Mughal era

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The Mughal era is the historic period of theMughal Empire in India, it ran from the earlysixteenth century, to a point in the earlyeighteenth century when the Mughal Emper-ors’ power had dwindled. It ended in severalgenerations of conflicts between rivalwarlords.

The Mughal Empire

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India in the 16th century had numerous un-popular rulers, both Muslim and Hindu, withan absence of common bodies of laws or in-stitutions. External developments also playeda role in the rise of the Mughal Empire. Thecircumnavigation of Africa by the Portugueseexplorer Vasco da Gama in 1498 allowedEuropeans to challenge Arab control of thetrading routes between Europe and Asia. InCentral Asia and Afghanistan, shifts in powerpushed Babur of Ferghana (in present-dayUzbekistan) southward, first to Kabul andthen to India. The Mughal Empire lasted formore than three centuries. The Mughal Em-pire was one of the largest centralized statesin premodern history and was the precursorto the British Indian Empire.

The Taj Mahal - the most famous structure inIndia built during Mughal Era

The title of the greatest of the six mostprominent Mughal Emperors receives vary-ing answers in present-day Pakistan and In-dia. Some favour Babur the pioneer and oth-ers his great-grandson, Shah Jahan (r.1628-58), builder of the Taj Mahal and othermagnificent buildings. The other two promin-ent rulers were Akbar (r. 1556-1605) andAurangzeb (r. 1658-1707). Both rulers expan-ded the empire greatly and were able admin-istrators. However, Akbar was known for hisreligious tolerance and administrative geni-us, whereas Aurangzeb was a zealous rulerand fierce proselytizer of orthodox Islamacross the heterodox Indian landscape.

Zahir ud-Din Mohammad(Babur)Claiming descent from both Chengiz Khanand Timur, Babur was known for his love ofbeauty in addition to his military ability .Babur concentrated on gaining control ofnorthwestern India.He was invited to Indiaby Daulat Khan Lodi and Rana Sanga whowanted to end the Lodi dynasty.He defeatedIbrahim Lodi in 1526 at the First battle ofPanipat, a town north of Delhi. Babur thenturned to the tasks of persuading his CentralAsian followers to stay on in India and ofovercoming other contenders for power,mainly the Rajputs and the Afghans. He suc-ceeded in both tasks but died shortly there-after in 1530.Babur kept the record of his life in ChagatayTurkish, the spoken language of the Timuridsand the whole Turco-Mongol world at thetime. Baburnama is one of the longest ex-amples of sustained narrative prose inChagatay Turkish. Akbar’s regent, BayramKhan, a Turcoman of eastern Anatolian andAzerbaijani origin whose father and grand-father had joined Babur’s service. BayramKhan wrote poetry in Chaghatay and Persian.His son, Abdul-Rahim Khankhanan, was flu-ent in Chaghatay, Hindi, and Persian andcomposed in all three languages. UsingBabur’s own text he translated theBaburnama into Persian. The Chaghatay ori-ginal was last seen in the imperial librarysometime between 1628 and 1638 during Ja-hangir’s reign.

Humayun(1508-1556)

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Babur’s favorite son Humayun took the reinsof the empire after his father succumbed todisease at the young age of forty-seven. In1539, Humayun and Sher Khan met in battlein Chausa, between Varanasi and Patna. Hu-mayun barely escaped with his own life andin the next year, in 1540, his army of 40,000lost to the Afghan army of 15,000 of SherKhan.

Sher Khan had now become the monarchin Delhi under the name Sher Shah Suri andruled from 1540 to 1545. He consolidated hiskingdom form Punjab to Bengal (first one toenter Bengal after Ala-ud-din Khilji did morethan two centuries earlier).He was creditedto have organized and administered the gov-ernment and military in such a way that fu-ture Mughal kings used it as their own mod-els. He also added to the fort in Delhi (sup-posed site of Indraprastha), first started byHumayun, and now called the Purana Qila(Old Fort). The mosque Qila-I-Kuhna insidethe fort is a masterpiece of the period,though only parts of it have survived.

