Mughal Empire:

The most familiar ways of understanding the Mughal era in Indian history were forged in a
framework created by the British as they themselves devised a national history for their own
emerging nation. In this vision, ancient ‘Hindus’ had once created a great civilization. With the
advent of Islamic rulers in the early thirteenth century, Indian culture rigidified, political life gave
way to despotism. The historiography of the Mughal era has been only recently freeing itself from
the despotism of orientalist scholarship.
In 1526, the Delhi-based kingdom of the Afghan Muslim Lodi dynasty fell to the brilliant military
strategy and superior artillery of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur (1483–1530) at Panipat. Babur’s
use of Turkish cannon in this battle led some historians to include the empire he founded in the
category of ‘gun-powder empires’. Babur ruled for a mere four years, and neither he, nor his son
Humayun, forced into exile in Persia, did more than establish garrisons to mark the area they
controlled.
It was Humayun’s son Akbar whose half-century of rule established the dynasty as an empire,
brought about by conquests that moved the frontiers of Mughal empire.The conquests of Gujarat
and Bengal gave the Mughals control over the agriculturally and commercially richest parts of the
subcontinent. Among Akbar’s other notable military successes were the conquests of Kabul in
1581, Kashmir in 1586, Orissa in 1592 and Baluchistan in 1595.
Through his reforms of administration and taxation Akbar created a sound and enduring
foundation for Mughal governance, while his tolerant attitude and inclusive policies toward Hindus
and Jains helped create a state that was more Indian in character. Akbar embraced and then built
on the Sultanate policy of a diverse and inclusive ruling elite.
The Divine Faith:
The assimilation of Hindu chiefs was the most conspicuous feature of Akbar reign. For instance,
his top ranking military general was Raja Mansingh of Amber,a Rajput, and his revenue minister
was Raja Todar Mal. Akbar displayed impartiality towards his subjects, regardless of religious
affiliation, by abolishing the tax on Hindu pilgrimage and jizya – a tax imposed on non-believers
in Muslim states.This was a departure from Islamic law for it made no difference between revenue
raised from Muslims and from non-Muslims.
Akbar was curious to know the truth behind religious philosophies. He established Ibadat khana
for the debates on doctrinal and philosophical questions. To Akbar there was truth in all faiths.
In Abu Fazl’s word:
O God in every temple I see those who see thee
Akbar’s new religion, Din-i- illahi, an eclectic pantheism, contained elements from every diverse
faiths. It embraced the notion of universal toleration (sulh-e- kul).
The most prominent orthodox critic of Mughal religious accommodations in the early seventeenth
century was Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi.
Jahangir continued his father’s catholic religious interests. He continued the practice of enrolling
loyal nobles as disciple. Prince Khurram, a brilliant military strategist, was responsible for the
main victory of Jahangir’s reign. Total defeat of the Sisodiyas had been considered all but
impossible, when Khurram reversed the situation, commencing a relentless campaign against
them in 1614. He forced Rana Amar Singh Sisodiya to capitulate the following year. Jahangir was
ecstatic over this extraordinary victory.
Jahangir had married the woman he came to call Nur Jahan. She eventually took over the reins of
state once Jahangir became incapacitated due to poor health caused at least partially by excessive
consumption of wine and opium. She was the only woman of the Mughal court ever allowed to
mint coins in her own name, a royal prerogative. Her influence was so great that several members
of her family, including her father and brother, were appointed to the highest official positions.
Shah Jahan was a more militarily vigorous ruler than had been his Father. He pursued frequent
miliitary campaigns, particularly during the first years of his reign, In 1636 a moment
breakthrough was made in the ongoing Mughal campaign to take the Deccan. At that time the
Mughals signed a treaty with the two major Deccan houses, the Adil Shahs of Bijapur and the
Qutb Shahs of Golkonda.
In later years he tried on several occasions to reclaim land belonging to his Central Asian ancestors
like Balkh and Qandahar but remained unsuccessful.
His architectural achievements include gardens, the planned city of Shahjahanabad, and, most
famed of all, the tomb dedicated to his cherished wife, the Taj Mahal, all associated with
paradisiacal symbols. By this symbolism, Shah Jahan made himself nothing less than the analogue
of the divine.
The Mughal empire reached its territorial apogee under Aurangzeb in the 1690s. But Aurangzeb’s
Deccan adventures were fiercely resisted by the redoubtable Maratha leader Shivaji, who refused
to be co-opted into the Mughal system.
Aurangzeb had contended for the throne with his eldest brother, Dara Shukoh (1615–58); and the
two have come down through history as ideological opponents, Dara as the ‘liberal’ and Aurangzeb
as the rigid ‘conservative’.
Generations of modern historians and politicians have blamed. Shah Jahan’s successor Aurangzeb
for undoing the cultural pluralism and administrative efficiency of the empire. Aurangzeb shifted
but did not fundamentally alter the religious policy of the empire. He patronized Islamic leaders
and sites; he restored policies that applied differential taxes on Hindus. It is argued the his
destruction of temples in Benares, Mathura, and Rajasthan had less to do with iconoclasm, since
he continued to patronize other Hindu temples, than with the presumed disloyalty of nobles
associated with these sites.
