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From its establishment in 1526 by Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, 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. This chapter provides a historical overview of the Mughal Empire from the early conquests of Babur to the early phase of British colonial expansion in India in the eighteenth century. The chapter outlines the ideological underpinnings of the empire, drawing upon Turko-Mongol, Persianate, Greco-Hellenic, Islamicate, and Indic ideas of rulership, as well as the practicalities of building an effective administrative system accommodating the diverse religious, tribal, and ethnic communities and social classes of the Indian subcontinent. Finally, the chapter analyzes the empire’s economic tools for managing a vast agrarian economy, and some of the artistic developments reconciling Indian and Persian traditions with the mosaic of religious and intellectual ideas flourishing at the Mughal court.

While surveying textual sources, iconography, and other historical evidence for the development of Hanuman's popular cult, this chapter also interrogates the explanatory narratives that have been constructed around this evidence by earlier scholars. After examining attempts to locate Hanuman's origins in pre-Vedic religion or in the Rig Veda, and in the cult of yakshas or earth-spirits, it examines the role of the wind (Hanuman's legendary father) in Ayurveda, and Hanuman's additional kinship with Shiva and Shaivism. It then traces the development of Hanuman's persona over roughly two millennia from the Valmiki Ramayana to the Rama tales in the Puranas, in the literature of Jainism, and in vernacular language epics. Interrogating a recent and influential theory that Hanuman's cult reflects a Hindu response to the excesses of Muslim hegemony, the chapter reexamines three historical periods that often figure in this argument: the late Vijayanagara empire, the early Maratha kingdom, and the “warrior ascetics” of the Ramanandi sadhu order in the late Mughal Empire and early colonial periods. It is argued that the apparent efflorescence of devotion to Hanuman in each of these contexts reflects a more complex range of historical and social factors than has generally been recognized.

The idea of trusteeship in international society originates in late 18th century British India. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the emergence of trusteeship as a justification of political power in territories administered by the East India Company. The chapter has five sections: From Merchant to Sovereign in British India; The Claim to Rule; The Relations of Ruler and Subject; The Purpose of the Office of Government; and Providing Protection, Directing Improvement.

Anglo-French worldwide rivalry extended to India, where both nations traded through their East India companies. This rivalry, which had led to almost continuous warfare since the 1740s, merged into the rivalry of the Indian powers that were emerging as independent successor states from the breakdown of the Mughal Empire. The Europeans formed alliances with Indian princes. These alliances gave the British and French a potentially commanding influence over some of the Indian states. This influence led to total British control over Bengal in the events that followed the overthrow of the local ruler at the battle of Plassey in 1757. In the south, the British were able to defeat the French, but their position was weaker. Even so, by the end of the war the British East India Company had become a major territorial power in India, closely allied to the British state.

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.

This introductory chapter outlines the core theme of the book, which involves an exploration of the cultures of history writing in early modern Bengal. The seventeenth, eighteenth, and the first decade or so of the nineteenth centuries provide the temporal framework for this study — a period which witnessed the consolidation of the Mughal political and cultural order, its subsequent political decline and the transition to early colonial rule. A related theme which runs through the book is the connection between culture and the production of history and specifically, between a Persianized Mughal political culture and history writing. The chapter then presents a critique of pre-modern Indian historiography, followed by discussions of the Mughal Empire and Persianization, and interactions between Islamicate and Indic cultures. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

The Mughal intervention in Afghanistan started with the Chaghtai Turkish warlord named Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur. Babur mainly faced rural insurgencies. Afghanistan even today is a land of small villages. Approximately 80 per cent of the population lives in the countryside. Military recruitment for the Afghans was important because only 12 per cent of Afghanistan’s land is arable even now. The Mughals, Safavids, and the Uzbeks, despite being Muslim themselves, faced tough opposition from the Afghans. This does not imply that Islam has played no role in Afghan insurgency. Rather, the chapter underscores that Islam in general and jihad in particular are not crucial components of Afghan opposition to external invaders in their homelands. From the medieval era, the control for Afghanistan represented a sort of ‘Great Game’ for controlling the heart of Eurasia. The Mughals were more successful than the British in maintaining a permanent presence in Afghanistan.

Abu-l Fazl (1551–1602), the imperial chronicler for Akbar the Great (1556–1605), recorded the regulations regarding the Mughal haram. The term haram came to be the most common description of the women's sphere and signified important changes in Mughal domestic life. Mughal women—or at least most of them—became invisible in the public pronouncements and activities of the empire. This invisibility is especially striking in the case of Akbar's wives, including the mothers of his sons. Akbar's foster community pushed the boundaries of what would normally be recognized as blood relations and relationships of marriage and birth. This chapter demonstrates how Abu-l Fazl established new norms by representing Akbar's domestic life. It investigates how Mughal's palace women responded to the new imperial regulations, and how women's negotiation of the new sovereign ideals became a crucial element in the making of the monarchy—at times, by rupturing those very ideals. It also examines the visible matriarchs of the Mughal Empire, intercession and counseling by senior women, and senior women's hajj under the leadership of Gulbadan Begum.