The charred remains of Sher Shah weretaken to a tomb in Sahasaram, midwaybetween Varanasi and Gaya. Although rarelyvisited, the future great Mughal builders likeAkbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan emulated thearchitecture of this tomb. The massive palacelike mausoleum is three stories and fiftymeters high. [1] Sher Shah’s son Islam Shahheld on to power until 1553 and following hisdeath the Sur dynasty lost most of its cloutdue to strife and famine.

Humayun was a keen astronomer.In facthe died due to a fall from the rooftop of SherShah’s Delhi palace in 1554. Thus Humayun

ruled in India barely for ten years and died atthe age of forty-eight, leaving behind Akbarthen only thirteen-year-old as his heir. As atribute to his father, Akbar later built the Hu-mayun’s tomb in Delhi (completed in 1571),from red sandstone, that would become theprecursor of future Mughal architecture. Ak-bar’s mother and Humayun’s wife HamidaBegum personally supervised the building ofthe tomb.

Akbar(1542-1605)Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun (r.1530-40 and 1555-56), whose rule was inter-rupted by the Afghan Sur Dynasty, which re-belled against him. It was only just before hisdeath that Humayun was able to regain theempire and leave it to his son. In restoringand expanding Mughal rule, Akbar based hisauthority on the ability and loyalty of his fol-lowers, irrespective of their religion. In 1564the jizya tax on non-Muslims was abolished,and bans on temple building and Hindu pil-grimages were lifted.

Akbar’s methods of administration rein-forced his power against two possiblesources of challenge--the Afghan-Turkish ar-istocracy and the traditional interpreters ofIslamic law, the ulama. He created a rankedimperial service based on ability rather thanbirth, whose members were obliged to servewherever required. They were remuneratedwith cash rather than land and were keptaway from their inherited estates, thus cent-ralizing the imperial power base and assuringits supremacy. The military and politicalfunctions of the imperial service were separ-ate from those of revenue collection, whichwas supervised by the imperial treasury. Thissystem of administration, known as the mans-abdari, was based on loyal service and cashpayments and was the backbone of theMughal Empire; its effectiveness dependedon personal loyalty to the emperor and hisability and willingness to choose, remuner-ate, and supervise.

Akbar declared himself the final arbiter inall disputes of law derived from the Qur’anand the sharia. He backed his religious au-thority primarily with his authority in thestate. In 1580 he also initiated a syncreticcourt religion called the Din-i-Ilahi (DivineFaith). In theory, the new faith was compat-ible with any other, provided that the devotee

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was loyal to the emperor. In practice,however, its ritual and content profoundly of-fended orthodox Muslims. The ulema foundtheir influence undermined.

Several well known heritage sites werebuilt during the reign of Akbar. The fort cityof Fatehpur Sikri was used as the politicalcapital of the Empire from 1571 to 1578. Thenumerous palaces and the grand entranceswith intricate art work have been recognizedas a world heritage site by UNESCO. Akbaralso began construction of his own tomb atSikandra near Agra in 1600 CE.

Jahangir(1569-1627)

Prince Salim (b. 1569 of Hindu Rajput prin-cess from Amber), who would later be knownas Emperor Jahangir showed signs of rest-lessness at the end of a long reign by hisfather Akbar. During the absence of his fath-er from Agra he pronounced himself as theking and turned rebellious. Akbar was able towrestle the throne back. Salim did not haveto worry about his sibling’s aspirations to thethrone. His two brothers, Murad and Daniyal,had both died early from alcoholism.

