HISTORY-(XII)-THEME-8 PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE (LESSON NOTES)

• HISTORY-(XII)-THEME-8

  PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE

  AGRARIAN SOCIETY AND THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

  (LESSON NOTES)

  
  

  v INTRODUCTION:

  Ø During 16^th -17^th century nearly 85% people lived in village and involved in the agricultural activity.

  Ø Here peasants and landowners both involved in production and they claim on their shares. These created relationships of cooperation, competition and conflict among them.

  Ø Mughal empire derived their bulk of income from agriculture production. So the agents of the state entered in this agrarian society as revenue assessors, collectors, record keepers to ensure that cultivation took place and the state got its regular revenue.

  
  
  

  Ø It also creates the link between village and towns as crops were grown for sale, trade, money and markets.

  Ø In this lesson we will try to know about agrarian society through different sources.

  v RURAL or COUNTRYSIDE AREAS

  Ø Rural areas were mostly inhabited by the peasants who performed the agricultural work such as tilling the soil, sowing seeds, weeding, harvesting etc. They also provide labour for agro-based goods as sugar, oil etc.

  Ø Some areas were not suitable for agriculture as dry regions and hilly areas.

  Ø Many parts of the rural areas are also covered with forest.

  Ø So we can say that there were varied topography in the rural areas.

  v SOURCES TO RECONSTRUCT THE AGRARIAN HISTORY

  Ø To know about the agrarian society, we have to depend upon the Chronicles and documents of the Mughal court as peasants did not write about themselves.

  Ø One of the most important chronicles was the Ain-i Akbari authored by Akbar’s court historian Abu’lFazl. This text provides the information as

  §  The arrangements made by the state to ensure cultivation.

  §  To enable the collection of revenue by the agencies of the state.

  §  T regulate the relationship between the state and rural magnates, the zamindars.

  Ø We also get information about rural society from the revenue records of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan dating from the 17th and 18thcenturies.

  Ø The extensive records of the East India Company also provide us the descriptions of agrarian relations in eastern India.

  Ø All these sources record instances of conflicts between peasants, zamindars and the state. They give us an insight into peasants’ perception of and their expectations of fairness from the state.

  v TERMS USED FOR PEASANTS

  Ø The term which Indo-Persian sources of the Mughal period most frequently used to denote a peasant was raiyat (riaya) or muzarian. In addition, we also encounter the terms kisan or asami.

  Ø There were two kinds of peasants – khud-kashta and pahi-kashta.

  §  The khud-kashta were residents of the village in which they held their lands.

  §  The pahi-kashta were non-resident cultivators who belonged to some other village, but cultivated lands elsewhere on a contractual basis. People became pahi-kashta either out of choice (Move due to high revenue) or out of compulsion (due to famine)

  v POSSESSIONS OF PEASANTS

  Ø Average peasant of north India possessed a pair of bulls and one plough. Others possessed two pairs of bulls and two ploughs; most possessed even less.

  Ø In Gujarat peasants possessing about six acres of land were considered to be affluent.

  Ø In Bengal, five acres was the upper limit of an average peasant farm.

  Ø Cultivation was based on the principle of individual ownership. Peasant’s land was bought and sold like other property.

  v CROPS AND IRRIGATION

  Ø There were three factors that contributed for the expansion of agriculture.

  §  Abundance of land,

  §  Available Labour

  §  Mobility of peasants.

  Ø The primary purpose of agriculture is to feed people, basic staples such as rice, wheat or millets were the most frequently cultivated crops.

  Ø Monsoons remained the backbone of Indian agriculture. But there were crops which required additional water. Artificial systems of irrigation had to be devised for this.

  Ø In northern India the state undertook digging of new canals and also repaired old ones like the shahnahr in the Punjab during Shah Jahan’s reign.

  Ø To dig out the water from well they started to use Persian wheel with the help of their bullocks.

  v TECHNOLOGY USED BY THE PEASANTS

  Ø Though agriculture was labour intensive, peasants did use technologies that often-harnessed cattle energy.

  Ø They used the wooden plough, which was light and easily assembled with an iron tip or coulter.

  
  
  

  Ø A drill, pulled by a pair of giant oxen, was used to plant seeds, but broadcasting of seed was the most prevalent method.