To the end, Aurangzeb depended on non-Muslim courtiers. More than a quarter of the mansab
holders along with his leading general were Hindus.
Aurangzeb was determined to expand into the Deccan at any cost against the Muslim kingdoms
that had succeeded the Bahmani Sultanate and against the newly insurgent Marathas, a formidable
enemy with their guerilla tactics and strategically placed hill forts. In 1685 his forces took Bijapur;
in 1689, Golconda.
The Mughal period was thus one of far-reaching political, economic, and social reconfigurations.
Cultural life flourished as well in the context of internal pluralism and regional cross-fertilization.
Mughal miniature painting and architecture, both with Persian roots but utterly transformed in the
Indian environment, endure as the most visible legacies of that brilliant cultural life.
The death of Aurangzeb in 1707 is generally seen to separate the era of the great Mughals from
that of the lesser Mughals. Even as Aurangzeb projected Mughal power to its farthest territorial
extent, the costs of military campaigns sorely undermined the financial basis of his empire.
Agrarian-based revolts by Marathas, Sikhs, Jats and others, as well as the assertion of autonomy
if not independence by provincial governors, did not bode well for the Mughal centre.
Political Administration:
Mughals established an empire in which a majority of the subjects were non-Muslims. The
Mughals under Akbar drew the nobility into the tasks of defending and administering the empire
through the mansabdari system. Mansab literally means rank, and a mansabdar was the holder of
a rank of anything from ten to five thousand, and occasionally ten thousand. Theoretically,
mansabdars of various ranks were supposed to supply the specified number of cavalry to the
imperial army when needed.
They were appointed to positions in two parallel hierarchies, one with civil responsibilities and
one military. These mansabdars were either paid salaries in cash or, as was more common, were
given jagirs or large tracts of territory in which they were responsible for collecting revenue from
the peasants and then transferring it to the state. By rotating these assignments frequently, nobles
were incapacitated from building a local base that could challenge Mughal authority.
Mughal officials typically negotiated for delivery of the revenue demand with lineage heads and
chieftains, homogenized in Mughal usage as zamindars (land-holders).
At the bottom of this hierarchy were the peasant cultivators. Their condition under the Mughals
has been a subject of controversy. For Irfan Habib, the result of system was an unceasing
oppression of cultivating peasantry , as their superiors sought to strip the cultivators of all surplus.
Although the mansabdari system was the main framework of the Mughal administration, the
imperial domains had territorial divisions known as subahs or provinces, ruled by subadars.
One notable change in the Mughal court during the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan was the
greater number of high-ranking nobles who were Iranian in origin. In Akbar's day, Muslims of
Central Asian descent (Turanis) had dominated the top levels of the administration, followed by
ethnic Persians from Iran.
In their administration of justice, the Mughals followed the pattern established by the Delhi sultans.
There was the limited scope of the sharia. The goal was to assure the result of equity and justice
rather than strictly apply the letter of the law.
Primarily an agrarian empire, the Mughal state was also linked to long-distance overland and
oceanic trade. From the mid-seventeenth century onwards the empire became more heavily
engaged with the international economy and may have turned more mercantilist in character,
relying for its economic viability as much on textile exports as on land revenues.
Akbar may have viewed the sea for the first time upon his conquest of Gujarat, but his son Jahangir
and grandson Shah Jahan ruled an empire heavily reliant for its economic prosperity on oceanic
connections. The Mughals, however, unlike the Ottomans, did not possess a strong navy, despite
exercising control over a significant number of pilgrim and merchant ships. This enabled European
powers to gradually command the sea-lanes of the Indian ocean.
Decline of Mughal Empire:
Two more persuasive lines of argument suggest long-term transitions, incipient in the seventeenth
century, that contributed to accelerating decentralization after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707. One,
perhaps surprisingly, is that the upstart warriors, Marathas, Jats, and the like, as coherent social
groups with military and governing ideals, were themselves a product of the Mughal context,
which recognized them and provided them with military and governing experience. Their
successes were a product of Mughal success.
A second line of argument is economic. Throughout Asia, the economies of the agrarian empires
had been fuelled in the seventeenth century by the influx of specie gained from New World
conquest, as Europeans sought valued commodities.
Writing at the end of Aurangzeb’s life, Bhimsen gives us a ‘grass roots’ view of what he sees as
imperial failure. He writes on Aurangzeb as:
the Emperor, seized with a passion for capturing forts, has given up attending to the happiness of
the subjects. The nobles have turned aside from giving good counsel.
In identifying the upstart zamindars as a key sign of disorder, Bhimsen singled out one of the three
crucial ‘fault lines’ that opened up challenges to centralized Mughal rule.
Zamindars across northern and central India rose up to resist imperial authority. The most
prominent were the Marathas of the Deccan, the Sikhs in the Punjab, and the Jats south-east of
Delhi in the area of Agra.
A second ‘fault line’ intrinsic to Mughal administration was that of established princely rulers,
who had accepted Mughal power but kept authority within their own compact domains, rendering
tribute but not subject to Mughal administration.
The third ‘fault line’ was that of provincial governors, who were appointed by the emperor in the
normal course as administrators over areas where they had no pre-existing local connections, but
who then acted autonomously, even while continuing to pay lip service to Mughal authority.