Jahangir began his era as a Mughal em-peror after the death of Akbar in the year1605. He considered his third son PrinceKhurram (future Shah Jahan-born 1592 ofHindu Rajput princess Manmati), his favour-ite. Rana of Mewar and Prince Khurram hada standoff that resulted in a treaty acceptableto both parties. Khurram was kept busy withseveral campaigns in Bengal and Kashmir. Ja-hangir claimed the victories of Khurram –Shah Jahan as his own.He also had unlimited sources of revenuelargely due to a systematic organization of

the administration by his father, Akbar. TheMughal Empire reached its pinnacle duringJahangir and Shah Jahan’s rule. Jahangirbuilt his famous gardens in Kashmir thoughthe daily administration was delegated toclose aides. One such person was Jahangir’swife, Nur Jahan, whom he married in 1611.She was the thirty-year-old widow of one ofhis Afghan nobles. Her father, Persian bornItimad-ud-Daula became a minister andclosest advisor to the emperor. Very able NurJahan along with her father and brother AsafKhan, who was a successful general, ran thekingdom.Jahangir had kept a diary are used as hismemoirs. Though not a soldier, Jahangir wasan ardent patron of Mughal art and an avidbuilder. He completed Akbar’s five-tieredtomb in Sikandra. The emperor kept busybuilding in Lahore, Allahabad and Agra.While the de facto emperor, Nur Jahan wasattending to administrative details, Jahangirfound solace in loitering in his gardens andappreciating art and nature.The darkest incident of his rule perhaps wasthe disposition of a peaceful leader of newlyformed religion called Sikhism. Akbar hadwatched the blossoming of the new religionfounded by Guru Nanak, with fascination. Ja-hangir, in a controversy with its leader, wasresponsible for the death of Sikh Guru Ar-jan(who was placed on a hot iron until hedied, unwilling to convert to Islam) and thiswould have lasting consequences for futureMughal emperors. The peaceful religion ofSikhism would turn militant later when Ja-hangir’s grandson Aurangzeb murdered theninth Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur. Jahangir,died in 1627 from alcohol abuse and PrinceKhurram(Shah Jahan)’s reign as the emperorbegan.

Shah JahanPrince Khurram, who would later be knownas Emperor Shah Jahan, ascended to thethrone after a tumultuous succession battle.

With the wealth created by Akbar, theMughal kingdom was probably the richest inthe world. Prince Khurram gave himself thetitle of Shah Jahan, the ‘King of the World’and this was the name that was immortalizedby history. With his imagination and aspira-tion, Shah Jahan gained a reputation as anaesthete par excellence. He built the blackmarble pavilion at the Shalimar Gardens in

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Srinagar and a white marble palace in Ajmer.He also built a tomb for his father, Jahangirin Lahore and built a massive cityShahajanabad in Delhi but his imaginationsurpassed all Mughal glory in his most fam-ous building the Taj Mahal. It was inShahajanabad that his daughter Jahanarabuilt the marketplace called Chandni Chowk.

His beloved wife Arjuman Banu (daughterof Asaf Khan and niece of Nur Jahan) diedwhile delivering their fourteenth child in theyear 1631. The distraught emperor startedbuilding a memorial for her the followingyear. The Taj Mahal, named for ArjumanBanu, who was called Mumtaz Mahal, be-came one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The great Jama Masjid built by him wasthe largest in India at the time. He renamedDelhi after himself as Shahjahanabad. TheRed Fort made of red sandstone built duringhis reign near Jama Masjid around the sametime came to be regarded as the seat ofpower of India itself. The Prime Minister ofIndia addresses the nation from the rampartsof this fort on Independence day even to thisage. Shah Jahan also built or renovated fortsin Delhi and in Agra. White marble chambersthat served as living quarters and other hallsfor public audiences are examples of classicMughal architecture. Here in Agra fort, ShahJahan would spend eight of his last years as aprisoner of his son, Aurangzeb shufflingbetween the hallways of the palace, squintingat the distant silhouette of his famous TajMahal on the banks of River Jamuna.

AurangzebAurangzeb’s reign ushered in the decline ofthe Mughal Empire. Aurangzeb, who in thelatter half of his long rule assumed the title"Alamgir" or "world-seizer," was known foraggressively expanding the empire’s frontiersand for his militant enforcement of orthodoxSunni Islam. During his reign, the Mughalempire reached its greatest extent (the Bi-japur and Golconda Sultanates which hadbeen reduced to vassaldom by Shah Jahanwere formally annexed), although it is likelythat his policies also led to its dissolution.Still, there is some belief that his policiesmay have slowed the decline of the Empirerather than precipitated it. Although he wasan outstanding general and a rigorous admin-istrator, Mughal fiscal and military standardsdeclined as security and luxury increased.

Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb

Land rather than cash became the usualmeans of remunerating high-ranking officials,and divisive tendencies in his large empirefurther undermined central authority.In 1679 Aurangzeb reimposed the hatedjizyah tax on Hindus. Coming after a series ofother taxes, and other discriminatory meas-ures favouring Sunni Muslims, this action bythe emperor, incited rebellion among Hindusand others in many parts of the empire--Jat,Sikh, and Rajput forces in the north andMaratha forces in the Deccan. The emperormanaged to crush the rebellions in the north,but at a high cost to agricultural productivityand to the legitimacy of Mughal rule. Aurang-zeb was compelled to move his headquartersto Daulatabad in the Deccan to mount acostly campaign against Maratha guerrillafighters led by Shivaji, which lasted twenty-six-years until he died in 1707 at the age ofninety.

In the century- and one-half that followed,effective control by Aurangzeb’s successorsweakened. The mansabdari system gave wayto the zamindari system, in which high-rank-ing officials took on the appearance of hered-itary landed aristocracy with powers of col-lecting rents. As Delhi’s control waned, othercontenders for power emerged and clashed,

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thus preparing the way for the eventual Brit-ish takeover.

The Mughal state reached its hight underAurangzeb’s leadership. It had 29.2 percentof the world population under its flag (175million out of 600 million in 1700 AD) andwas one of the richest states the world hadever seen, with 24.5% of the world’s GDP(the equivalent of $90.8 billion out of $371billion in 1700).

Aurangzeb, as is his father before him, isremembered as a builder-emperor. The Bad-shahi Masjid (Imperial Mosque) in Lahorewas constructed in 1673 on his orders. It wasnot only the largest mosque ever built by aMughal emperor but was at that point thelargest mosque in the world. He also con-structed the Alamgiri Gate of the LahoreFort, which is today a UNESCO World Herit-age Site. Moti Masjid inside Delhi’s Red Fortwas also finalized by him.

Later MughalsWhen Aurangzeb died close to the age ofninety, there were seventeen legitimateclaimants to the throne that included not onlyhis sons but also his grandsons and greatgrandsons. After the death of the emperortwo brothers fought near Agra (in the samebattle site that Aurangzeb had fought hisbrother Dara Shikoh. Prince Muazzam pre-vailed and killed his brother Prince AzamShah and assumed the title Bahadur Shah Ior Shah Alam I. Bahadur Shah’s son JahandarShah succeeded after his death. In DeccanSaiyid Husain Ali Khan colluded with theMarathas and attacked Delhi and using trick-ery and intrigue seized Farrukhsiyar in theRed Fort. The emperor was blinded andcaged and later poisoned as well as stabbedto death. However, prior to his death, Far-rukhsiyar had the dubious distinction of aid-ing the British to have a firm foothold in In-dia, by signing the much-coveted farman animperial directive that would seal the futureof British takeover of India.

Marathas were now constantly attackingDelhi. Of more consequence and humiliationwas the plunder of Delhi by Nadir Shah. ATimur descendent, Nadir Shah usurped thethrone in Persia and seized Kandahar andKabul. He marched through Panjab and wasinvited by Muhammad Shah as a guest toDelhi (only because he had neither the willnor the resources to fight him). Within forty-

eight hours, using a lame excuse, Nadir Shahordered a general massacre of Delhi citizensand looted every bit of wealth they could ex-tort out of the royalty as well as Delhi’s cit-izenry. Nadir Shah remained in Delhi forforty eighty days and departed with millionsworth of gold, jewelry and coins. Even theemperor’s bejeweled peacock throne madeduring Shah Jahan’s reign was packed on ele-phants and carried away to Persia. Anotherprize, the Koh-I-nur diamond (Humayun’sdiamond) now passed into Persian hands).Later an Afghani, Ahmad Shah Abdali startedhis incursions into Delhi just for the purposeof looting the capital. In a series of attacksstarting in 1748 until 1761, Abdali would notonly pillage and loot Delhi, he also cleanedout Mathura, Kashmir and cities in Panjab.From the east the British defeated theNawab of Bengal and occupied the state ofBengal.