This chapter traces the development of East India Company’s colonial system in the 1690s. It argues that, despite serious setbacks, including the invasion and occupation of Bombay by Mughal-allied forces in 1689, there was continuity between the Company’s earlier efforts, as described particularly in chapters 1 and 3, and those in the last decade of the seventeenth century to preserve and enhance its establishment abroad. In the aftermath of the invasion of Bombay, Company leaders became ever more convinced of the need for a strong and vibrant political system in Asia. It continued to emphasize the growth and prosperity of its settlements, sought new ones, such as Fort St. David and Anjengo, and continued to seek a firm grant from the Mughal Empire that could secure its rights in India. It also confronted new challenges to its authority, particularly Anglo-American pirates in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, which both created a political crisis for the Company with Mughal authorities but also presented opportunities to expand its maritime jurisdiction and power.

This chapter outlines developments in and around the centre in the post-Aurangzeb period to set the scene for discussing the problems of imperial power, political formations in the regions and the changing economic scenario. By examining these developments, analysing the links with the factional politics, and the administrative relapse at the centre in four phases, the chapter highlights the gradual but steady alienation of the nobles, the smaller government officials, and the local magnates from the Mughal state, both at the centre and in the provinces. The chronological order of these events reflects the problems and the shifts of social and political alignments in the provinces, leading to their virtual breakaway from the imperial centre. Simultaneously, the chapter delves on the interlinkages of the political breakdown and the economic collapse of the imperial centre, the paucity of jagir(s) and the consequent breakdown of the jagirdari system, and the emergence of ijaradars. It deals with the financial effects of continuous wars, uprisings of zamindar(s), as well as the impact of droughts and famines. The result is a composite picture of the breakdown of the politico-economic order of the Mughal imperial organization.

This chapter focuses on the inability of the Mughal empire to resolve and coordinate with local interests—the factors which had made the empire significant in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The clashes among the nobility were symptomatic of this rather than its cause. By now, for the zamindars the Mughal centre was of not much utility due to better ties within neighbouring regions. They defied the Mughals in frequent uprisings which hastened the decline of Mughal power. Another sign of the assertion of local elements was the defiance of imperial regulations by the madad-i ma‘ash holders, who had been the ideologues and traditional supporters of the Mughal state and had occupied some local offices; and the conflict between the zamindars and the madad-i ma‘ash holders. It considers the policy of strengthening the loyalist zamindars and the appointment of the new ones to replace the rebellious ones. It details how the zamindar uprisings, as well as the developments in the wake of the newly acquired position of the madad-i ma‘ash holders resulted in the dislocation of jagir administration in the province. In response the Mughal centre tried to strengthen the jagirdars and therefore the revenue administration against the local potentates. However, this resulted in new problems. In absence of a strong centre the jagirdars started defying the centre and formed alliances with the local potentates further eroding Mughal power.

This chapter focuses on the regional administration problems encountered by the Mughals in Punjab during 1707-15. A major failure of the Mughals in the region was their inability to deal with the Sikh problem. The period saw the resurgence of the Sikh uprisings directed against the Mughal state. The Sikhs viewed the Mughal state as the source of all tyranny, since it not only had the largest share in the social surplus but also legitimized and sustained the existing power-structure in the locality. The Sikh movement challenged the Mughal authority and significantly eroded it during the four phases of struggle under the leadership of Banda Bahadur. The Sikhs posed challenges by posing alternative concepts of rule and rulers, by integrating several Jat and Jat Sikh zamindars and gaining strength from the overt and covert resistance of hill chiefs against Mughal power. However, the support base of the Sikhs withered away over a period of time. The khatris and the non-Jat zamindars aligned with the Mughals due to their political and economic interests. The local magnates too gravitated towards the more distant power of the Mughals. Some of the hill chiefs too sided with the Mughals. While the Mughal power had regained some ground and although Banda Bahadur, the formidable Sikh leader of the early-eighteenth century was captured and slain in 1715 along with 700 other Sikhs, Sikh hostility continued to erode the foundations of Mughal power until the province was in total disarray in the middle of the eighteenth century.

François Bernier (1620–1688) is known to historians of philosophy as a populariser of Gassendi (his former teacher), and to historians of India as a traveller to the Mughal empire who wrote one of the most widely-read travel accounts of the period. The chapter shows how Bernier' s writings reflect the concerns of the intellectual settings in which he moved, both in Paris in the 1650s (the Gassendi group, or the ‘libertins érudits’), and in Mughal India in the 1660s (where he served as a physician to a high-ranking official, Daneshmend Khan). The chapter begins with Bernier's account of two solar eclipses, one in Paris in 1654, the other in Delhi in 1666, which opens his account of Hindu religion.

