European arrival and Company expansion
India on the eve of conquest: later Mughals, successor states and Panipat
Practise 1 PYQConcepts to cover
- Causes of Mughal decline after 1707: succession, jagirdari crisis, Deccan wars, nobility factions, agrarian distress, regional revolts, invasions
- Bahadur Shah I, Jahandar Shah, Farrukhsiyar and the Sayyid brothers as kingmakers; 1719 settlement with Balaji Vishwanath; Muhammad Shah 'Rangila' (1719 to 1748)
- Shah Alam II: Buxar 1764, Allahabad 1765, Maratha protection, the empire reduced to Delhi and British control 1803
- Successor states carved by Mughal governors: Bengal (Murshid Quli Khan, Alivardi Khan), Awadh (Saadat Khan, Safdarjung), Hyderabad (Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah, 1724) and Arcot under Hyderabad
- Mysore under the Wodeyars then Haidar Ali, the Marathas, the Jats and Rohilkhand under Ali Muhammad Khan
- Rajput states (Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur, Jantar Mantar), Jats (Churaman, Suraj Mal of Bharatpur), Rohillas; Travancore under Martanda Varma (Colachel 1741); Ahom decline
- Sikhs after 1708: Banda Bahadur, Dal Khalsa, the misls, Ranjit Singh's rise at Lahore 1799 (the Gurus to 1708 are in AMC culture.religion-philosophy.bhakti-north-sikhism)
- Nadir Shah's invasion 1739 (Karnal, Peacock throne), Ahmad Shah Abdali's raids and the Third Battle of Panipat 1761
- Eighteenth-century society: caste councils, social divisions among Muslims, women and slavery