UPSC 2017 GS-I · 10 marks · 150 words

Clarify how mid-eighteenth century India was beset with the spectre of a fragmented polity.

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Mughal decline after Aurangzeb's death (1707): wars of succession, the Sayyid Brothers as kingmakers, Nadir Shah's sack of Delhi (1739), Ahmad Shah Abdali's raids
Successor states to name and classify: Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad (breakaway provinces); Marathas, Sikhs and Jats (rebel polities); Mysore and the Rajput states
Structural causes: the jagirdari and mansabdari crisis, the Deccan ulcer, zamindari assertion — Satish Chandra and Athar Ali on the agrarian crisis thesis
Consequence: no paramount power, so the English East India Company could ally selectively — Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) as the pivot
Counter-view worth a line: C.A. Bayly and Muzaffar Alam on regional prosperity, so fragmentation was political rather than economic collapse

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Clarify how mid-eighteenth century India was beset with the spectre of a fragmented polity.

What a top answer must contain

Now write it, and find out what you actually scored

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