The raids by Nadir Shah and repeated in-cursions of Abdali resulted in quick disposalof the next two emperors Ahmad Shah andAlamgir II until in 1759 Shah Alam II ascen-ded the throne. His reign would last severaldecades. However, he would preside overmore loss of territory to the British. When theNawab of Bengal lost to Robert Clive, ShahAlam II was forced to recognize Clive as a di-wan (chancellor) and Bengal slipped to theBritish hands permanently.

In 1806 Shah Alam’s son Akbar Shah II ac-ceded to the much diminished empire of theMughals and ruled until 1837. His son Ba-hadur Shah Zafar II would be the last emper-or of Mughals before the British deposed himin 1858 and the Mughal dynasty would offi-cially come to an end. During the Indian Re-bellion of 1857, Bahadur Shah II was forcedto take the side of the mutineers though hehad no power to affect the outcome of theevents. The mutineers had outwitted his Brit-ish sponsors and now the emperor neitherhad the troops nor the competence. He hadno choice but to join the winning side.However, the success of the mutineers wassoon reversed and the octogenarian (he waseighty-two years old) was relieved of his em-pire and deposed in 1858. The emperor wasthen exiled to Rangoon in Burma where hedied in obscurity in 1862.

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Arrival of the EuropeansVasco da Gama led the first documentedEuropean expedition to India, sailing intoCalicut on the southwest coast in 1498. In1510 the Portuguese captured Goa, which be-came the seat of their activity. Under AdmiralAfonso de Albuquerque, Portugal successfullychallenged Arab power in the Indian Oceanand dominated the sea routes for a century.Jesuits came to convert, to converse, and torecord observations of India. The Protestantcountries of the Netherlands and England,upset by the Portuguese monopoly, formedprivate trading companies at the turn of theseventeenth century to challenge thePortuguese.

Mughal officials permitted the new carri-ers of India’s considerable export trade to es-tablish trading posts (factories) in India. TheDutch East India Company concentratedmainly on the spice trade from present-dayIndonesia. Britain’s East India Company car-ried on trade with India. The French East In-dia Company also set up factories.

An engraving titled "Sepoy Indian troops di-viding the spoils after their mutiny againstBritish rule" gives a contemporary view ofevents from the British perspective.

During the wars of the 18th century, thefactories served not only as collection andtransshipment points for trade but also in-creasingly as fortified centres of refuge forboth foreigners and Indians. British factoriesgradually began to apply British law to dis-putes arising within their jurisdiction. Theposts also began to grow in area and popula-tion. Armed company servants were effectiveprotectors of trade. As rival contenders forpower called for armed assistance and as in-dividual European adventurers found per-manent homes in India, British and French

companies found themselves more and moreinvolved in local politics in the south and inBengal. Plots and counterplots climaxedwhen British East India Company forces, ledby Robert Clive, decisively defeated the lar-ger but divided forces of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dawlah at Plassey (Pilasi) in Bengal in 1757.

The MarathasMaratha chieftains were originally in the ser-vice of Bijapur sultans in the western Deccan,which was under siege by the Mughals.

Shivaji Bhonsle (1627-80) Shivaji was afighter regarded as the "father of theMaratha nation," who took advantage of thisconflict and carved out his own principalitynear Pune, which later became the Marathacapital. Adopting guerrilla tactics, he waylaidcaravans in order to sustain and expand hisarmy, which soon had money, arms, andhorses. Shivaji led a series of successful as-saults in the 1660s against Mughal strong-holds, including the major port of Surat. Shiv-aji’s battle cries were swaraj (translated vari-ously as freedom, self-rule, independence),swadharma (religious freedom), and gorak-sha (cow protection). Aurangzeb relentlesslypursued Shivaji’s successors between 1681and 1705 but eventually retreated to thenorth as his treasury became depleted and asthousands of lives had been lost either on thebattlefield or to natural calamities. In 1717 aMughal emissary signed a treaty with theMarathas confirming their claims to rule inthe Deccan in return for acknowledging thefictional Mughal suzerainty and remission ofannual taxes.

