Class 7 History Chapter 8 Question Answers - Eighteenth Century Political Formations

Q1. How were the boundaries of the Mughal Empire reshaped in the first half of the 18^th century?
Ans:

• The boundaries of the Mughal Empire were reshaped by the emergence of a number of independent kingdoms.
• By 1765, another power, the British, had successfully grabbed major chunks of territory in eastern India.
• The political conditions in eighteenth century India changed quite dramatically and within a relatively short span of time.

Notes: New political groups emerged in the subcontinent.
It happened after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 till third battle of Panipat in 1761.

Q2. What were the causes responsible for various crises of the Mughal Empire towards the closing year of the 17th century?
Ans:
Mughal Empire reached the height of its success and started facing a variety of crises towards the closing years of the seventeenth century.
These were caused by a number of factors:

• Emperor Aurangzeb had depleted the military and financial resources of his empire by fighting a long war in the Deccan.
• Under his successors, the efficiency of the imperial administration broke down.
• It was increasingly difficult for the later Mughal emperors to keep a check on their powerful mansabdars.
• Nobles appointed as governors (subadars) often controlled the offices of revenue and military administration (diwani and faujdari) as well.
• The governors consolidated their control over the provinces and revenue declined.

Peasant and zamindari rebellions in many parts of northern and western India added to their problems:

• These revolts were sometimes caused by the pressures of mounting taxes.
• At other times there were attempts by powerful chieftains to consolidate their own position.
• Mughal authority was challenged by rebellious groups in the past as well. But these groups were now able to seize the economic resources of the region to consolidate their positions.
• The Mughal emperors after Aurangzeb were unable to arrest the gradual shifting of political and economic authority into the hands of provincial governors, local chieftains and other groups.

Q3. How was the empire further weakened?
Ans:
The empire was already under severe pressures from all sides.
It was further weakened by competition amongst different groups of nobles.

• They were divided into two major groups or fractions; the Iranis and Turanis.
• For a long time, the later Mughal emperors were puppets in the hands of either one or the other of these too powerful groups.
• The worst possible humiliation came when two Mughal emperors, Farrukh Siyar (1713-1719) and Alamgir II (1754-1759) were assassinated.
• Two others Ahmad Shah (1748-1754) and Shah Alam II (1759-1816) were blinded by their nobles.

Q4. Give an account of Nadir Shah attacking Delhi.
Ans:
Nadir Shah Attacked Delhi: Nadir Shah’s looting is described as below:

• Sixty lakh of rupees and some thousand gold coins, nearly one crore worth of gold- ware, nearly fifty crore worth of jewels, most of them unrivaled in the world, and the above included the peacock throne.
• Another account described the invasion’s impact upon Delhi:
• Those who had been masters were now in dire straits; and those who had been revered couldn’t even quench their thirst.
• The New City (Shahjahanabad) was turned into rubble.
• Nadir Shah then attacked the old quarters of the city and destroyed a whole world that existed there.

Q5. How did the new states emerge?
Ans:
Emergence of New States:

• With the decline of the Mughal emperors, the governors of large provinces, subadars, and the great zamindars consolidated their authority in different parts of the subcontinent.
• Through the eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire gradually fragmented into a number of independent, regional states.

The states of the eighteenth century were divided into three overlapping groups:

• States that were old Mughal provinces like Awadh, Bengal and Hyderabad.
• The rulers of these states did not break their formal ties with the Mughal emperor.
• States that had enjoyed considerable independence under the Mughals as watan jagirs.
• They included several Rajput principalities.
• The last group included states under the control of Marathas, Sikhs, and others like the Jats.
• They were of differing sizes.
• They had seized their independence from the Mughals after a long drawn armed struggle.

Q6. How did Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah become the actual ruler of the Deccan?
Ans:

• Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah was the founder of Hyderabad state.
• He was one of the most powerful member at the court of the Mughal Emperor Farrukh Siyar.
• He was entrusted first with the governorship of Awadh and later given charge of the Deccan.
• As the Mughal governor of the Deccan provinces, Asaf Jah already had full control over its political and financial administration.
• He took advantage of the turmoil in the Deccan and the competition amongst the court nobility.
• He gathered power in his hands and became the actual ruler of that region.

Q7. How did Burhan-ul-Mulk become powerful?
Ans:

• Burhan-ul-Mulk Sa’adat Khan was appointed subadar of Awadh in 1722.
• He founded a state which was one of the most important to emerge out of the break up of the Mughal Empire.
• Awadh was a prosperous region.
• It controlled the rich alluvial Ganga plain.
• It served the main trade route between north India and Bengal.
• Burhan-ul-Mulk also held the combined offices of subadari, diwani, and faujdari.
• Actually he was responsible for managing the political, financial and military affairs of the province of Awadh.

Q8. How did Burhan-ul-Mulk try to decrease the Mughal influence?
Ans:
Burhan-ul-Mulk tried to decrease Mughal influence in the Awadh region.

