Mughal empire, like all empires, imploded. Empires don’t fall merely because of outsiders. Most often the rot is inside.
After the death of Aurangzeb, came his eldest son who ruled a grand total of 55 days before his step brother killed him. Is that a fault of the Marathas? Then came Bahadur Shah I who had a fair level of stability, but too old. His father ruled for way too long and he was nearly in his 70s when he came to power. After Bahadur Shah came his son Jahandar Shah who was extremely debauched and corrupt. Within a year, he was thrown away & murdered by his nephew Farrukshiyar.
Farukkshiyar ruled for a few years, among the longest Mughal rule post-Aurangzeb period, but he had no clue of how to rule. He was controlled as a puppet from behind by kingmakers named the Sayyid brothers. They threw Farukkshiyar when he was looking to become more independent and brought in another puppet Rafi ud-Darajat who lasted less than 4 months. Then yet another guy came who too was thrown out in under 4 months.
Mughal empire declined due to a lot of reasons:
- Aurangzeb was a fairly intolerant guy compared to the previous rulers of India and his harsh rule provoked riots from everywhere.
- He overextended the empire by trying to push too much into the Deccan.
- He ruled for too long - until he was 88 years old. When emperors rule for too long without planning really for succession, they leave a power vacuum.
- There was a major climate shift period called the Little Ice Age that made rainfall patterns quite erratic. Droughts became quite common & came the famines. This climate change pattern was actually one reason for the rise of the colonialism across the world. Climatic Change and Colonialism
Marathas provided the alternative and reduced the power vacuum. But, they overextended themselves too- doing too many things at too many places too quickly.
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