  Ø Hoeing and weeding were done simultaneously using a narrow iron blade with a small wooden handle.

  v AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

  Ø Agriculture was organised around two major seasonal cycles

  §  The kharif:- Grown in the June/ July

  §  The rabi :- Grown in October / November

  Ø Some areas where rainfall or irrigation assured a continuous supply of water, people grown three crops in a year.

  Ø There were also verities of crops grown the by the farmers. As Agra province produced 39 varieties of crops and Delhi produced 43 over the two seasons.

  Ø Bengal produced 50 varieties of rice alone.

  Ø However, the focus on the cultivation was basic staples such as rice, wheat, pulses and vegetables etc.

  Ø The Mughal state also encouraged peasants to cultivate cash crops (jins-i kamil literally, perfect crops) in such as cotton, oilseeds and sugarcane which brought more revenue.

  Ø During the seventeenth century several new crops also come to this subcontinents from different parts of the world:-

  §  Maize (makka) was introduced into India via Africa and Spain and by the 17^th century it was being listed as one of the major crops of western India.

  §  Vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes and chillies were introduced from the New World at this time.

  §  Many new fruits such like the pineapple and the papaya also grown.

  §  Tobacco also developed here by the Portuguese.

   

  v THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY

  Ø Agricultural production involved the intensive participation and initiative of the peasantry.

  Ø It was based on the principle of individual ownership. But they belonged to a collective village community.

  Ø There were three constituents of this community-the cultivators, the panchayat, and the village headman.

  v THE CULTIVATORS AND THEIR CASTE AND THE RURAL MILIEU

  Ø Despite the abundance of cultivable land, certain caste groups were assigned menial tasks and thus relegated to poverty.

  Ø There was a direct correlation between caste, poverty and social status at the lower strata of society.

  Ø Such groups comprised a large section of the village population, had the least resources and were constrained by their position in the caste hierarchy, much like the Dalits of modern India.

  Ø In Muslim communities menials like the halalkhoran, those who cut meat were housed outside the boundaries of the village; similarly the mallahzadas, boatmen in Bihar were comparable to slaves.

  Ø In Marwar, Rajputs are mentioned as peasants, sharing the same space with Jats, who were accorded a lower status in the caste hierarchy.

  Ø The Gauravas, who cultivated land in Uttar Pradesh sought Rajput status in the seventeenth century.

  Ø Castes such as the Ahirs, Gujars and Malisrose in the hierarchy because of the profitability of cattle rearing and horticulture.

  Ø In the eastern regions, intermediate pastoral and fishing castes like the Sadgops and Kaivartas acquired the status of peasants.

  v PANCHAYATS AND VILLAGE HEADMEN

  Ø The village panchayat was an assembly of elders.

  Ø In mixed-caste villages, the panchayat was usually a heterogeneous body. The panchayat represented various castes and communities in the village so it is called an oligarchy.

  Ø The panchayat was headed by a headman known as muqaddam or mandal .

  Ø Some sources suggest that the headman was chosen through the consensus of the village elders, and that this choice had to be ratified by the zamindar.

  Ø Headmen held office as long as they enjoyed the confidence of the village elders.

  Ø The panchayat derived its funds from contributions made by individuals to a common financial pool.

  Ø FUNCTIONS OF PANCHAYAT

  §  The village headman supervised the preparation of village accounts, assisted by the accountant or patwari of the panchayat.

  §  The panchayat had to undertake welfare measures for the village people (community welfare) such as construction of bund or digging the canal.

  §  The panchayat also made arrangements against natural calamities, like floods, famine, droughts etc.

  §  One important function of the panchayat was to ensure that caste boundaries among the various communities inhabiting the village were upheld.

  §  In eastern India all marriages were held in the presence of the mandal.

  §  Panchayats also had the authority to levy fines and inflict more serious forms of punishment like expulsion from the community. It meant that a person forced to leave the village became an outcaste and lost his right to practise his profession.

  Ø EXPLOITATION OF PEASANTS

  §  In western India people of lower castes presented petitions to the panchayat complaining about extortionate taxation or the demand for unpaid labour (begar) imposed by the “superior” castes or officials of the state.

  §  In the eyes of the petitioners the right to the basic minimum for survival was sanctioned by custom. They regarded the village panchayat as the court of appeal that would ensure that the state carried out its moral obligations and guaranteed justice.

  §  The decision of the panchayat in conflicts between “lower –caste”peasants and state officials or the local zamindar could vary from case to case.

  §  In cases of excessive revenue demands, the panchayat often suggested compromise. In cases where reconciliation failed; peasants took recourse to more drastic forms of resistance, such as deserting the village.

  v ROLE PLAYED BY THE JATI PANCHAYAT

  Ø In addition to the village panchayat each sub-caste or jati in the village had its own jati panchayat. These panchayats wielded considerable power in rural society.

  Ø In Rajasthan jati panchayats arbitrated civil disputes between members of different castes.

  Ø They mediated in contested claims on land, decided whether marriages were performed according to the norms laid down by a particular caste group and determined who had ritual precedence in village functions, and so on.

  Ø In most cases, except in matters of criminal justice, the state respected the decisions of jati panchayats.

  v LIFE OF VILLAGE ARTISANS

  Ø 25 per cent of the total households in the villages were artisans.

  Ø The distinction between artisans and peasants in village society was a fluid one; as many groups performed the tasks of both.

  
  
  

  Ø Cultivators and their families would also participate in craft production – such as dyeing, textile printing, baking and firing of pottery, making and repairing agricultural implements.

  Ø Village artisans – potters, blacksmiths, carpenters, even goldsmiths – provided specialized services. In return, the village people gave them a share of the harvest, or an allotment of land, perhaps cultivable wastes, which was likely to be decided by the panchayat.

  Ø Zamindars in Bengal who remunerated blacksmiths, carpenters, even goldsmiths for their work by paying them “a small daily allowance and diet money”. This later came to be described as the jajmani system, though the term was not in vogue in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

  v VILLAGE AS A “LITTLE REPUBLIC”

  Ø Some British officials in the nineteenth century saw the village as a “little republic”. Because villages were made up of fraternal partners of sharing resources and labour in a collective.

  Ø However, this was not a sign of rural egalitarianism.

  Ø There was individual ownership of assets and deep inequities based on caste and gender distinctions.

  Ø A group of powerful individuals decided the affairs of the village, exploited the weaker sections and had the authority to dispense justice.

  Ø French traveller traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier found it remarkable that in

  “India a village must be very small indeed if it has not a moneychanger called a Shroff. They acted as a banker.

  v ROLE OF WOMEN IN AGRARIAN SOCIETY UNDER MUGHAL RULE

  Ø Women worked shoulder to shoulder with men in fields. Men tilled and ploughed, while women sowed, weeded, threshed and winnowed the harvest.

  Ø Gender segregation become difficult with the growth of nucleated villages and expansion in individuated peasant farming.

  Ø Artisanal tasks such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for pottery, and embroidery were among the many aspects of production dependent on female labour.

  Ø In fact, peasant and artisan women worked not only in the fields, but even went to the houses of their employers or to the markets if necessary.

  Ø Women were considered an important resource in agrarian society also because they were child bearers in a society which dependents on labour.

  Ø DECRIMINATION WITH WOMEN’S

  §  Many biases were related to women’s biological functions as menstruating women were not allowed to touch the plough or the potter’s wheel in western India, or enter the groves where betel-leaves were grown.

  §  High mortality rates among women due to malnutrition, frequent pregnancies and death during childbirth – often meant a shortage of wives.

  §  According to established social norms, the household was headed by a male. Thus, women were kept under strict control by the male members of the family and draconian punishments were given to suspected infidelity on the part of women

  §  It led to the emergence of new social customs in peasant and artisan communities that were distinct from those prevalent among elite groups.

  ·      Marriages in many rural communities required the payment of bride-price rather than dowry to the bride’s family.

  ·      Remarriage was considered legitimate both among divorced and widowed women.

  ·      The importance attached to women as are productive force also meant that the fear of losing control over them was great.

  Ø STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE

  §  Women sent petitions to the village panchayat, seeking redress and justice. They also protested against the infidelity of their husbands or the neglect of the wife and children by the male head of the household.

  §  Amongst the landed gentry, women had the right to inherit property. Instances from the Punjab show that women, including widows, actively participated in the rural land market as sellers of property inherited by them.

