In this blog, we will read about the crisis of the Mughal Empire. The Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent in the time of Aurangzeb but it collapsed after his death.

The Crisis Of The Mughal Empire

The major cause of the decline was the lack of worthy and competent successors to Aurangzeb. The successive rulers after Aurangzeb were weak and lacked character, motivation, and commitment to rule the empire strongly.

The absence of any definite law of succession was another important factor. The war of secession with his brother Dara Shikoh not only led to bitterness, bloodshed, and loss of money and prestige of the empire over a period of time, but to its eventual downfall.

During the time of Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire had reached its maximum size. This vast area had become impossible for one ruler to control and govern from one center. It was during the later Mughals that Deccan, Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa declared their independence.

In some of these areas, the nobles appointed as governors (suborders) had become very powerful and came to control the revenue and military administration (Diwani and fuajdari).

This gave them immense political, economic, and military powers over vast regions of the Mughal Empire. As the governors consolidated their hold over the provinces, the periodic remission of revenue to the capital declined.

The raids by Nadir Shah and repeated invasions of Ahmad Shah Abdali resulted in further weakening of the empire. Nadir Shah's invasion broke the Mughal Empire.

For a long time, the later Mughal emperors were puppets in the hands of either one or the other of these two powerful groups. The worst possible humiliation came when two Mughal emperors,

Farrukh Siyar (1713-1719) and Alamgir II (1754-1759) were assassinated, and two others Ahmad Shah (1748-1754) and Shah Alam II (1759-1816) were blinded by their nobles.

What were the crises of the Mughal empire and the later Mughals?

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