what were the causes of fall of Mughal Empire
Answers
Answer:
Political Cause
1. In reality, the existing means of communication and the economic and political structure of the country made it difficult to establish a stable centralized administration over all parts of the country.
Aurangzeb’s objective of unifying the entire country under one central political authority was, though justifiable in theory, not easy in practice.
2. Aurangzeb’s futile but arduous campaign against the Marathas extended over many years; it drained the resources of his Empire and ruined the trade and industry of the Deccan.
3. Aurangzeb’s absence from the north for over 25 years and his failure to subdue the Maratha's led to deterioration in administration; this undermined the prestige of the Empire and its army.
4. The strength of Aurangzeb’s administration was challenged at its very nerve center around Delhi by Satnam, the Jat, and the Sikh uprisings. All of them were to a considerable extent the result of the oppression of the Mughal revenue officials over the peasantry.
5. They showed that the peasantry was deeply dissatisfied with feudal oppression by Zamindars, nobles, and the state.
Religious Cause
1. Aurangzeb's religious orthodoxy and his policy towards the Hindu rulers seriously damaged the stability of the Mughal Empire.
2. The Mughal state in the days of Akbar, Jahangir, and Shahjahan was basically a secular state. Its stability was essentially founded on the policy of noninterference with the religious beliefs and customs of the people, fostering of friendly relations between Hindus and Muslims.
3. Aurangzeb made an attempt to reverse the secular policy by imposing the jizyah (tax imposed on non-Muslim people), destroying many of the Hindu temples in the north, and putting certain restrictions on the Hindus.
4. The jizyah was abolished within a few years of Aurangzeb’s death. Amicable relations with the Rajput and other Hindu nobles and chiefs were soon restored.
5. Both the Hindu and the Muslim nobles, zamindars, and chiefs ruthlessly oppressed and exploited the common people irrespective of their religion.
Foreign Invasion
1. A series of foreign invasions affected Mughal Empire very badly. Attacks by Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali, which were themselves the consequences of the weakness of the Empire, drained the Empire of its wealth, ruined its trade and industry in the North, and almost destroyed its military power.
2. The emergence of the British challenge took away the last hope of the revival of the crisis-ridden Empire.
Answer:
After ruling successfully for 3 centuries, during the last decade of the 17th century- the Mughal Empire started going towards its decline phase. And by the beginning of the 18th century,the empire almost lost its base at the central level and regional level as well as not only the political boundaries of the empire shrink but the decline also saw the collapse of the administrative structure terribly.
However, the process of decline and the emergence of the regional politics have been intensily debated among historians. It has also been a subject on which scholarly opinions is more sharply divided then any other aspects of the Mughal history. The first set of historians who precisely worked on the Mughal history from 1960–80s for instance, William Irvine and Jadunath Sarkar gave the argument that Aurangzeb's religious policy and weak characters of tge Mughal emperor were the main reasons behind the decline of the Mughal Empire.
Explanation:
Broadly there are four and five reasons for the decline of Mughal Empire:-
1)Crisis in Jagirdari System
According to Satish Chandra, M Athur Ali and Nurul Hasan the decline of empire due to growing number of jagirdars and over the periods the way the became so powerful and caused the crisis in Jagirdari System.
Due to Jagirdari System, the income of the state got reduce. Similarly, jagirdars were only interested in collection of their revenue from Jagirs but they didn't took any interest to improve the production. Infact they became burden on peasantry class as peasants were forced to pay more taxes to fullfill their increasing demands. The growing number of noble class and Aurangzeb's Deccan policies made the situation more complex and critical as nobles started fighting to get good jagirs in South India and that's how the jagirdari system played a very crucial role in tge decline of the Mughal Empire.
2)Weak Successors of Aurangzeb
Though the period of Aurangzeb was full of challenges because of the economical crisis which was the Mughal Empire going through but still the emperor try to xut down the many expenses of the administration and army expenditure as well to develop a balance but unfortunately after him none of the successor could face the challenges.
3)Degeneration of Mughal Army
It also played a great path in the collapse of the Mughal Empire as the organisation and composition of the Mughal army was weak and defective. Main reason of this was the army men who're from different unity and clans like Turks, Afghans,Rajputs,etc
So because of the different background they could never unite and try to put down each other's community. Similarly since they were recruited by the Mansabdars to prove their loyalty towards the state. So the army always walked as a divided army and during the phase of weak successors they favoured Mansabdars against the central.
4)Failure of Aurangzeb's Deccan Policy
Aurangzeb was very keen to expand the territory of Mughal Empire precisely towards the South regressively the initiative campaigning in various parts of South India. Unfortunately, the empire gained nothing from these military campaigning but lost a good amount of wealth from the central treasure as well as over the decades it became difficult for the empire to bear the expenses of big standing army.
5)Rise of Regional powers precisely the rise of Marathas
In the 16tg century, many regional powers started emerging in the Deccan but the most important and powerful Kingdom was Marathas. According to Irfan Habib, basically the Marathas and the Deccan began emerging since there early 17th century under Bijapur,Ahmadnagar, and Golkunda state. Many people of these groups has already been served to Golkunda and Bijapur State but since the Mughal Empire started getting weak by the mid of 17th century, the Marathas took the advantage of this and try to establish their own new Kingdom and precisely under the leadership of Shivaji tge Maratha power emerged very powerfully and became real threat to the Mughal Empire.
Infact because of their regular challenges to the Mughal emperor and their failures to responding ultimately caused as the main factor for the decline of the Mughal Empire.