  §  Hindu and Muslim women inherited zamindaris which they were free to sell or mortgage. Women zamindars were known in eighteenth-century Bengal.

  v LIFE OF FOREST DWELLERS IN MUGHAL PERIOD

  Ø According to estimates based on contemporary sources, an average of 40% of the land was covered by forests. (Scrubland(kharbandi)or dense forest(jangal)

  Ø Forest dwellers were termed jangli in contemporary texts. Jangli did not mean an absence of “civilisation”. The term described those whose livelihood came from the gathering of forest produce, hunting and shifting agriculture.

  Ø The activities of the forest dwellers were largely season specific in nature.

  §  The Bhils used to collect forest produce in the spring season

  §  Fish in the summer.

  §  Cultivate crops in the monsoon.

  §  Hunting animals in the autumn and winter.

  Ø This sequential procedure perpetuated mobility, which became a distinctive feature of forest tribes.

  Ø BABUR’S REMARK ON THE FOREST DWELLERS

  §  He considered the forest to be a subversive place-a refuge (mawas) for trouble makers to hide and avoid paying taxes.

  §  Babur says that jungles provided a good defence “behind which the people of the pargana (administrative Subdivision) become stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes”.

  Ø INTRUSION INTO THE FOREST

  §  The Mughal state required elephants for the army. So, the peshkash (A form of tribute) levied from forest people often included a supply of elephants.

  §  In the Mughal political ideology, the hunt symbolised the overwhelming concern of the state to ensure justice to all its subjects, rich and poor.

  §  Rulers went for regular hunting expeditions which enabled the emperor to travel across the extensive territories of his empire and personally attend to the grievances of its inhabitants.

  Ø EXCHANGE OF COMMODITIES

  §  The spread of commercial agriculture was an important external factor that affected the lives forests people.

  §  Forest products –like honey, beeswax and gum lac, elephants etc. – were in great demand. These items have great demand of overseas export from India in the seventeenth century.

  §  The exchange of commodities took place via the barter system as well. For example, the Lohanis in the Punjab engaged with overland trade with countries like Afghanistan, along with trade within the Punjab region.

  Ø SOCIAL CHANGES IN THE LIVES OF FOREST DWELLERS

  §  Social factors also brought changes in the lives of forest dwellers. Like the head men of the villages, tribes also had their chieftains.

  §  The chieftains of tribes became zamindars and some even became kings.

  §  Tribal Kings recruited people from their lineage groups or demanded that their fraternity in order to build up their army.

  ·      For example, Tribes in the Sind region had armies comprising 6,000 cavalry and 7,000 infantry.

  ·      In Assam, the Ahom kings had their paiks, people who were obliged to render military service in exchange for land. The capture of wild elephants was made a monopoly of the Ahom kings.

  Ø TRANSITION FROM A TRIBAL TO MONARCHICAL SYSTEM

  §  The transition from a tribal to a monarchical system had started much earlier in India.

  §  Ain-i-Akbari observes the presence of tribal kingdoms in the north east.

  §  War was a common occurrence between tribal kingdoms in the north-east.

  §  For example, The Koch kings fought and subjugated a number of neighbouring tribes in a long sequence of wars through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

  v ZAMINDARS IN RURAL SOCIETY DURING 16^th  AND 17^th  CENTURY

  Ø Zamindars were landed proprietors and also enjoyed certain social and economic privileges. They constituted the very narrow apex in the pyramid. His status was very high due to their caste. Zamindar were very powerful in the countryside as

  §  The zamindars held extensive personal lands (milkiyat, meaning property). Milkiyat lands were cultivated for the private use of zamindars with the help of hired labour. The zamindars could sell or donate these lands at will.

  §  They also performed certain services (khidmat) for the state as

  ·      Collect revenue on behalf of the state.

  ·      They had control over military resources.

  ·      They had fortresses (qilachas) as well as armed contingent comprising units of cavalry, artillery and infantry.

  Ø ORIGIN AND CONSOLIDATION OF ZAMINDARIS

  §  According to Abu’lFazl most of the Zamindars were from an “upper-caste” as Brahmana or Rajput. Some were from intermediate castes and from Muslim also.

  §  Zamindari was expanding by the dispossession of weaker people by a powerful military chieftain.

  
  
  

  §  Zamindari was also confirmed by an imperial order (Sanad).

