Ocean trade as they could, as well as a globalization of conflicts back home in Europe, such as the War of Austrian Succession and Seven Years' War, had led to a growing sense of European (especially British) militancy, patriotism, and territorial aggression in India itself over the course of the eighteenth century.

Out of this complex mix of factors, the British East India Company would eventually emerge as the preeminent imperial successor to the Mughal Empire.

Through it all, though, a member of the Mughal royal family continued to sit on the throne of Delhi right up until the final demise of the empire in 1857-1858. Thus, one of the key questions facing any student of the history of early modern and modern India is why, exactly, the symbolic power of the Mughal Empire and its institutions remained so resilient, even long after its effective power and control over the subcontinent had shrunk to that of barely a minor principality. C. A. Bayly drew attention to precisely this paradox in the early chapters of his groundbreaking study Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, arguing that for most of these successor states, “even if the occasion for their conflicts with the Mughals was often conflicts over revenues or the destination of the agrarian surplus,” nevertheless, “the rhetoric and aims of politics remained very much what they had been under the Mughals.”^[1869] One suspects that the reasons for this lie in the powerful cultural memory of the “great” Mughals' patronage and pluralism as a unifying force for the subcontinent. Thus, even if neither the later Mughals nor their successor states were ever able to quite live up to the standard set by their predecessors, the memory of the continuing potential for political greatness and cultural solidarity embodied by the erstwhile Mughal institutions and ideology remained a point of pride for later generations, and a benchmark worthy of emulation for the Mughals' successor states (inluding even the early East India Company government in Bengal).^[1870] Indeed, as the noted Mughal historian John Richards once put it: “... in spite of its sudden political collapse [after 1720], the legacy of the [Mughal] imperial system remained... [and] retained its compelling appeal for Marathas, Jats, Rajputs, Sikhs, and ultimately the British. The expansion, and consolidation, of the empire had irrevocably reordered human relationships throughout the subcontinent in virtually every aspect of society.”^[1871]

<< | >>

↑

Source: Bang Peter F., Bayly C.A., Scheidel Walter (eds.). The Oxford World History of Empire. Volume Two: The History of Empires. Oxford University Press,2020. — 1352 p.. 2020

Introduction

More on the topic Introduction: