A Short History of the Mughal Empire (I.B.Tauris Short Histories)

by Fisher, H, Michael

  Farrukh-siyar made ineffective efforts to regain fiscal and political control. He allocated to potential supporters those few territories still paying imperial revenues. But this reduced even further the little remaining khalisa land that supported his own court and forces.9 Lacking power to manage events, Farrukh-siyar spent much time hunting, writing poetry and futilely conspiring to free himself either from the Sayyid brothers or their powerful rivals. Unable to dismiss his potent mansabdars, the Emperor reportedly tried to poison various of them; he also awarded the same office to two men, hoping one would destroy the other and be weakened in the process.10

  Finally, in April 1719, the Sayyid brothers took the decisive step of replacing Farrukh-siyar with an even more compliant emperor. They had him dragged from his harem, blinded, harshly imprisoned and assassinated. They enthroned his short-lived paternal first cousin, Rafi-ud-Darjat (r. 1719). Never before had an established emperor been deposed by mansabdars.

  This precedent shattered the concept of individual Mughal sovereignty, and would be repeated seven times in the next 40 years by various other regents. Nonetheless, the concept of corporate sovereignty possessed exclusively by males of the Mughal house would persist. The Sayyid brothers—having temporarily united by their actions many diverse opponents—were themselves sequentially each assassinated soon thereafter. A series of other regents followed who drew puppet emperors out of the pool of hitherto passed-over male descendants of ‘Alamgir, known collectively as the salatin (‘imperial princes’).

  Chart 2: Later Mughal emperors (with reign)

  Over the decades following Farrukh-siyar’s assassination, these salatin, confined in various degrees of impoverishment within the Shahjahanabad or Agra forts, remained fearful whether they were about to be executed or enthroned. Occasionally, rival would-be kingmakers simultaneously crowned different princes. Of the ten emperors taken from among the salatin by regents over the next half-century, three were assassinated while on the throne and another four were eventually returned to the pool of salatin, grateful to have escaped alive. Half these emperors reigned only a few months but one remained weakly on the throne for nearly three decades: Muhammad Shah (r. 1719–48). Almost all these emperors reached the throne having no experience in administration or warfare, being chosen and controlled by regents.

  Each regent who clawed his way to power found staying alive and in control as perilous as being emperor. Some regents were imperial governors who had entrenched themselves in the province where they had been posted, with no particular connection to the local population. Such rulers of ‘successor states’ sometimes achieved hereditary de facto kingship. Nominally subordinate to the emperor, they were known by their imperial title—most prominently the Turani Sunni Nizam-al-Mulk dynasty in Hyderabad and the Irani Shi‘a Nawab-Wazir dynasty in Awadh. Other regents led a dominant regionally based community, like the Rohilla Afghans or Marathas. Yet other regents negotiated ever-shifting coalitions, with custody of the emperor and his residual authority as their major resource. Several regents looted the imperial treasury and palace, even stripping women of the harem of their valuables and chastity; one gouged out the emperor’s eyes.

  The imperial center had lost control over most borderlands, including the north-west frontier. There, mansabdars lacked funds and manpower to resist either insurgent Afghans or invaders from the west. The first major invader was Nadir Shah (r. 1736–47), a Persianized Turk who had risen from humble beginnings to establish his own reign in Iran.

  Like the Mughal Empire, the Safavid Empire had been fragmented by various contending warlords. Nadir Shah had attracted Central Asian and Iranian warriors seeking plunder. He led his predatory forces westward against the Ottoman Empire and also eastward. In 1738, he seized poorly defended Kabul, which had remained in Mughal hands since Babur captured it in 1519. Nadir Shah’s several diplomatic envoys to the current Emperor, Muhammad Shah, received promises but no effective action. Advancing, Nadir Shah led his overpowering forces across the Punjab toward Shahjahanabad.

  Belatedly moving to confront Nadir Shah, various rival imperial commanders finally assembled their separate armies at Karnal (30 kilometers from Panipat) under Muhammad Shah’s nominal leadership. But their vast, unwieldy encampment was encircled by Nadir Shah’s battle-tried cavalry. As Babur and Humayun had proven two centuries earlier, highly mobile Central Asian horsemen could sever the supply lines of a massive but immobile Indian force. A late arriving army under the governor of Awadh, Sa‘adat Khan (himself a recent Irani immigrant who had rapidly risen in imperial service), plunged prematurely into battle. Facing superior light artillery and muskets, and also ineffectively supported by other imperial commanders, this force was slaughtered and Sa‘adat Khan captured.