  §  Zamindari was also consolidated by different methods as

  ·      By colonisation of agricultural land.

  ·      By transferring the rights.

  ·      By order of the state.

  ·      By purchasing, It, means Zamindari was also purchased by money.

  ·      Lineage-based zamindaris.

  Ø RELATIONSHIP OF ZAMINDAR AND PEASANTS

  §  Zamindars may be an exploitative class but their relationship with the peasantry had an element of reciprocity, paternalism and patronage. They helped the peasants in many ways as

  ·      They helped in settling cultivators by providing them with the means of cultivation, including cash loans.

  ·      zamindars often established markets to which peasants also came to sell their produce.

  ·      The buying and selling of zamindaris accelerated the process of monetization in the countryside.

  Ø SOURCES TO KNOW ABOUT ZAMINDAR

  §  The bhakti saints, who eloquently condemned caste-based and other forms of oppression. They did not portray the zamindars as exploiters or oppressors of the peasantry.

  §  Large number of agrarian uprisings which erupted in north India in the seventeenth century, zamindars often received the support of the peasantry in their struggle against the state.

  v THE MANSABDARI SYSTEM

  Ø The Mughal administrative system had at its apex a military cum- bureaucratic apparatus (mansabdari) which was responsible for looking after the civil and military affairs of the state.

  Ø Some mansabdars were paid in cash (naqdi), while the majority of them were paid through assignments of revenue (jagirs) in different regions of the empire. They were transferred periodically.

  v LAND REVENUE SYSTEM UNDER MUGHAL RULE

  Ø Revenue from the land was the economic mainstay of the Mughal Empire. So, it was very important for the state to create an administrative system to ensure control over agricultural production, and to fix and collect revenue from across the empire.

  Ø This system included the office of the diwan who was responsible for supervising the fiscal system of the empire. Thus, revenue officials and record keepers penetrated the agricultural domain and became a decisive agent in shaping agrarian relations.

  Ø The land revenue arrangements consisted of two stages: -

  §  First, assessment (Jama)

  §  Second the actual collection (hasil)

  Ø Akbar decreed ordered amil-guzar or revenue collector that he should strive to make cultivators pay in cash or Kind. There were many methods were used in Kind as

  §  Kankut:- The estimate

  §  Batai or bhaoli :- The crops are reaped and stacked and divided by agreement in the presence of the parties.

  §  Khet-batai:- Divide the fields after they are sown.

  §  Lang batai :- After cutting the grain, they form it in heaps and divide it among themselves.

  Ø Amin was an official responsible for ensuring that imperial regulations were carried out in the provinces.

  Ø TYPES OF LAND

  §  Both cultivated and cultivable lands were measured in each province during Mughal empire though it was difficult to measure the land as there were many forested areas.

  §  In Mughal empire the land was categorised in these types: -

  §  Polaj: - It is the land which is annually cultivated for crop in succession and is never allowed to lie fallow.

  §  Parauti: - It is the land which left out of cultivation for a time to recover its strength.

  §  Chachar: - It is the land that has lain fallow for three or four years.

  §  Banjar: - The land which is uncultivated for five years and more.

   

  v THE FLOW OF SILVER COIN INTO MUGHAL EMPIRE

  Ø The Mughal Empire was the large territorial empires in Asia among the Ming (China), Safavid (Iran) and Ottoman (Turkey) empires that had managed to consolidate power and resources during the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

  Ø The political stability achieved by all these empires helped create vibrant networks of overland trade from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

  Ø Voyages of discovery and the opening up of the New World (America) resulted in a massive expansion of India’s trade with Europe.

  Ø An expanding trade brought in huge amounts of silver bullion into India to pay for goods procured from India. This was good for India because it did not have natural resources of silver.

  Ø As a result, the period between the 16th and17th centuries was also marked by a remarkable stability in the availability of metal currency, particularly the silver rupya in India. This facilitated an unprecedented expansion of minting and circulating of silver coins.

  Ø Italian traveller, Giovanni Careri, who passed through India c. 1690, provides a graphic account about the way silver travelled across the globe to reach India. It also gives us an idea of the phenomenal amounts of cash and commodity transactions in seventeenth century India.

  v THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI

  Ø The Ain-i Akbari was the culmination of a large historical, administrative project of classification undertaken by Abu’lFazl on the order of Emperor Akbar.

