Introduction

• Babur laid the foundations of the Mughal Empire in India in 1526 CE which consolidated itself during the reign of Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and reached its pinnacle of glory under Aurangzeb.
• The Mughal Empire ruled over a large part of India for nearly 300 years, but a drastic decline in its power and prestige came about by the first half of the 18th century.
• Not only did the political boundaries of the empire shrink, the decline also witnessed the collapse of the administrative structure. Due to the collapse of the Mughal power, a number of independent principalities emerged in all parts of the empire.
• The death of Aurangzeb in 1707 CE was the signal for the disintegration of the Mughal Empire. Certainly, the Mughal emperors ruled till 1857 CE, but only in name. Aurangzeb’s successors, called the Later Mughals, lost control over the empire and independent kingdoms emerged in all parts of the empire.
• Most of the Later Mughal emperors were merely puppets in the hands to their powerful nobles or pensioners of the Marathas and, later on, of the British. The last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah II, was deposed by the British after the revolt of 1857 CE and deported to Rangoon where he died as a prisoner. Several factors contributed to the downfall and extinction of the Mughal Empire.
• Historians have given several explanations for the rapid collapse of the Mughal Empire. It has also been a subject on which scholarly opinion is more sharply divided than on any other aspect of the history of the Mughals.
• The historiographical perspective on the Mughal decline can be divided into two broad sections.
  • First, the Empire-Based Approach, i.e., historians attempt to identify the causes of the decline within the structure and functioning of the empire itself.
  • Secondly, the Region-Centric approach where the perspective goes out of the confines of the empire into the regions to look for the causes of turmoil or instability in different parts of the empire.

Causes of the Decline of Mughal Empire

• The twilight of the Mughal rule set in 1707 CE after the death of Aurangzeb and the decline and disintegration of the Mughal Empire saw its logical end in 1761 CE and the empire continued only in name till 1857 CE.
• Several political, social, economic and institutional factors were responsible for the decline of the Mughal Empire.

War of Succession

• Wars of succession are noticeable phenomena in the history of the ancient and medieval world. The Mughals did not believe in the law of primogeniture, where the eldest son inherited the father’s estate. Instead, they followed the Mughal and Timurid tradition of coparcenary inheritance in which each son had an equal share in the property of his father.
• It usually meant a war of succession among the sons of the dying emperor in which the military leaders of the time took sides. Erskine commented, ‘The sword was the grand arbiter of right and, every son was prepared to try his fortune against his brothers‘.
• The fratricidal conflict among the four sons of Shahjahan is well-known. War of succession subsequent to the death of Aurangzeb were caused by the uncertainty of the law of succession. However, such a system also had advantages.
• It provided the country with the ablest son of the dying Emperor as the ruler. But the new principle that emerged in the later Mughal period was ‘the survival of the weakest instead of ‘survival of the fittest’.
• The Mughal princes became inactive while the leaders of rival factions fought wars using the royal princes as nominal leaders Authoritative nobles acted as kingmakers.
• The wars of succession thus seriously undermined the stability of the Mughal Empire, divided the country, disorganized the government, and caused untold misery and sufferings to the people.