The Mughals and Bengal

 Shayesta Khan, was personally dissolute, but

- He initiated a series of monopolies on trade
-Increased wealth and prosperity of Bengal.
 Khan sent substantial tribute to Delhi.
 His notable achievement was the Mughal Conquest of Chittagong, the Port Town where they
retook Chittagong in 1666 AD from the Kingdom of Arakan after nearly a century.
*Mercantilism exhibits monopoly. Because if the government could control the economic zone,
they could control the market. They had tariffs on a no. of items imported in the country*

The Death of Aurangazeb

 Mughal India had reached its height during the reign of Aurangazeb by 1689 AD.
 Yet by doing so, he had spent far too much strength and money. This ironically weakened his
central system.
An evidence is, under his reign, during a famine in the Deccan region, the granaries had no
reserves of natural commodities was indicates how he spent his resources.
 He then died as an exhausted man in 1707 AD.
 Then, his heirs began to fight amongst themselves for his succession in a very brutal way;
hence depleting their sources even faster.
 The authority collapsed rapidly which gave way to Decay Theory.

 Decay Theory
- It refers to an argument put forward by a no. of British Scholars.
- It states, with the end of the Mughal Empire, the important prospects of life, such as the
economic life, social life etc came to an end or “decayed”.
- This gave a reason for the Britishers to enter and take over the control of everything to set
everything right.
- The theory is not accepted by everyone.

 With the death of Aurangazeb, a process of Decentralization started.

 Kingdoms arose as independent kingdoms after 1707 and social, economic, political etc lives
thrived within the kingdoms.
Eg. Awadh (UP), Hyderabad, Mysore, Bengal etc.
There was no single authority/kingdom that ruled over the other ones.
 This defied the Decay Theory.

 1717 AD: The Chief Financial Administrator of Bengal was Murshid Quli Khan. He had
quietly established Bengal once again as an independent kingdom with only a nominal allegiance
to the Mughal Emperor in Delhi.
 Advent of the British Empire

1. European Power and their Trading Companies

 The Europeans were intent on finding a direct route to Asia (South, East, Southeast) and to the
Chinese Empire. It is because they had realized that they had a bullion drain (a deficit of gold
and silver reserve) and the process of the bypass of the intermediaries was time consuming.
 Portuguese and Spanish Empires lead way for the European Powers.
 Portuguese made use of the technological advances in naval science and build compass,
astrolabe and sextant.
 Europeans were coastal huggers i.e.; they were scared to ship beyond their visible coasts.
Hence, their ships were cumbersome.
Europeans got rid of their nature of being coastal huggers by using new instruments,
understanding naval science and building better ships.

 They understood the nature of the wind patterns- Westerly’s and Trade Winds.
 Chinese inventions like gunpowder, sternpost rudder, compass also helped them.
 From the Arab sailors, they learned about Lateen Sail-which allowed the ships to sail against
wind.

 The conquest of 2 continents of the Western Hemisphere after 1492 AD drew gold and silver
treasuries to European Powers as they destroyed the civilizations in the other continents.
 They also got gold from South Africa.
 Spanish and Portuguese took huge amounts of gold and silver from Potosi (Bolivia).

They invested their gold and silver reserves in naval sciences and finding a direct route to Asia.

Arrival of English Merchants in Mughal India

 Portuguese arrived in the Indian subcontinent after devastating and destroying the city states
and principalities of the East African coast.
 The Portuguese seized Goa in 1520 AD.
 They arrived in Bengal in 1534 AD. They began to brutally sack Chittagong and enslave the
local population. They forcibly took people from local settlements.
 They even established a factory (a storage house to store their goods) in Hooghly (Bengal) in
1579-1580 AD.
 Their reputation as murderers and enslavers angered the local people and the news eventually
reached to the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan.
Shah Jahan ordered for their factories in Bengal to be destroyed in 1632. The destruction of the
factory ended the Portuguese’s reign in the Indian Subcontinent.

 Other European powers began to send their trading companies too.

The Dutch arrived in the Mid 17th century (In 1641 AD – Seizure of Malacca and in 1654 AD –
Conquest of Ceylon).
 In 1599 AD, English arrived and formed the East India Company. They established a Joint-
stock company, where any wealthy influential person could invest in the company. The English
Government also invested in the company and hence they started dominating over the Indian
Subcontinent by using the East India Company.
 In 1615 AD, English ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, visited the court of the Mughal Emperor.
 In 1650 AD, the English received permission from Delhi to trade with the Bengal.
They were particularly interested in Bengal for their highly coveted cotton end products.

A symbiotic relationship was formed between the Indians and the English. The British and the
other European powers gave jobs to 80,000 weavers to meet their demands. The Indians got jobs
and the Britishers got their work done, hence, their symbiotic relationship where both benefitted
mutually from the trade.

The problem was, there was a drain of the British & European wealth as the wealth was invested
in the Indian subcontinent to buy goods.