Jagirdari Crisis

The nobility comprised people who were either assigned large jagirs and mansabs or appointed subahdars of Mughal subas and given the responsibility of maintaining these. To this class belonged many Rajput rulers, subahdars and mansabdars. Mughal rule has often been defined as “the rule of the nobility”, because these nobles played a central role in administering the empire. Although Akbar had provided a well-knit organisation for them, there was divisiveness among the nobility on the basis of religion, homeland and tribe, and each category formed a group of its own. Mutual rivalry, jealousy and contest for power among the various groups during the rule of the later Mughals (in the absence of a strong central leadership) not only reduced the prestige of the emperor, but also contributed to the decline of the empire.

Views

The roots of the disintegration of the Mughal empire may be found in the Medieval Indian economy; the stagnation of trade, industry and scientific development within the limits of that economy; the growing financial crisis which took the form of a crisis of the jagirdari system and affected every branch of state activity; the inability of the nobility to realise in the circumstances their ambitions in the service of the state and consequently the struggle of factions and the bid of ambitious nobles for independent dominion; the inability of the Mughal emperors to accommodate the Marathas and to adjust their claims within the framework of the Mughal empire, and the consequent breakdown of the attempt to create a composite ruling class in India; and the impact of all these developments on politics at the court and in the country, and upon the security of the north-western passes. Individual failings and faults of character also played their due role but they have necessarily to be seen against the background of these deeper, more impersonal factors.

—Satish Chandra, Parties and Politics

at the Mughal Court, 1707-40

Various explanations are put forward for the revolts which brought about the collapse of the Mughal Empire... Here our main concern is with what our 17th and early 18th century authorities have to say. And it will be seen that they, at any rate, put the greatest store by the economic and administrative causes of the upheaval and know little of religious reaction or national consciousness... Thus was the Mughal Empire destroyed. No new order was, or could be, created by the forces ranged against it.

—Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of

Mughal India

The more I study the period, the more I am convinced that military inefficiency was the principal, if not the sole, cause of that empire’s final collapse. All other defects and weaknesses were as nothing in comparison with this...Long before it disappeared, it had lost all military energy at the centre, and was ready to crumble to pieces at the first touch. The rude hand of no Persian or Afghan conqueror, no Nadir, no Ahmad

Abdali, the genius of no European adventurer, a Dupleix or a Clive, was needed to precipitate it into the abyss. The empire of the Mughals was already doomed before any of these had appeared on the scene; and had they never been heard of there can be little doubt that some Mahratta bandit or Sikh freebooter would in due time have seated himself on the throne of Akbar and Shahjahan.

—William Irvine, Army of the Indian Mughals

A common impression is, that...the decline, fall of the Mughal Empire were due to the degeneracy of its sovereigns. But...it was irretrievably ruined in the reign of Aurangzeb, a monarch of great ability, energy and determination, but lacking in political insight, and a bigoted Mussulman. He struck the first mortal blow by reversing Akbar’s wise and generous policy of ignoring distinctions of race and religion, and reimposing the jizya or poll tax, on his Hindu subjects; whereby he estranged them, and turned the noblest and most warlike of them—the Rajputs, hitherto the staunchest supporters of the throne—into deadly and persistent enemies. And Shivaji and his followers not only vindicated their independence, but struck a second mortal blow at the integrity of the Empire. They destroyed its military reputation. They exhausted its accumulated treasure. They spread disorder and devastation over the Deccan and beyond it...They established an imperium in imperio. Thus the Empire, though not dissolved, was hopelessly debilitated. The effective authority of the central government was thenceforth in abeyance...Nadir Shah, after inflicting the extremity of humiliation on the Emperor and his capital, annexed the Imperial territory west of the Indus. The dissolution of the Empire was complete.

—Sidney Owen, The Fall of the Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire and with it the Maratha overlordship of Hindustan fell because of the rottenness at the core of Indian society. The rottenness showed itself in the form of military and political helplessness. The country could not defend itself; royalty was hopelessly depraved or imbecile; the nobles were selfish and short-sighted; corruption, inefficiency and treachery disgraced all branches of the public service. In the midst of this decay and confusion, our literature, art and even true religion had perished.

—J.N. Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, Vol. IV