Mughal Empire: Successor states: Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad

Why new states rose after 1707

A successor state is a kingdom that grows out of a bigger empire as it weakens. India’s 18th century saw many of them. NCERT dates this phase roughly from 1707, when Aurangzeb died, to the third battle of Panipat in 1761.

The causes were linked. Aurangzeb’s long Deccan war had drained money and men. Later emperors could not control powerful mansabdars. Governors (subadars) began to hold the revenue office (diwani) and the military office (faujdari) as well, which gave one man political, financial and military power over a whole region. Less revenue reached Delhi. Peasant and zamindar revolts spread. Then Nadir Shah of Iran sacked Delhi in 1739, and the Afghan Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded north India five times between 1748 and 1761. Picture a head office that keeps its name on the door while branch managers stop sending money and start hiring their own guards.

What UPSC asks

Prelims: founders and dates. Mains: was the 18th century a dark age or a time of regional growth? Next likely: the Jats and Rohillas.

Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad

All three founders had been high Mughal nobles. Asaf Jah and Murshid Quli Khan each held a zat rank of 7,000, and Saadat Khan’s was 6,000. They took titles from the emperor, and Murshid Quli Khan kept sending revenue to Delhi, but they made their own decisions. In Hyderabad, NCERT notes, the emperor merely confirmed what the Nizam had already decided.

The official key says only statement 2 is correct: the Mysore kingdom grew out of the Vijayanagara Empire.

What UPSC asks

Prelims: which state came out of which empire (2021). Mains: features of the regional states. Next likely: Plassey and Buxar.

What the three states had in common

NCERT points to three shared features. First, though founded by Mughal nobles, they distrusted the jagirdari system they had inherited. Second, they collected tax through revenue farmers instead of salaried officers. This practice, ijaradari, meant selling the right to collect tax to the highest bidder, who paid the state a fixed sum and then collected what he could. The Mughals had disapproved of it, but it spread across India in the 18th century. Third, they leaned on rich bankers and merchants. Bankers guaranteed the revenue farmers’ payments and lent money to the state, which gave groups like moneylenders a new say in government.

In Bengal, revenue was collected strictly in cash. Many zamindars had to borrow from bankers, and those who could not pay sold their lands to bigger zamindars. So regional state-building also reshuffled who held land. These banker links later helped the English East India Company, which used Bengal’s bankers and divided court in 1757 at Plassey.

What UPSC asks

Prelims: ijaradari, Jagat Seth. Mains: how regional states differed from Mughal administration. Next likely: the rise of the Company in Bengal.