The Marathas, despite their militaryprowess and leadership, were not equippedto administer the state or to undertake so-cioeconomic reform. Pursuing a policy char-acterized by plunder and indiscriminateraids, they antagonized the peasants. Theywere primarily suited for stirring the Maha-rashtrian regional pride rather than for at-tracting loyalty to an all-India confederacy.They were left virtually alone and withoutsupplies before the invading Afghan forces,headed by Ahmad Shah Abdali (later calledAhmad Shah Durrani), who routed them onthe at the Third Battle of Panipat|Panipat in1761. The shock of defeat hastened thebreak-up of their loosely knit confederacy in-to five independent states and extinguishedthe hope of Maratha dominance in India.

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The Nizams ofHyderabadMaratha raids into Berar, Kandesh, Gujaratand Malwa resumed after the death of Aur-angzeb, and loosened Mughal control in theDeccan. In 1724 Asaf Jah, the Mughal Nizamul Mulk, or viceroy, of the Deccan, defeatedseveral contenders for control of the Mughalsouthern provinces, and established himselfof ruler of an independent state with its cap-ital at Hyderabad. He and his successorsruled as hereditary Nizams, and their state,known as Hyderabad after the capital, outlas-ted the Mughal empire, persisting until it wasincorporated into newly-independent India in1948. Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jahi was a strongruler and established an orderly system ofadministration. He also attempted to reformthe revenue system. The dynasty founded byhim came to be known as the Asaf Jahi dyn-asty and lasted until the accession of Hydera-bad to Independent India

The SikhsThe Afghan defeat of the Maratha armies ac-celerated the breakaway of Punjab from Del-hi and helped the founding of Sikh overlord-ship in the northwest. Rooted in the bhaktimovements that developed in the second cen-tury B.C. but swept across North India dur-ing the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, theteachings of the Sikh gurus appealed to thehard-working peasants. Facing extended per-secution from the Mughals, the Sikhs, underGuru Gobind Singh formed the Khalsa (Armyof Pure). The khalsa rose up against the eco-nomic and political repressions in Punjab to-ward the end of Aurangzeb’s rule. Guerrillafighters took advantage of the political in-stability created by the Persian and Afghanonslaught against Delhi, enriching them-selves and expanding territorial control. Bythe 1770s, Sikh hegemony extended from theIndus in the west to the Yamuna in the east,from Multan in the south to Jammu in thenorth. But the Sikhs, like the Marathas, werea loose, disunited, and quarrelsome conglom-erate of twelve kin-groups. It took RanjitSingh (1780-1839), an individual with mod-ernizing vision and leadership, to achieve su-premacy over the other kin-groups and estab-lish his kingdom in which Sikhs, Hindus, andMuslims lived together in comparative

equality and increasing prosperity. RanjitSingh employed European officers and intro-duced strict military discipline into his armybefore expanding into Afghanistan, Kashmir,and Ladakh.

Establishment of theEuropeans

An Indian depiction of a 17th century Dutchship off the Coromandel Coast

The quest for wealth and power broughtEuropeans to Indian shores in 1498 whenVasco da Gama, the Portuguese voyager, ar-rived in Calicut (modern Kozhikode, Kerala)on the west coast. In their search for spicesand Christian converts, the Portuguese chal-lenged Arab supremacy in the Indian Ocean,and, with their galleons fitted with powerfulcannons, set up a network of strategic trad-ing posts along the Arabian Sea and the Per-sian Gulf. In 1510 the Portuguese took overthe enclave of Goa, which became the centerof their commercial and political power in In-dia and which they controlled for nearly fourand a half centuries.

