Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • 9 - Changing Socio-Economic Formations, 1650–1750

  • Catherine B. Asher, University of Minnesota, Cynthia Talbot, University of Texas, Austin
  • Book:
    India before Europe
    Published online:
    15 September 2022
    Print publication:
    08 September 2022, pp 330-365

  • Summary

    Chapter nine commences with the increasing demand for textiles, especially cottons, as Europeans established several trading enclaves including in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, all of which became important to the EIC. We turn next to newly ascendant groups who increasingly contested Mughal control of north India, especially to the Sikhs, a multiethnic religious community with strong martial orientations. Next we explore differences in various regions’ economic experiences as the empire weakened. While the imperial heartland’s economy was hit hard, other regions witnessed greater prosperity. The final section deals with Bengal where developments had significance for the subcontinent’s subsequent history, for it was there that the English first obtained an extensive foothold within the internal affairs of the erstwhile empire.

  • 12 - Imperial decline and collapse, 1707–1720

  • John F. Richards, Duke University, North Carolina
  • Book:
    The Mughal Empire
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    18 March 1993, pp 253-281

  • Summary

    Failure to assign fully productive jagirs strained the loyalties and reduced the effectiveness of members of the nobility and the corps of mansabda. These strains in the imperial fabric found expression in the most important political crises to occupy Bahadur Shah: disaffection of the Rajputs, growing militancy among the Sikhs and Jats in the north, and continuing Maratha insurgency in the south. The tenth Sikh Guru, Govind Singh, who had supported Bahadur Shah in the war of succession, joined the royal entourage as the emperor marched to confront Kam Bakhsh in the Deccan. By mid-1718 the enmity between emperor and minister, barely concealed beneath rigid Mughal norms of court civility and decorum, erupted as the balance of power began tilting toward the Sayyids. For over a decade, instability and weakness caused by the bitter conflicts over the throne wrenched at imperial authority and efficiency.