---
title: "Decline of the Mughals & Rise of the British: GS-1"
description: "The Mughal Empire disintegrated after Aurangzeb while the East India Company rose from Plassey to Buxar and Diwani. Trace this pivotal transition for UPSC GS-1."
url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/learn/lessons/upsc-modern-history-decline-of-the-mughals-rise-of-the-british"
---

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Decline of the Mughals & rise of the British

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# Decline of the Mughals & rise of the British

Traces the disintegration of the Mughal Empire after Aurangzeb (1707) and the East India Company's ascent from Plassey (1757) to Buxar (1764) and Diwani.

## 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.

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