Economic competitionEconomic competition among the Europeannations led to the founding of commercialcompanies in England (the East India Com-pany, founded in 1600) and in the Nether-lands (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie--the United East India Company, founded in

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1602), whose primary aim was to capture thespice trade by breaking the Portuguesemonopoly in Asia. Although the Dutch, with alarge supply of capital and support from theirgovernment, preempted and ultimately ex-cluded the British from the heartland ofspices in the East Indies (modern-day Indone-sia), both companies managed to establishtrading "factories" (actually warehouses)along the Indian coast. The Dutch, for ex-ample, used various ports on the CoromandelCoast in South India, especially Pulicat(about twenty kilometers north of Madras),as major sources for slaves for their planta-tions in the East Indies and for cotton clothas early as 1609. (The English, however, es-tablished their first factory at what today isknown as Madras only in 1639.) Indian rulersenthusiastically accommodated the new-comers in hopes of pitting them against thePortuguese. In 1619 Jahangir granted thempermission to trade in his territories at Surat(in Gujarat) on the west coast and Hughli (inWest Bengal) in the east. These and otherlocations on the peninsula became centers ofinternational trade in spices, cotton, sugar,raw silk, saltpeter, calico, and indigo.

British influenceEnglish company agents became familiarwith Indian customs and languages, includ-ing Persian, the unifying official language un-der the Mughals. In many ways, the Englishagents of that period lived like Indians, inter-married willingly, and a large number ofthem never returned to their home country.The knowledge of India thus acquired andthe mutual ties forged with Indian tradinggroups gave the English a competitive edgeover other Europeans. The Frenchcommercial interest--Compagnie des IndesOrientales (East India Company, founded in1664)--came late, but the French also estab-lished themselves in India, emulating the pre-cedents set by their competitors as they foun-ded their enclave at Pondicherry (Puduch-cheri) on the Coromandel Coast.

In 1717 the Mughal emperor, Farrukh-siyar (r. 1713-19), gave the British--who bythen had already established themselves inthe south and the west--a grant of thirty-eightvillages near Calcutta, acknowledging theirimportance to the continuity of internationaltrade in the Bengal economy. As did theDutch and the French, the British brought

silver bullion and copper to pay for transac-tions, helping the smooth functioning of theMughal revenue system and increasing thebenefits to local artisans and traders.

The fortified warehouses of the Britishbrought extraterritorial status, which en-abled them to administer their own civil andcriminal laws and offered numerous employ-ment opportunities as well as asylum to for-eigners and Indians. The British factoriessuccessfully competed with their rivals astheir size and population grew. The originalclusters of fishing villages (Madras and Cal-cutta) or series of islands (Bombay) becameheadquarters of the British administrativezones, or presidencies as they generally cameto be known. The factories and their immedi-ate environs, known as the White-town, rep-resented the actual and symbolic preemin-ence of the British--in terms of their politicalpower--as well as their cultural values and so-cial practices; meanwhile, their Indian collab-orators lived in the Black-town, separatedfrom the factories by several kilometres.

The British company employed sepoys--European-trained and European-led Indiansoldiers--to protect its trade, but local rulerssought their services to settle scores in re-gional power struggles. South India wit-nessed the first open confrontation betweenthe British and the French, whose forceswere led by Robert Clive and FrançoisDupleix, respectively. Both companies de-sired to place their own candidate as thenawab, or ruler, of Arcot, the area aroundMadras. At the end of a protracted strugglebetween 1744 and 1763, when the Peace ofParis was signed, the British gained an upperhand over the French and installed their manin power, supporting him further with armsand lending large sums as well. The Frenchand the British also backed different factionsin the succession struggle for Mughal vice-royalty in Bengal, but Clive intervened suc-cessfully and defeated Nawab Siraj-ud-daulain the Battle of Plassey (Palashi, about 150kilometres north of Calcutta) in 1757. Clivefound help from a combination of vested in-terests that opposed the existing nawab: dis-gruntled soldiers, landholders, and influentialmerchants whose commercial profits wereclosely linked to British fortunes.

Later, Clive defeated the Mughal forces atBuxar (Baksar, west of Patna in Bihar) in1765, and the Mughal emperor (Shah Alam,r. 1759-1806) conferred on the company

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administrative rights over Bengal, Bihar, andOrissa, a region of roughly 25 million peoplewith an annual revenue of 40 million rupees(for current value of the rupee). The imperialgrant virtually established the company as asovereign power, and Clive became the firstBritish governor of Bengal.

