The death of Aurangzeb on the 3rd March, 1707, was the signal for the disintegration of the mighty Mughul Empire. No sooner had he breathed his last than his three sons entered into bitter quarrels for the possession of the throne of Delhi. Of the three brothers, Muazzam was then governor of Kabul, Azam of Gujarat, and the youngest, Muhammand Kam Bakhsh, of Bijapur. Kam Bakhsh, could not leave the Deccan. But the eldest, Muazzam hurried towards Agra from Kabul; and Azam also marched towards the same city. Muazzam proposed to Azam a partition of the Empire on the lines laid down by their deceased father, but the latter did not accept these suggestions and resolved to fight for his right to the throne. Nothing but the sword could now decide the issue, and the two brothers soon resorted to it. They met near Agra, in June 1707, and Azam lost the day as well as his life. After a brief expedition to Rajputana, Muazzam marched to the Deccan, and Kam Bakhsh, being defeated near Hyderabad, died of wounds early in 1708.
Muazzam ascended the throne under the title of Bahadur Shah (also known as Shah Alam-I). Though a man of mild and equitable temper, learned, dignified and generous to a fault, he was too old to prevent the decline of the Empire. His death on the 27th February, 1712 was followed by a fresh war of succession among his four sons, Jahandar Shah , Azim-us-Shan, Jahan Shah and Rafius Shan. The last three were killed in course of the war, and Jahandar Shah secured the throne. In the brief reign of Jahandar violence had full sway. It was a fine time for ministers and singers and all the tribes of dancers and actors. He was not, however, destined to enjoy power for a long time, but was deposed and strangled in the fort of Delhi under the order of ‘Azim-us-Shan’s son, Farrukhsiyar, who proclaimed himself Emperor in A.D. 1713.
Farrukhsiyar was feeble, cowardly and contemptible and strong neither for evil nor for good, and his attempt to assert his own power made his reign throughout an agitated and perplexing one, ending in another Imperial tragedy. Some of his friends, chiefly, acted ungratefully, from the beginning of his reign. Their resentment was so great that they deposed and blinded the Emperor and executed him in an ignominious manner. Rohsan Akhtar, son of Jahan Shan (the fourth son of Bahadur Shah), ascended the throne as Muhammad Shah. Province after province—the Deccan, Oudh and Bengal—slipped out of imperial control; the Marathas established their power far and wide; the Jats became independent near Agra; the Ruhela Afghans founded the State of Rohilkhand in the North Gangetic plain; the Sikhs became active in the Punjab; and the invasion of Nadir Shah dealt a staggering blow to the Delhi Empire. Thus within about three decades of Aurangzeb’s death, the vast Empire of the Mughuls ceased to exist as an all India political unit and was split up into numerous independent or semi-independent states.
The next Emperor, Ahmad Shah, son of Muhammad Shah , was unable to cope successfully with the disintegrating forces that had grown so alarming on all sides. The Empire rapidly shrank in extent, being reduced only to a small district round Delhi. The Emperor was deposed and blinded in 1754. Now on the throne has Aziauddin (son of Jahandar Shah), who adopted the same title as the great Aurangzeb, and called himself Alamgir-II. But the new ruler found himself as much a prisoner upon the throne as he was formerly in his confinement. His attempt to free himself from the control of the all-powerful wazir only resulted in his ruin, as he was put to death by the latter’s orders. The malignant hostility of this ambitious and unscrupulous wazir compelled Shah Alam-II, the son and successor of Alamgir-II, to move as a wanderer from place to place. Passing through many vicissitudes of fortune, this unlucky sovereign had to throw himself ultimately on the protection of the English and live as their pensioner till his death in A.D. 1806. Shah Alam- II’s son, Akbar-II, lived in Delhi with the title of Emperor till 1837. The Imperial dynasty became extinct with Bahadur Shah II, who was deported to Rangoon by the English on suspicion of assisting the Sepoy mutineers. He died there in A.D. 1862.
Nadir Shah
Nadir commenced his march towards India in A.D. 1738. The alleged violation of promises by Muhammad Shah, and the ill-treatment of his envoys by the Delhi court, served as the cause for this invasion. As the Mughuls had sadly neglected the defences of the north-west frontier, Nadir easily captured Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore in AD. 1739. The whole province of the Punjab was thrown into great confusion and disorder, while the pleasure loving Emperor and the carpet-knights of his court, whose conduct during Nadir’s invasion forms a tale of disgraceful inefficiency amounting to imbecility, did nothing to oppose him. They could think of shaking off their lethargy only when the Persian army had arrived within a few miles of Delhi. The imperial troops then marched to check the advance of the Persians and encamped at Karnal, twenty miles north of Panipat; but they were routed. The vanquished Emperor of Delhi, almost at the mercy of Nadir as his captive, hurried to sue for peace.