  Negotiations followed about how much tribute Nadir Shah would accept to spare Delhi and withdraw. But, on the imperial side, Sa‘adat Khan and his Turani-faction rival, Nizam-al-Mulk, worked at cross-purposes until the former died suddenly. Imperiously, Nadir Shah summoned Muhammad Shah and confined him, nominally as an honored fellow emperor, but effectively a hostage. After they entered Shahjahanabad together, Nadir Shah triumphantly had the khutba and coinage feature himself as sovereign.

  In the following tense days, Nadir Shah’s avaricious troops clashed with Shahjahanabad’s resentful inhabitants. In retaliation, Nadir Shah declared a six-hour general massacre. Nadir Shah’s officers then assessed the ransom of each neighborhood and surviving notable, collecting tens of millions of rupees. On his part, Muhammad Shah surrendered an imperial princess as a bride for Nadir Shah’s son, the Peacock Throne, the Koh-i Nur diamond, over a hundred million rupees, Kashmir, the territories west of the Indus and substantial annual tribute from the Punjab. Like Timur, but unlike Babur and Humayun, Nadir Shah declined to establish his own regime in India. Instead, after two months, he restored the hapless Muhammad Shah and returned to Iran laden with plunder stripped from Shahjahanabad and the imperial treasury.

  Nonetheless, enough wealth remained in Shahjahanabad to attract even more looting by various Indian regents and warlords. While Muhammad Shah reigned until his natural death in 1748, he held little actual power outside of his capital and environs. His penname Rangila (‘Colorful One’) reflected his often-frantic search for pleasure.11

  The fragmentation of the old imperial order opened new opportunities for the enterprising and fortunate. Some scribal service elites (mostly Hindu Khatris and Kayasthas) used their administrative expertise to attain positions of power.12 The Maratha confederacy and the English and other European East India Companies, with their allied elements in Indian society, also fought and bargained their way upward, as did a few ex-slaves, Asian and European mercenaries, and warlords.13

  An Afghan, Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1747–72), rose in Nadir Shah’s service. Like his late master, he regarded north India as a source of plunder for his rapacious soldiers, but not somewhere he wished to rule.14 From 1747, Ahmad Shah launched a series of almost annual raids, ransoming or sacking cities in the Punjab and Kashmir. In 1757, he seized Shahjahanabad itself. Since accumulated treasure was already pillaged, Ahmad Shah grabbed whatever he could in the Red Fort, including imperial princesses for himself and his son, while his soldiers pillaged Shahjahanabad.

  Emperor Muhammad Shah (detail), Presiding over Spring Festival of Colors (Holi), c. 1725–50. Courtesy Los Angeles Museum of Art (M.76.149.2). www.LACMA.org

  Seeking yet more, Ahmad Shah invaded again in 1759–60, retaking Shahjahanabad. After Maratha forces recovered the city, the two armies fought at Panipat in 1760—one of the bloodiest battles in Indian history. The shattered Marathas withdrew from north India for a decade. Ahmad Shah’s damaged army managed to re-enter Shahjahanabad and snatch more booty before withdrawing to Afghanistan, although he would launch another decade of attenuated incursions into the Punjab.15 The incumbent emperor, Shah ‘Alam II (r. 1759–1806), however, was in the east, seeking to reconstitute his imperial regime starting there.

&n
bsp; THE FINAL GENERATIONS OF MUGHAL EMPERORS, 1759–1857

  The long, peripatetic reign of Shah ‘Alam II reflected many transitions in the Empire, now a multi-sided conflict zone. Unlike other Mughal princes, he had escaped impoverished confinement within Shahjahanabad’s Red Fort. Despite occasional aid from Maratha generals, his early efforts near Delhi failed to restore imperial authority. So the prince ventured east down the Ganges. By 1758, he had found refuge with Nawab-Wazir Shuja‘-ud-Daula, hereditary governor over Awadh and nominal chief minister of the Empire. In 1759, the current regent in Shahjahanabad assassinated the prince’s imperial father and enthroned the prince’s second cousin once removed as Shah Jahan III (r. 1759–60). Immediately, Shah ‘Alam II declared himself the true Emperor, with support from Shuja‘-ud-Daula. Just before the devastating 1760 battle of Panipat, Maratha forces recovered Shahjahanabad, executed the hapless incumbent, Shah Jahan III, and recognized Shah ‘Alam as Emperor.

