The Mughal Empire rule much of the India in 16th and 17th centuries. Mughal rules developed a stable, centrlized form of government that served as a model for later indian rules.
Akbar,
the grandson of Babur, was the greatest sovereign of the
Mughal Empire. During his reign, which extended from 1556 to 1605, he
subdued rebellious princes in various regions, including Punjab,
Rajputana (modern Rajasthan), and Gujarat. He added Bengal to his
realm in 1576, conquered Kashmėr between 1586 and 1592, and annexed
Sind in 1592. Between 1598 and 1601 he subjugated a number of the Muslim kingdoms
of the Deccan. In the administration of his vast dominions, Akbar revealed
remarkable organizational ability. He secured the allegiance of hundreds of
feudatory rulers, promoted trade, introduced an equable system of taxation,
and encouraged religious tolerance. The Mughal Empire attained its peak of
cultural splendor under the rule of Shah Jahan, grandson of Akbar. His reign
(1628-1658) coincided with the golden age of Indian Saracenic architecture,
best exemplified by the Taj Mahal.
Shah Jahan was driven from the throne in 1658 by his son Aurangzeb, who took the title of Alamgir ("Conqueror of the World"). Treacherous and aggressive, Aurangzeb murdered his three brothers and waged a series of wars against the autonomous kingdoms of India, sapping the moral and material strength of the empire. During his campaigns in the Deccan, the Marathas, a Scytho-Dravidian people, inflicted numerous defeats on the imperial armies. The stability of the regime of Aurangzeb was further undermined as a result of popular antagonism to the religious bigotry he fostered. In the course of his reign, which ended in 1707 with his death in exile, the Sikhist faith obtained a strong foothold in India.
In the half-century following the death of Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire ceased to exist as an effective state. The political chaos of the period was marked by a rapid decline of centralized authority, by the creation of numerous petty kingdoms and principalities by Muslim and Hindu adventurers, and by the formation of large independent states by the governors of the imperial provinces. Among the first of the large independent states to emerge was Hyderabad, established in 1712. The tottering Mughal regime suffered a disastrous blow in 1739 when the Persian king Nadir Shah led an army into India and plundered Delhi. Among the loot seized by the invaders, the sixth Muslim force to overrun India, was the mammoth Koh-i-noor diamond and the fabulous Peacock Throne, of solid gold inlaid with precious stones. The Persian king soon withdrew from India, But in 1756 Delhi was again captured-this time by Ahmad Shah, emir of Afghanistan, who had previously seized Punjab. In 1760 the Marathas and the Sikhs joined forces against the armies of Ahmad Shah. The ensuing battle, fought at Panėpat on January 7, 1761, resulted in complete victory for the invaders. In 1764, following the withdrawal of the invaders from India, the Mughal emperor regained his throne. His authority, like that of his successors, was purely nominal, however. With the defeat of the Marathas and the Sikhs, the possibility of reunification of the Indian peoples into a strong national state had vanished. India, long the arena of bitter colonial rivalry among the maritime powers of Europe, thereafter fell increasingly under the domination of Great Britain.
PORTUGUESE AND DUTCH COLONIALISM
Because of Muslim control of the trade arteries between the Mediterranean and India, various European monarchs had begun to dream of a new route to the Far East long before Babur founded the Mughal Empire. The Portuguese devoted remarkable zeal and initiative to the search for such a route, and in 1497 and 1498 Vasco da Gama, one of the royal navigators, led an expedition around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean. On May 19, 1498, da Gama sailed into the harbor of Calicut, on the Malabar Coast, opening a new era of Indian history. Establishing friendly relations with the dominant kingdom of the Deccan, the Portuguese secured a monopoly of Indian maritime trade and maintained it for a century. The Portuguese monopoly was broken early in the 17th century by the Dutch East India Company, an amalgamation of private Dutch commercial firms brought together under the auspices of the Dutch government. During the initial period of Dutch activity in the Far East, the English entered the race for Far Eastern markets, functioning, like the Dutch, through a private firm known subsequently as the English East India Company. Company negotiations with the Mughal ruler, Emperor Jahangir, were successful, and in December 1612 the English founded their first trading post at Surat, on the Gulf of Khambhat. On November 29 a Portuguese fleet had attacked a number of English vessels in the Gulf of Khambhat and the English had triumphed in the ensuing battle. During the next decade the Portuguese were defeated in several additional naval engagements by the English, who thereafter encountered little opposition in India from that quarter. The Dutch, already entrenched in the Malay Archipelago, also endeavored to drive the English out of India, but were themselves eliminated as a serious competitive force before the end of the 17th century. Meanwhile the English steadily expanded their sphere of influence and operations. They secured a foothold in Orissa in 1633, founded the city of Madras in 1639, obtained trading privileges in Bengal in 1651, acquired Bombay from Portugal in 1661, arranged a commercial treaty with the Maratha ruler Shivaji Bhonsle in 1674, and established Calcutta in 1690. Native opposition to the last-named move, begun in 1686, was forcibly suppressed.
GROWING FRENCH AND BRITISH RIVALRY
During the first half of the 18th century the French, who had begun to operate in India about 1675, emerged as a serious threat to the growing power and prosperity of the English East India Company. The friction between France and Great Britain reached an acute stage in 1746, when a French fleet seized Madras. This action, a phase of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), and the subsequent fighting in India ended in a stalemate; in 1748 the French returned Madras to the British. Within three years the smoldering feud between the European rivals again flared into armed conflict. Robert Clive, an employee of the English East India Company, won distinction and victory in this phase of the struggle, essentially a fight for control of Hyderabad and the Carnatic. The final stage of the contest between the French and British for dominance in India developed as an extension of the Seven Years' War in Europe. In the course of the hostilities from 1756 to 1763, which involved large contingents of native partisans, the British won several decisive victories, effectively demolishing French plans for political control of the subcontinent. The most important event of the war was Clive's victory at Plassey, which made the British virtual masters of Bengal. By the terms of the general peace settlement following the Seven Years' War, French territory in India was reduced to a few trading posts.
