Rise of Regional Polities and States

The states that arose in India during the phase of Mughal decline and the following century (roughly 1700 to 1850) varied greatly in terms of resources, longevity, and essential character. Some of them, such as Hyderabad in the south, was located in an area that had harboured regional state in the immediate pre-Mughal period and thus had an older local or regional tradition of state formation.

Others were states that had a more original character and derived from very specific processes that had taken place in the course of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In particular, many of the post-Mughal states were based on ethnic or sectarian groupings - the Marathas, the Jats, and the Sikhs.

In due course, the enrichment of the regions emboldened local land and power-holders to take up arms against external authority. However, mutual rivalry and conflicts prevented these rebels from consolidating their interests into an effective challenge to the empire. They relied on support from kinsfolk, peasants, and smaller zamindars of their own castes. Each local group wanted to maximize its share of the prosperity at the expense of the others.

The necessity of emphasizing imperial symbols was inherent in the kind of power politics that emerged. Each of the contenders in the regions, in proportion to his strength, looked for and seized opportunities to establish his dominance over the others in the neighbourhood. They all needed a kind of legitimacy, which was so conveniently available in the long-accepted authority of the Mughal emperor. They had no fear in collectively accepting the symbolic hegemony of the Mughal centre, which had come to co-exist with their ambitions.

The gradual weakening of the central authority set in motion new types of provincial kingdoms. Nobles with ability and strength sought to build a regional base for themselves. The wazir Chin Qilich Khan himself, showed the path. Having failed to reform the administration, he relinquished his office in 1723 and in October 1724 marched south to establish the state of Hyderabad in the Deccan.

The Mughal court’s chief concern at this stage was to ensure the flow of the necessary revenue from the provinces and the maintenance of at least the semblance of imperial unity. Seizing upon the disintegration of the empire, the Marathas now began their northward expansion and overran Malwa, Gujarat, and Bundelkhand. Then, in 1738-39, Nadir Shah, who had established himself as the ruler of Iran, invaded India.