Decline and the last Mughal (1707-1857)

Part oneNobles and new states

Aurangzeb's sons fought for the throne, and the winner, Bahadur Shah, was already in his sixties. After him, emperors came and went quickly, and real power passed to great nobles who set up and pulled down rulers. In twelve years after 1707 there were seven emperors.

The provinces drifted away. In 1724 the vizier Nizam al-Mulk left Delhi for the Deccan and set up his own state at Hyderabad, which his descendants, the Nizams, ruled until 1948. Bengal and Awadh became independent in all but name. In the Punjab the Sikhs fought the Mughal governors. The Marathas pushed north, and by 1737 their horsemen reached the outskirts of Delhi.

Part twoNader Shah in Delhi

In 1739 Nader Shah, the ruler of Iran, crossed the Khyber Pass. At Karnal, north of Delhi, his smaller army beat the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah. Nader entered Delhi, and when some townspeople attacked his soldiers he ordered a massacre in which many thousands died. He took away the treasury of the Mughals, including the Peacock Throne, and the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond. Everyone could now see how weak the empire had become.

Afghan armies under Ahmad Shah Durrani raided again and again. In 1761, at a third battle of Panipat, Durrani defeated the Marathas in one of the largest battles of the century. Neither side could hold the north afterwards, and the space was filled by others.

Part threeThe Company

The British East India Company had come to India as traders in the 1600s. In 1757 at Plassey it defeated the Nawab of Bengal, and soon it was collecting the taxes of the richest province in India. It took over the rest piece by piece, by war and by treaty, playing Indian rulers against each other.

One ruler fought it hard. Tipu Sultan of Mysore, in the south, built a modern army and used iron-cased rockets that alarmed the British. He traded directly with other countries, built roads, dams and workshops, and sent envoys to the Ottoman sultan and to France to seek allies. In 1799 the British and their allies stormed his capital, Seringapatam, and he died fighting at its walls.

By the early nineteenth century the Mughal emperor lived in the Red Fort on a British pension. His name still carried respect, and coins were struck in it, but his rule hardly reached beyond the palace walls.

Part four1857 and the last emperor

In 1857 Indian soldiers of the Company's army rose in revolt. The spark was a new rifle cartridge said to be greased with cow and pig fat, which offended Hindu and Muslim soldiers alike, but the anger had deeper roots in years of British annexations and fear of forced change. On 10 May soldiers at Meerut killed their officers and rode to Delhi. There they called on the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, an old man of eighty-two and a fine Urdu poet, to lead them. He agreed, and for a few months he held court again.

The British besieged Delhi and stormed it in September 1857. Bahadur Shah was captured at the tomb of his ancestor Humayun. His sons were shot. He was tried and exiled to Rangoon in Burma, where he died in 1862, and the Mughal dynasty, which had ruled since Babur won at Panipat in 1526, came to an end. In 1858 the British Crown took over India directly from the Company.

In one of his poems the old emperor grieved that he had not been given even two yards of earth in the land he loved for his grave.

The last Mughal, a poet in his eighties, died in exile far from the city of his fathers.

WatchThe lecture for this chapter

Lecture Al MuqaddimahThe Decline of the Mughal Empire (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Delhi
• Karnal
• Panipat
• Hyderabad
• Murshidabad
• Plassey
• Lucknow
• Seringapatam
• Meerut
• Rangoon

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter