An Opinion on the Decentralization of the Mughal Empire

Abstract

It is difficult to cite a date for the end of the Mughal Empire, because several dates between 1707 (death of Emperor Aurangzeb) and 1858 (deposition of the last emperor by the British) can be employed. Whether it can be called a decline depends on the viewpoint, too. While the centre and its power did decline, the provinces flourished, and the economy boomed. Therefore, we better speak of a transformation: The empire regionalized until it existed de jure only, and the British, who had emerged as the greatest power in the struggle between the regional parties, finally did away with the legal fiction.

We can sketch the process thus: The trend to regionalization was visible by the year 1650 already, when officers began to build power bases in the provinces. With Aurangzeb’s 25-year war in South India (1682–1707), these power bases became necessary as the emperor neglected North India, did not integrate the new conquests in the South, and emptied the state cashier for his war. Within twenty years after his death, officers had founded dynasties in their provinces and established their own administration, and rebels had done so too, conquering land for themselves. All claimed to derive their power from the emperor but acted and fought independently. The sack of Delhi in 1739 by the Iranians, and in 1748 by the Afghans, reduced the emperor to a symbolic source of power. The British became a major player in the Indian power struggle after their conquest of Bengal in 1747 and gradually succeeded in taking over the provinces or reducing other powers to a vassal state.