This chapter focuses on the changing relationships between provincial governors and the Mughal court. In Awadh, new subadar was involved in court politics in an attempt to reinforce his well-entrenched authority in the province and also to return at a higher office to the court. However this attempted ended after the first five years, when Burhan-ul-Mulk defied the orders of the Mughal emperor of his transfer to Malwa. He now focused solely on becoming powerful and autonomous in Awadh by increasing his influence over Allahabad, Benares and the eastern districts. The route of the Bengal treasury was diverted through Awadh at this time because of the disturbances on the previous route. The province of Awadh had also seen a steady growth in jama figures. Burhan-ul-Mulk and then Safdar Jang also formed peace treaties with the Marathas independent of any directive from the Mughal emperor. By the time of Nadir Shah’s invasion in 1739, the nawabs of Awadh had become virtually independent of Mughal authority and yet played a key role in the court politics of Delhi. Abd-us-Samad Khan, the new subadar of the Punjab, like his counterpart in Awadh, also treated the province as his personal domain, making every possible effort to secure his authority there. When his rivals at the court, in a bid to weaken his power in the Punjab, secured his transfer to Kabul, he refused to leave the Punjab to take up his new assignment. However, the trajectory of developments in Punjab turned out to be different from Awadh. Abd-us-Samad Khan and his successor Zakariya Khan failed to consolidate their position within the province due to Punjab’s economic decline, their inability to extricate themselves from Mughal court politics and its vulnerability to attacks from West and Central Asia which was evident during the invasion of Nadir Shah. Finally, Shahnawaz Khan the Punjab governor after 1745 looked to legitimize his hereditary claim to the new subadari by looking for support from Kabul and beyond.

This chapter discusses some aspects of urban society which provided a background to all these conflicts, specifically rapid population movement and poverty. It explains that relationship between political power, elite consumption, trade and the agrarian society established in the mid-eighteenth century had come under pressure by 1830 and this pressure originated in the incompatibility of the colonial state and the Indian successor regimes to the Mughal Empire. It argues that many conflicts between different social groups reflect the changing role of the state. The British had eroded the old forms of government and redistribution without replacing them with new system.

This chapter discusses the final phase of the decline of the Mughal empire in the eighteenth century. It argues that this decline was manifested in Awadh and Punjab in a kind of political transformation, in the emergence and configuration of the elements of the new subadari. The Mughal centre had transformed from a stabilizing force to a destabilizing arena with the weakening of imperial authority, administration and wrangling at the court. However, as the beginnings of the new subadari are to be seen more in the context of the history of the region, the developments in and around Awadh and the Punjab provide explanation for its stability or weakness in these provinces. The alliances forged, between the Mughal state and the nobles on the one hand and the old zamindars and local elements had always been uneasy. Now with the weakening of the Mughal power, the provincial governors tried to strike alliances with the local elements. Now with the weakening of the Mughal power, the provincial governors tried to strike alliances with the local elements. While the alliance with the local elements was successful in Awadh, it failed in Punjab primarily because of the growing consolidation of the Sikh movement, which considered the Mughal system as such to be tyrannical. The genesis for the emergence of ‘the successor state’ was present in both provinces, but in the Punjab it ended in chaos while Awadh saw a stable, dynastic rule.

Chapter 3 makes the point that neither ethnic linkages nor geostrategicinterests were sufficient for strong cooperation in the history of the long relationship between the Ottoman and Mughal dynasties. The chapter, thus, discusses the ethnic commonalities including the Turkic roots of the two ruling families and makes the point that kinship ties militated against comity and instead provoked competition. The chapter then charts the evolution of political and geostrategic relations since sixteenth century between Ottomans and India and the introduction of the triangular relationship with the advent of the British Raj in India. The chapter concludes by the dynamics of this triangular relationship and the dilemmas it has created for the Indian Muslims in view of the increasingly hostile British attitude against the Ottoman Empire against the will of the Indians.

This chapter explores the history of the management of the Deccan frontier of the Mughals in the late sixteenth century. In order to comprehend the nature of this frontier, we must bear in mind a complex quadrilateral relationship that existed in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries between four sets of rather unequal powers: first, the expanding Mughal empire in northern India; second, the Deccan sultanates further south, and especially the kingdoms of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar; third, the Portuguese Estado da Índia with its political heart in Goa and subsidiary centres at Daman, Diu, and the Província do Norte; and finally, the Safavid state in Iran that from its very inception in about 1500 had maintained privileged relations with the Muslim sovereigns of the Deccan.