Map 1 Retry    Reason
State formations in the eighteenth century. Retry    Reason

If you look at Maps 1 and 2 closely, you will see something significant happening in the subcontinent during the first half of the eighteenth century. Notice how the boundaries of the Mughal Empire were reshaped by the emergence of a number of independent Retry    Reason

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kingdoms. By 1765, notice how another power, the British, had successfully grabbed major chunks of territory in eastern India. What these maps tell us is that political conditions in eighteenth-century India changed quite dramatically and within a relatively short span of time. Retry    Reason

In this chapter, we will read about the emergence of new political groups in the subcontinent during the first half of the eighteenth century roughly from 1707, when Aurangzeb died, till the third battle of Panipat in 1761. Retry    Reason

Map 2 Retry    Reason
British territories in the mid-eighteenth Retry    Reason

In Chapter 4, you saw how the Mughal Empire reached the height of its success and started facing a variety of crises towards the closing years of the seventeenth century. These were caused by a number of factors. Emperor Aurangzeb had depleted the military and financial resources of his empire by fighting a long war in the Deccan. Retry    Reason

Under his successors, the efficiency of the imperial administration broke down. It became increasingly difficult for the later Mughal emperors to keep a check on their powerful mansabdars. Nobles appointed as governors (subadars) often controlled the offices Retry    Reason
of revenue and military administration (diwani and faujdari) as well. This gave them extraordinary political, economic and military powers over vast regions of the Mughal Empire. As the governors consolidated their control over the provinces, the periodic remission of revenue to the capital declined. Retry    Reason

Peasant and zamindari rebellions in many parts of northern and western India added to these problems. These revolts were sometimes caused by the pressures of mounting taxes. At other times they were attempts by powerful chieftains to consolidate their own positions. Mughal authority had been challenged by rebellious groups in the past as well. But these groups were now able to seize the economic resources of the region to consolidate their positions. The Mughal emperors after Aurangzeb were unable to arrest the gradual shifting of political and economic authority into the hands of provincial governors, local chieftains and other groups. Retry    Reason

The following is a contemporary writer’s account of the financial bankruptcy of the empire: Retry    Reason
The great lords are helpless and impoverished. Their peasants raise two crops a year, 6ut their Гords see nothing of either, and their agents on the spot are virtual prisoners in the peasants’ hands, like a peasant kept in his creditor’s house until he can pay fis debt. So complete is the collapse of all order and administration that though the peasant reaps a harvest of gold, his lord does not see so much as a wisp of straw. How then can the lord keep the armed force he should? How can he pay the soldiers who should go before him when he goes out, or the horsemen who should ride behind him? Retry    Reason