Decline of the Mughals & rise of the British

The Structural Collapse After Aurangzeb

The death of Aurangzeb on 3 March 1707 marks the conventional terminus of effective Mughal authority. Within five decades the empire that nominally ruled the subcontinent shrank, in the contemptuous phrase of the period, to the territory 'from Delhi to Palam'. The decline was structural, not merely the failure of weak successors.

The jagirdari crisis, analysed by Satish Chandra, lay at the core. The supply of revenue-yielding jagirs (be-jagiri) failed to keep pace with the swelling Mughal nobility, intensified by Aurangzeb's incorporation of Deccani and Maratha nobles after the annexations of Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687). Competition for the most lucrative assignments (the paibaqi) fractured the nobility into factions — the Turani, Irani, Afghan and Hindustani groups whose intrigues dominated the court after 1707.

The War of Succession became endemic. Bahadur Shah I (1707-12) was followed by the puppet reigns engineered by the Sayyid Brothers, Abdullah Khan and Husain Ali Khan — the so-called 'king-makers' — who raised and deposed Jahandar Shah (1712-13) and Farrukhsiyar (1713-19) before themselves being eliminated under Muhammad Shah 'Rangila' (1719-48).

External Shocks and Provincial Breakaway

Nadir Shah of Persia sacked Delhi in 1739, carrying off the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor and slaughtering thousands in a single day's qatl-i-am. Ahmad Shah Abdali's repeated invasions culminated in the Third Battle of Panipat on 14 January 1761, where he crushed the Marathas, ending their bid to fill the imperial vacuum.

Meanwhile the provinces became autonomous. Murshid Quli Khan founded a hereditary line in Bengal (1717); Saadat Khan established Awadh (1722); Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah established Hyderabad (1724) after the Battle of Shakar Kheda. These rulers retained the fiction of Mughal sovereignty — striking coins in the emperor's name and seeking imperial farmans — while exercising independent power. This created the fragmented political landscape into which European trading companies advanced.

Successor States and the Marathas

The Marathas, organised under the Peshwas of Pune into a confederacy (the Gaekwad of Baroda, Holkar of Indore, Scindia of Gwalior, Bhonsle of Nagpur), extended the chauth and sardeshmukhi over much of India and even garrisoned Delhi after 1771. Yet Panipat (1761), the early deaths of Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao, and confederate disunity prevented a durable pan-Indian replacement for the Mughals. It was this very disunity — among the successor states, the Marathas and regional powers — that the English East India Company exploited with decisive effect from 1757.

From Trade to Territory: Plassey and Buxar

The English East India Company, chartered by Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, was one trading concern among several. Its transformation into a territorial power turned on two battles in Bengal — the richest of the successor states.

The Battle of Plassey, 23 June 1757, was won less by arms than by conspiracy. Robert Clive secured the defection of Mir Jafar, the bakhshi of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula, alongside the financier Jagat Seth and Amichand. The actual fighting was negligible; the outcome was the installation of Mir Jafar as a puppet Nawab and the extraction of vast indemnities. The pretext had been the Nawab's seizure of Calcutta in 1756 and the 'Black Hole' episode.

The Battle of Buxar, 22 October 1764, was the more decisive military verdict. Hector Munro defeated the combined armies of Nawab Mir Qasim of Bengal, Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and Emperor Shah Alam II. For the first time the Company defeated a Mughal emperor in the field, establishing it as the paramount military power in the Gangetic plain.

The Diwani and Dual Government

The Treaty of Allahabad (12 August 1765) crowned the victory. Clive obtained from Shah Alam II the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa — the right to collect revenue — in return for an annual tribute of 26 lakh rupees and the cession of Kara and Allahabad. Awadh was restored to Shuja-ud-Daula as a buffer state on payment of 50 lakhs.

The Diwani inaugurated the Dual Government (1765-72): the Company held the revenue (diwani) while the Nawab retained the nizamat (police and judicial functions), yet without the resources to discharge them. The result was administrative chaos and the catastrophic Bengal Famine of 1770, which killed an estimated one-third of the province's population. Warren Hastings abolished the dual system in 1772, bringing revenue collection directly under the Company.

Why This Matters for the Exam

For UPSC Prelims (GS Paper I), this period yields high-frequency factual questions: dates and outcomes of Plassey and Buxar, the terms of the Treaty of Allahabad, founders of the successor states, and the meaning of Diwani, chauth and sardeshmukhi. A recurring PYQ trap distinguishes Plassey (a 'transaction' won by conspiracy) from Buxar (a genuine military victory that delivered legal sovereignty).

For Mains (GS-1), the analytical demand is to explain why the Mughal Empire declined — testing whether you can deploy the jagirdari-crisis thesis (Satish Chandra), the agrarian-crisis view (Irfan Habib) and the regional/decentralisation interpretation (Muzaffar Alam) rather than a 'weak successors' narrative. Retain the chronology 1707 → 1739 → 1757 → 1761 → 1764 → 1765 → 1772 as your spine.