  Ø It was completed in 1598 after having gone through five revisions. The Ain was part of a larger project of history writing commissioned by Akbar. This history, known as the Akbar Nama, comprised three books.

  Ø The first two provided a historical narrative. The Ain-i Akbari, the third book, was organized as a compendium of imperial regulations and a gazetteer of the empire.

  Ø The Ain gives detailed accounts of the organization of the court, administration and army, the sources of revenue and the physical layout of the provinces of Akbar’s empire and the literary, cultural, religious traditions of the people and quantitative information of the provinces.

  Ø The Ain is made up of five books (daftars), of which the first three books describe the administration.

  §  The first book, called manzil-abadi, concerns the imperial household and its maintenance.

  §  The second book, sipah-abadi, covers the military and civil administration and the establishment of servants. This book includes notices and short biographical sketches of imperial officials like mansabdars, learned men, poets and artists.

  §  The third book, mulk-abadi, is the one which deals with the fiscal side of the empire and provides rich quantitative information on revenue rates, administrative and fiscal divisions, total measured area, and assessed revenue ( jama).

  ·      After setting out details at the suba level, the Ain goes on to give a detailed picture of the sarkars below the suba in the form of tables, which have eight columns giving the following information.

  ·      (1) parganat/mahal; (2) qila(forts); (3) araziandzamin-i paimuda(measured area); (4) naqdi, revenue assessed in cash; (5) suyurghal, grants of revenue incharity; (6) zamindars; columns 7 and 8 contain details of the castes of these zamindars, and their troops including their horsemen (sawar), foot-soldiers(piyada) and elephants (fil).

  §  The fourth and fifth books (daftars) deal with the religious, literary and cultural traditions of the people of India and also contain a collection of Akbar’s “auspicious sayings”.

  v LIMITATIONS OF AIN-I-AKBARI

  Ø Although the Ain was officially sponsored to record detailed information to facilitate Emperor Akbar, it was much more than a reproduction of official papers. That the manuscript was revised five times by the author would suggest a high degree of caution on the part of Abu’l Fazl and a search for authenticity.

  Ø For instance, oral testimonies were cross-checked and verified before being incorporated as “facts” in the chronicle. In the quantitative sections, all numeric data were reproduced in words so as to minimise the chances of subsequent transcriptional errors.

  Ø Historians who have carefully studied the Ain point out that it is not without its problems. Numerous errors in totalling have been detected. These are ascribed to simple slips of arithmetic or of transcription by Abu’lFazl’s assistants.

  Ø Data were not collected uniformly from all provinces. For instance, while for many subas detailed information was compiled about the caste composition of the zamindars, such information is not available for Bengal and Orissa.

  Ø Further, while the fiscal data from the subas is remarkable for its richness, some equally vital parameters such as prices of commodities and wages of workers from these same areas are not as well documented.

  Ø These limitations notwithstanding, the Ain remains an extraordinary document of its times. By providing fascinating glimpses into the structure and organisation of the Mughal Empire and by giving us quantitative information about its products and people.

  Ø TRANSLATING THE AIN

  §  Ain has been translated by a number of scholars.

  §  Henry Blochmann edited it and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta (present-day Kolkata), published it in its Bibliotheca Indica series. The book has also been translated into English in three volumes.

  §  The standard translation of Volume 1 is that of Henry Blochmann (Calcutta 1873).

  §  The other two volumes were translated by H.S. Jarrett (Calcutta 1891 and 1894).

  1526 Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi, the Delhi Sultan, at Panipat, becomes the first Mughal emperor
  1530-40 First phase of Humayun’s reign
  1540-55 Humayun defeated by Sher Shah, in exile at the Safavid court
  1555-56 Humayun regains lost territories
  1556-1605 Reign of Akbar
  1605-27 Reign of Jahangir
  1628-58 Reign of Shah Jahan
  1658-1707 Reign of Aurangzeb
  1739 Nadir Shah invades India and sacks Delhi
  1761 Ahmad Shah Abdali defeats the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat
  1765 The diwani of Bengal transferred to the East India Company
  1857 Last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah II, deposed by the British and exiled to Rangoon (present day Yangon, Myanmar)

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