  Simultaneously, Shah ‘Alam attempted to establish his rule over Bihar and Bengal by constructing a coalition headed by Shuja‘-ud-Daula. In 1759, he launched his imperial ‘tour,’ ordering the submission of his nominal subordinates—the puppet governor of Bengal and his current keeper, the English East India Company.16 When they resisted, his imperial army of some 30,000 soldiers (mostly supplied by Shuja‘-ud-Daula) thrice entered Bihar but narrowly failed to conquer it. Unable to dislodge the English, in 1760 the Emperor entrusted himself to them.

  The English East India Company was expanding from a joint-stock commercial corporation to make itself the conqueror and ruler of ever more Indian territories. Its Court of Directors in London was elected by shareholders to manage its business and generate annual dividends. But, its British employees in India hired sepoys (European-style disciplined and equipped Indian infantry) to fight under their command. Sepoy regiments were likewise recruited by French East India Company employees; European mercenaries were hired by perceptive Indian rulers. Such sepoy regiments, along with European-commanded, technologically advanced artillery, became the core of the new model armies that triumphed over much larger forces composed of Mughal-style cavalry and motley footsoldiers. Gradually, the better funded and supplied English pushed out the more isolated French. In 1757 at Plassey, the English Company’s merchant-turned-officer, Robert Clive, led a sepoy army that defeated the bigger but divided army of the young imperial governor of Bengal. Using indirect rule, the English Company placed a series of puppet governors in office, but retained for its own advantage real military, economic and political power over still prosperous Bengal and Bihar. Taking custody over the Emperor in 1760 gave more legitimacy to English de facto rule.

  A sepoy matchlock infantryman, by W. Hodges, 179317

  But, in 1764, Shah ‘Alam ambitiously left the confining protection of the English. He rejoined Shuja‘-ud-Daula, who once again invaded Bihar. These imperial forces, however, lost to the English Company’s sepoy army at Buxar in 1764 and then at Kora in 1765. Thereupon, the Emperor again accepted the English Company as his regent, negotiating a settlement: the English turned over Allahabad province to the Emperor, officially submitted to his sovereignty and promised 2,600,000 rupees (about £40 million in today’s purchasing power) in annual tribute. In exchange, the Emperor graciously authorized the English Company’s puppet to continue as governor of Bengal and Bihar. More significantly, the Emperor appointed the Company as his Diwan there. (Company agents soon started collecting and retaining revenues in Bengal and Bihar, although the Court of Directors formally accepted this imperial appointment only in 1772.)

  To bring the English King into the Empire, in 1765 Shah ‘Alam deployed a diplomatic mission to London. Along with 100,000 rupees and various other gifts, he sent a letter to George III:

  your Majesty will send to Calcutta 5 or 6,000 young men practiced in war [who] … may carry me to Shahjehanabad, my capital, and firmly seat me on the throne of the Hindostan Empire, which is my undoubted right …. Your Majesty’s restoring me to my right will cause your name to be celebrated till the destruction of the world in every part of the habitable earth, and I shall be obliged to you as long as I live …18

  To head this embassy, Shah ‘Alam appointed Captain Archibald Swinton (who retired from the East India Company Army), with an Indian expert in Persianate diplomacy, Mirza Shaikh I‘tisam-ud-Din, as second-in-command.

  The East India Company—amidst complex negotiations with the British Parliament over its own contradictory status as a commercial corporation and ruler of Indian territories—effectively thwarted this imperial embassy to the British monarch. After many travails in Britain, I‘tisam-ud-Din returned in 1769 with little accomplished politically but with much first-hand information about Britain. In addition to his oral report for the Emperor, he wrote in 1784 the earliest written account by an Indian about Britain—an extensive Persian-language travel narrative: Shigrifnama-i Wilayat [‘Wonder-book of Foreign Lands/Europe’].19

  Meanwhile, Shah ‘Alam remained in Allahabad under uneasy English protection. The English Company shirked its tribute obligations (paying just 18 per cent of the specified amount in 1770 and 23 per cent in 1772, for example).20 Further, the Emperor tussled with the British resident political agent over ceremonial precedence. Nonetheless, these payments and Allahabad’s revenues gave Shah ‘Alam more income than emperors had received in decades, while the British treated him relatively more respectfully than many other regents, past and future.