The victorious Nadir and the humiliated Emperor of Delhi together entered Delhi, where the former occupied Shah Jahan’s palace chambers by the Diwan-i-Khas. At first there was no disorder in the imperial city, but a rumour of Nadir’s death, spread by some mischievous persons, gave rise to a tumult in which some Persian soldiers were slain. Nadir at first merely took steps to quell the disturbance, but the sight of his murdered soldiers infuriated him and, burning with feelings of revenge, he ordered a general massacre of the citizens of the doomed city of Delhi. A contemporary account tells us that the slaughter lasted from eight in the morning till three in the afternoon. Within the doomed areas, the houses were looted, all the men killed without regard for age, and all the women dragged into slavery. The destroyers set fire to many houses, and several of their victim, both dead and wounded, Hindus and Muslims were indiscriminately burnt together. The survivors, blockaded within the city, were reduced to extreme misery. Besides plundering the market places, Nadir caused the granaries to be sealed up, placed guards over them and sent detachments to plunder the villages. The Persian soldiers deliberately tortured the principal citizens for money, and three crores of rupees were realised by force from the helpless and starving inhabitants of the wretched city, which presented for eight weeks a dreadful scene of arson and carnage. At the earnest appeal of Muhammad Shah , Nadir at last called off his soldiers, but peace was not restored till the invader left the city for his own country. Muhammad Shah retained the throne, but he had to sustain irreparable losses. The ruthless conqueror carried away all his crown jewels, including the famous Kohinur diamond, the costly Peacock Throne of Shah Jahan, and the celebrated illustrated Persian manuscript on Hindu music written under the command of the Emperor Muhammad Shah . According to the estimate of Nadir’s own secretary, he exacted at Delhi fifteen crores of rupees in cash, and a vast amount in jewels, apparel, furniture and other valuable articles from the imperial store-house. He also took away with him 300 elephants, 10,000 horses, and the same number of camels. Thus the Persian invasion entailed a heavy economic drain on the resources of the decadent Delhi Empire.
Ahmad Shah Abdali
After the assassination of Nadir in 1747, one of his officers named Ahmad Shah , an Afghan chief of the Abdali clan, rose to power and succeeded in establishing himself as the independent ruler of Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah Abdali, while accompanying Nadir to India, had seen with his own eyes the weakness of the Empire, the imbecility of the Emperor, the inattentiveness of the ministers. So after establishing his power at home he led several expeditions into India from A.D. 1748 till A.D. 1767. These were something more than mere predatory raids. They indicated the revival of the Afghans, outside and within India, making a fresh bid for supremacy on the ruins of the Mughul Empire.
After having conquered Qandahar, Kabul and Peshawar, Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded India for the first time, in January 1748, with 12,000 troops. But he was defeated at the battle of Manpur. Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded the Punjab for the second time in A.D. 1750 and conquered it after defeating him.
The Abdali invaded India for the third time in December, 1751, and forced the Mughul Emperor, Ahmad Shah, to cede to him the country as far east as Sirhind. Thus the Mughul Empire was further weakened. Abdali led another expedition in the time of Emperor Alamgir-II (1754-1759). Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded India for the fourth time in November, 1756, with greater determination, and arrived before Delhi on the 23rd January, 1757. Abdali retired from India in April, 1757, with immense booty and many captives.
Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded India for the fifth time in October, 1759, and finally conquered the Punjab. A more severe collision of the Afghans with the Marathas was inevitable, because both had been, more or less, contending for political supremacy in Hindustan. This took place on the field of Panipat on the 14th January, A.D. 1761. Ahmad Shah Abdali departed from India towards the close of A.D. 1762. He ordered the Indian chiefs to recognise Shah Alam-II as Emperor. Najibuddaula and Muniruddaula agreed to pay to the Abdali, in behalf of the Indian Government, an annual tribute of forty lacs.
The Sikhs, who had revived by this time, occupied the Lahore city. This brought back the Abdali to Lahore in March, 1764. He had, however, to return to his own country, after a fortnight’s stay at Lahore, owing to the outbreak of a civil war there and a mutiny among his troops. Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded India again in 1767. He could not succeed in effectively thwarting the Sikhs and had to retreat soon. No sooner had he turned back than the Sikhs reoccupied Lahore and the entire open country. Ahmad Shah Abdali retained hold of Peshawar and the country west of Attock, while he abandoned the Manjha districts and central Punjab including Lahore to the Sikhs; but the western Punjab remained a debatable land which finally came into their possession in the days of his unworthy successors.
Though Ahmad Shah Abdali had to return hurriedly from India, his invasion affected the history of this country in several ways. Firstly, it accelerated the dismemberment of the tottering Mughul Empire. Secondly, it offered a serious check to the rapidly spreading Maratha imperialism. Thirdly, it indirectly helped the rise of the Sikh power.
On the decline of the central authority at Delhi, the inevitable centrifugal tendency was manifest in different parts of the Empire, and the provincial viceroys made themselves independent of the titular Delhi Emperor for all practical purposes, merely pretending to own a theoretical allegiance to his nominal authority.
political revival of the hindus
One prominent factor in the history of India during the eighteenth century was the revival of the Hindus. It was not, however, characterised by any spirit of an all-India national, religious or cultural renaissance, but by isolated attempts on the part of the different Hindu or semi-Hindu powers, such as the Rajputs, the Sikhs, the Jats and the Marathas, to establish their respective political supremacy on the ruins of the Mughul Empire.
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