Jaipur and Other Rajputana States

Jaipur (earlier Amber) in eastern Rajasthan, was a Rajput principality controlled by the Kachwaha clan. In the early eighteenth century, the ruler Jai Singh Sawai took steps to increase his power manifold.

This was done by: (i) arranging to have his jagir assignment in the vicinity of his home territories and (ii) by taking on rights on land revenue through farming (for collection of land tax rights on a parcel of land that are rented by the state to an individual), which was gradually made permanent.

By the time of his death in 1743, Jai Singh (after whom Jaipur came to be named) had emerged as the single most important ruler in the region. Most of the larger Rajput states were constantly involved in petty quarrels and civil wars.

Ajit Singh of Marwar was killed by his own son. In the 1750s Suraj Mal the Jat ruler of Bharatpur, like Jai Singh, adopted a modified form of Mughal revenue administration in his territories. However, by this time, the fortunes of the Jaipur kingdom were seriously in question.

Under threat from the Marathas, recourse had to be taken to adopt short-term fiscal exactions. At the same time a series of crop failures in the 1750s and 60s adversely affected fragile agriculture. The second half of the eighteenth century was thus marked by an economic depression, accompanied by a decline in the political power of Jaipur. During this period Jaipur became a vulnerable target for the ambitions of the Marathas, and of Mahadaji Sindhia in particular.

The states, with the exception of Maratha, were all landlocked. This did not mean that trade was not an important element in their makeup, for the kingdom of Ranjit Singh was crucially linked to trade. However, lack of access to the sea greatly increased the vulnerability of a state, particularly in an era when the major power was the English East India Company, itself initially a maritime enterprise.