  Since the English Company evaded Shah ‘Alam’s commands to recapture Shahjahanabad (where much of his court and household remained) and restore his Empire, he sought other backers. In 1771, he paid Maratha generals 4,000,000 rupees and promised the future revenues from Allahabad and most other territories under imperial control in exchange for their successfully restoring him to his throne in Shahjahanabad. From there, as campaigns raged across north India, he struggled for three more decades to manage shifting coalitions of regents, warlords and regional powers, while they used him for their purposes. One regent, Ghulam Qadr Rohilla, enraged at how little was left to loot, deposed Shah ‘Alam in 1788, personally dug out his eyes, imprisoned him and enthroned a distant cousin from among the salatin, Bidar Bakht (r. 1788–9). But, five months later, Maratha-led forces recaptured Shahjahanabad and restored blind Shah ‘Alam to the throne. Strikingly, Mughal sovereignty nominally survived such blatant degradations and absence of actual power.

  Indeed, when the English East India Company captured Shahjahanabad and the surrounding region in 1803, it still officially recognized Shah ‘Alam as sovereign. Further, the Company granted him a pension of 1,150,000 Rupees annually from revenues it collected from the small ‘assigned territories’ nearby (a vestige of the imperial domain). However, the Company also barred aging and blind Shah ‘Alam from further active participation in politics and even arbitrated his succession.

  On Shah ‘Alam’s death in 1806, his son Akbar II (r. 1806–37) acceded. But he remained confined to Shahjahanabad and closely supervised by the Company’s resident political agent. Nonetheless, the Emperor’s bestowal of imperial titles, khilats and even access to his court remained highly attractive to many Indians and Britons.21

  Nonetheless, Shahjahanabad still shone as a major center of Persianate high culture. The last three Mughal Emperors were respected poets, with some of the greatest Persian and Hindustani poets valuing their appointments as imperial tutors or invited performers. Imperial princes, emulating Shah ‘Alam II, toured north India and received deferential welcome almost everywhere.23 Even many prominent Indian progressives recognized Mughal authority: the leading Bengali social reformer, Rammohun Roy, for example, accepted the title ‘Raja’ from the Emperor and traveled to London as his ambassador (1831–3), negotiating with the Company’s Directors for a larger imperial pension.24 The English Company itself continued ceremonially to display its recognition of Mughal sovereignty by minting specimen coins in the Emperor’s name, officially presenting nazr and receiving khilats
(until 1843).

  Emperor Shah ‘Alam II (detail), blinded but on reconstructed Peacock Throne, by Khair Ullah Musawir, 1801. Courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.77.78). www.LACMA.org

  Shahjahanabad, last Mughal domain, c. 185722

  But many Britons and Indians also recognized how much the Mughal dynasty had decayed. The Company’s resident political agent openly held the power to scrutinize imperial orders and policies, manage the ‘assigned territories’ and control the emperor’s movements. In 1819, the nominal Wazir of the Mughal Emperor and imperial governor of Awadh (with British encouragement) declared himself independent ‘Emperor of the World.’25 Other regional rulers who presented nazr to visiting imperial princes also privately regarded these as ‘begging expeditions.’26 For many British tourists, visiting the Emperor was an exotic thrill, but one which highlighted his tawdry decadence in contrast to ‘modern’ British government, still dynamically expanding its rule.

  When Akbar II died, the British enthroned his eldest surviving son, Bahadur Shah II (r. 1837–58), who was already 62 and largely reconciled to remaining aloof from active politics. By the 1850s, British policymakers determined that he would be the last Emperor. They planned to recognize his heir only as a princely pensioner and force the dynasty to vacate Shahjahanabad for a rural retreat. At age 82, however, events beyond Bahadur Shah’s control thrust him into the center of a massive uprising against British rule.