The Last Mughal: The Fall of Delhi, 1857

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The Mughals were responsible for building an extensive road system, creating a uniform currency, and the unification of the country. [10] :185–204 The empire had an extensive road network, which was vital to the economic infrastructure, built by a public works department set up by the Mughals which designed, constructed and maintained roads linking towns and cities across the empire, making trade easier to conduct. [103] Akbar's government machine included many Hindus in positions of responsibility - the governed were allowed to take a major part in the governing. Indian agricultural production increased under the Mughal Empire. [103] A variety of crops were grown, including food crops such as wheat, rice, and barley, and non-food cash crops such as cotton, indigo and opium. By the mid-17th century, Indian cultivators begun to extensively grow two new crops from the Americas, maize and tobacco. [103] Dyson, Tim (2019), A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-256430-6, We have seen that there is considerable uncertainty about the size of India's population c.1595. Serious assessments vary from 116 to 145 million (with an average of 125 million). However, the true figure could even be outside of this range. Accordingly, while it seems likely that the population grew over the course of the seventeenth century, it is unlikely that we will ever have a good idea of its size in 1707. That said, we do know that the main concentrations of people were in the core Mughal provinces i.e. Lahore, Delhi, Agra, Awadh, and Allahabad. It was their high rural densities that ultimately sustained the main cities with all of their complexity and culture. There were, of course, sizeable rural populations supporting substantial, if lesser, urban centres elsewhere—for example in Gujarat, and on rivers like the Kaveri and the Godavari. Moreover, there were major concentrations of people on both the coastal plains.

Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006), India Before Europe, Cambridge University Press, pp.186–, ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7, archived from the original on 22 September 2023 , retrieved 15 July 2019 Quote: "The elite spent more and more money on luxury goods, and sumptuous lifestyles, and the rulers built entire new capital cities at times." I had thought that Dalrymple would never surpass his performance in writing From the Holy Mountain, but The Last Mughal has caused me to think again. a b c Jeffrey G. Richards, J.F. (1981). "Mughal State Finance and the Premodern World Economy". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 23 (2): 285–308. doi: 10.1017/s0010417500013311. JSTOR 178737. S2CID 154809724. Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D. (2006). "East–West Orientation of Historical Empires and Modern States". Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 219–229. doi: 10.5195/JWSR.2006.369. ISSN 1076-156X.

The Mughal Empire's legal system was context-specific and evolved over the course of the empire's rule. Being a Muslim state, the empire employed fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and therefore the fundamental institutions of Islamic law such as those of the qadi (judge), mufti (jurisconsult), and muhtasib (censor and market supervisor) were well-established in the Mughal Empire. However, the dispensation of justice also depended on other factors, such as administrative rules, local customs, and political convenience. This was due to Persianate influences on Mughal ideology, and the fact that the Mughal Empire governed a non-Muslim majority. [97] Legal ideology

The development of Mughal clothing, jewelry and fashion, utilizing richly decorated fabrics such as muslin, silk, brocade and velvet. By 1750 Travancore had become rich and big. So the then king, made a unique spiritual and historical contribution. He decided to surrender all his riches to the temple – Padmanabhaswamy who is also their family deity.For years, the wealth remained lost and life was a struggle. Fortunately though, eventually Madhav managed to find the chamber and their financial issues were largely resolved. A more successful invasion came at the end of the 12th century. This eventually led to the formation of the Delhi Sultanate. A 17th century celestial globe was also made by Diya’ ad-din Muhammad in Lahore, 1668 (now in Pakistan). [195] It is now housed at the National Museum of Scotland.

Akbar believed that all religions should be tolerated, and that a ruler's duty was to treat all believers equally, whatever their belief. Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006), India Before Europe, Cambridge University Press, pp.152–, ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7, archived from the original on 22 September 2023 , retrieved 15 July 2019 Quote: "Above all, the long period of relative peace ushered in by Akbar's power, and maintained by his successors, contributed to India's economic expansion." Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006), India Before Europe, Cambridge University Press, pp.186–, ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7, archived from the original on 22 September 2023 , retrieved 15 July 2019 Quote: "As the European presence in India grew, their demands for Indian goods and trading rights increased, thus bringing even greater wealth to the already flush Indian courts." A major Mughal reform introduced by Akbar was a new land revenue system called zabt. He replaced the tribute system, previously common in India and used by Tokugawa Japan at the time, with a monetary tax system based on a uniform currency. [109] The revenue system was biased in favour of higher value cash crops such as cotton, indigo, sugar cane, tree-crops, and opium, providing state incentives to grow cash crops, in addition to rising market demand. [10] Under the zabt system, the Mughals also conducted extensive cadastral surveying to assess the area of land under plow cultivation, with the Mughal state encouraging greater land cultivation by offering tax-free periods to those who brought new land under cultivation. [109] The expansion of agriculture and cultivation continued under later Mughal emperors including Aurangzeb, whose 1665 firman edict stated: "the entire elevated attention and desires of the Emperor are devoted to the increase in the population and cultivation of the Empire and the welfare of the whole peasantry and the entire people." [124]

Richards, John F. (1995), The Mughal Empire, Cambridge University Press, p.2, ISBN 978-0-521-56603-2, archived from the original on 22 September 2023 , retrieved 9 August 2017 Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the dynasty and the empire itself became indisputably Indian. The interests and futures of all concerned were in India, not in ancestral homelands in the Middle East or Central Asia. Furthermore, the Mughal Empire emerged from the Indian historical experience. It was the end product of a millennium of Muslim conquest, colonization, and state-building in the Indian subcontinent." Aurangzeb ruled for nearly 50 years. He came to the throne after imprisoning his father and having his older brother killed. Thousands of Hindu temples and shrines were torn down and a punitive tax on Hindu subjects was re-imposed.

Trade with the rest of the Islamic world, especially Persia and through Persia to Europe, was encouraged. The importance of slavery in the Empire diminished and peace was made with the Hindu kingdoms of Southern India.The book, Dalrymple's sixth, and his second to reflect his long love affair with the city of Delhi, won praise for its use of "The Mutiny Papers", which included previously ignored Indian accounts of the events of 1857. He worked on these documents in association with the Urdu scholar Mahmood Farooqui. [2] Critical response [ edit ] See also: Indo-Persian culture Ghulam Hamdani Mushafi, the poet first believed to have coined the name " Urdu" around 1780 AD for a language that went by a multiplicity of names before his time. [158] The Mughal Empire is conventionally said to have been founded in 1526 by Babur, a chieftain from what is today Uzbekistan, who employed aid from the neighboring Safavid and Ottoman Empires, [13] to defeat the Sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi, in the First Battle of Panipat, and to sweep down the plains of North India. The Mughal imperial structure, however, is sometimes dated to 1600, to the rule of Babur's grandson, Akbar. [14] This imperial structure lasted until 1720, until shortly after the death of the last major emperor, Aurangzeb, [15] [16] during whose reign the empire also achieved its maximum geographical extent. Reduced subsequently to the region in and around Old Delhi by 1760, the empire was formally dissolved by the British Raj after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. a b Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. "Taj Mahal". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Archived from the original on 1 February 2018 . Retrieved 7 May 2020.