Collapse of Mughal Central Authority and Rise of the Successor States
The Mughal empire's provinces became independent states in the 1720s without formally leaving it. Aurangzeb had died in 1707 after a reign of forty-nine years, half of it spent conquering the Deccan at a cost that broke the fiscal system, and the succession war and the four emperors of the following twelve years destroyed the court's authority. The mechanism of the collapse was administrative rather than military. Mughal governors had traditionally been transferred every few years precisely so that they could not build local followings, and were paid by assignments of revenue from land they did not own. After 1719 the transfers stopped happening and the assignments became hereditary. Nizam-ul-Mulk, having been chief minister and found the court unworkable, went south in 1724, beat a rival at Shakar Kheda and governed Hyderabad as his own state while continuing to name the emperor in the Friday prayers. Bengal under Murshid Quli Khan, Awadh under Saadat Khan and the Punjab followed the same pattern: revenue retained locally, succession within the family, and formal submission maintained. The Marathas meanwhile were collecting a quarter of the revenue across much of India as chauth. The emperor kept the coinage, the titles and the legitimacy, which is why every successor state and eventually the East India Company sought his authority for what they were already doing. Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739 and demonstrated that there was nothing behind it. The fiction was useful to everyone and lasted a long time. The East India Company was still striking coins in the emperor's name in the nineteenth century, and the last Mughal was deposed and exiled to Burma in 1858 after being made the figurehead of a rebellion he had not asked for.
- Year: 1720 CE
- Category: Political