Besides the presence of the Portuguese,Dutch, British, and French, there were twolesser but noteworthy colonial groups. Dan-ish entrepreneurs established themselves atseveral ports on the Malabar coast and theCoromandel coast notably Tranquebar, in thevicinity of Calcutta, and inland at Patnabetween 1695 and 1740. Austrian enterpriseswere set up in the 1720s on the vicinity ofSurat in modern-day southeastern Gujarat.As with the other non-British enterprises, theDanish and Austrian enclaves were takenover by the British between 1765 and 1815.

Mughal SocietyThe Indian economy boomed under theMughals, because of the creation of a roadsystem and a uniform currency, together withthe unification of the country. Manufacturedgoods and peasant-grown cash crops weresold throughout the world. Key industries in-cluded shipbuilding (the Indian shipbuildingindustry was as advanced as the European,and Indians sold ships to European firms),textiles, and steel. The Mughals maintained asmall fleet, which merely carried pilgrims toMecca, imported a few Arab horses, trans-ported soldiers over rivers, and fought pir-ates; however, the Muslim Siddis of Janjira,and the Marathas sent ships to China, andthe eastern limits of Africa, together withsome Mughal subjects carrying out private-sector trade.

Cities and towns boomed under theMughals; however, for the most part, theywere military and political centres, not manu-facturing or commerce centres. Only thoseguilds which produced goods for the bureau-cracy made goods in the towns; most in-dustry was based in rural areas.

The nobility was a heterogeneous body;while it primarily consisted of Rajput aristo-crats and foreigners from Muslim countries,people of all castes and nationalities couldgain a title from the emperor. The middleclass of openly affluent traders consisted of afew wealthy merchants living in the coastaltowns; the bulk of the merchants pretended

to be poor to avoid taxation. The bulk of thepeople were poor. The standard of living ofthe poor was as low as, or somewhat higherthan, the standard of living of the Indian poorunder the British Raj; whatever benefits theBritish brought with canals and modern in-dustry were neutralized by rising populationgrowth, high taxes, and the collapse of tradi-tional industry in the nineteenth century.Some of the notable changes to societies ofthe subcontinent and culture, during this erawere• Centralised government which brought

together many smaller kingdoms• Persian art and culture amalgamated with

native Indian art and culture• Started new trade routes to Arab and Turk

lands, Islam was at its very highest• Mughlai cuisine• Urdu language was formed by

amalgamation of Persian, Arabic, Turkishwith many North Indian languages.Spoken Hindi branched off from Urdu at amuch later date (late 19th Cent.) retaininga more distinct Sanskrit flavour.

• A new style of architecture• Landscape gardening

References[1] Shershah Suri’s Tomb, Sasaram -

Ticketed Monument - ArchaeologicalSurvey of India

• This article incorporates public domainmaterial from websites or documents ofthe Library of Congress Country Studies. -India Pakistan

Literature• Elliot and Dowson: The History of India as

told by its own Historians, New Delhireprint, 1990.

• Elliot, Sir H. M., Edited by Dowson, John.The History of India, as Told by Its OwnHistorians. The Muhammadan Period;published by London Trubner Company1867–1877. (Online Copy: The History ofIndia, as Told by Its Own Historians. TheMuhammadan Period; by Sir H. M. Elliot;Edited by John Dowson; London TrubnerCompany 1867–1877 - This online Copyhas been posted by: The PackardHumanities Institute; Persian Texts inTranslation; Also find other historicalbooks: Author List and Title List)

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• Majumdar, R. C. (ed.), The History andCulture of the Indian People, Volume VI,The Delhi Sultanate, Bombay, 1960;Volume VII, The Mughal Empire, Bombay,1973.

External links• The Great Mughals Timurids-Mongolian

dynasty of Turkish origin• British India• British Education in India

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Categories: Mughal Empire, History of India

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