• He reduced the number of office holders (Jagirdars) appointed by the mughals.
• He also reduced the size of jagirs.
• He appointed his own loyal servants to vacant positions.
• The accounts of jagirdars were checked to prevent cheating.
• The revenues of all districts were reassessed by officials appointed by the Nawab’s court.
• He seized a number of Rajput zamindaris and the agriculturally fertile lands of the Afghans of Rohilkhand.

Q9. How did the new social groups come into being?
Ans:

• The state depended on local bankers and mahajans for loans.
• It sold the right to collect tax to the highest bidders.
• These ‘revenue farmers’ (ijaradars) agreed to pay the state a fixed sum of money.
• Local bankers guaranteed the payment of this contracted amount to the state.
• In turn, the revenue-farmers were given considerable freedom in the assessment and collection of taxes.
• These developments allowed new social groups, like moneylenders and bankers, to influence the management of the state’s revenue system.
• It was something which had not occurred in the past.

Q10. How did Murshid Quli Khan become powerful in Bengal?
Ans:

• Bengal gradually broke away from Mughal control under Murshid Quli Khan.
• Murshid Quli Khan was appointed as the naib, deputy to the governor of the province.
• He was never a formal subadar, but he seized all the power of the subadar very quickly.
• Like the rulers of Hyderabad and Awadh, he also commanded the revenue administration of the state.
• In order to reduce Mughal influence in Bengal he transferred all Mughals’ jagirdars to Orissa.

He ordered a major reassessment of the revenues of Bengal:

• Revenue was collected in cash with great strictness from all zamindars.
• It resulted in, many zamindars being forced to borrow money from bankers and moneylenders.
• Those unable to pay were forced to sell their lands to larger zamindars.

Q11. Describe the common features of the three states—Hyderabad, Bengal and Awadh.
Ans:
The three states of Hyderabad, Awadh and Bengal had certain common features:

• They were all established by the Mughal nobles who were given the jagir or the governorship of the territory.
• Their methods of tax collection differed and they used their own officials for this.
• They contracted with “revenue farmers” for collection of revenue and the practice of “ijaradari” though disapproved by the Mughals spread all over India.
• All these regional states had relationship with the bankers and money lenders.
• They received land as security and collected tax from there through agents.
• Social strata of these states was reorganized to a greater extent.

Q12. Describe the watan jagirs of the Rajputs.
Ans:
The watan jagirs of the Rajputs:

• Many Rajput kings mostly of Amber and Jodhpur, had served under the Mughals with distinction.
• In exchange, they were permitted to enjoy considerable autonomy in their watan jagirs.
• In the eighteenth century, these rulers attempted to extend their control over adjacent regions.
• Ajit Singh, the ruler of Jodhpur, was also involved in the factional politics at the Mughal court.
• These Rajput families claimed the subadari of the rich provinces of Gujarat and Malwa.
• Raja Ajit Singh of Jodhpur held the governorship of Gujarat.
• Sawai Raja Jai Singh of Amber was governor of Malwa.
• These offices were renewed by Emperor Jahandar Shah in 1713.
• They also tried to extend their territories by seizing portions of imperial territories adjacent to their watans.
• Nagaur was conquered and annexed to the house of Jodhpur.
• Amber seized large portions of Bundi.
• Sawai Raja Jai Singh founded his new capital at Jaipur.
• He was given the subadari of Agra in 1722.
• Maratha campaigns into Rajasthan from the 1740s put severe pressure on these principalities and checked their further expansion.

Q13. How did Sikhs become a political power?
Ans:

• The organisation of the Sikhs into a political community during the seventeenth century helped in regional state-building in the Punjab.
• Several battles were fought by Guru Gobind Singh against the Rajput and Mughal rulers, both before and after set up of the Khalsa in 1699.
• After his death in 1708, the Khalsa rose in revolt against the Mughal authority uhder Banda Bahadur’s leadership.
• The Khalsa declared their sovereign rule by striking coins in the name of Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh.
• They established their own administration between the Sutlej and the Jamuna.
• Under a number of able leaders in the eighteenth century, the Sikhs organized themselves into a number of bands called jathas, and later on misls.
• Their combined forces were known as the grand army (dal khalsa).

Q14. Which were the many practices started by the Sikhs?
Ans:

• The entire body used to meet at Amritsar at the time of Baisakhi and Diwali to take collective decisions known as ‘resolutions of the Guru (gurmatas)’.
• A system called rakhi was introduced, offering protection to cultivators on the payment of a tax of 20 per cent of the produce.
• Guru Gobind Singh had inspired the Khalsa with the belief that their destiny was to rule (raj karega khalsa).
• The khalsa declared their sovereign rule by striking their own coin again in 1765.
• This coin bore the same inscription as the one on the orders issued by the khalsa in the time of Banda Bahadur.
• The Sikh territories in the late eighteenth century extended from the Indus to the Jamuna.
• They were divided under different rulers.
• One of them, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, reunited these groups.
• He established his capital at Lahore in 1799.

Q15. Give an account of the Maratha Kingdom.
Ans:

• The Maratha Kingdom was another powerful regional kingdom.
• It rose out of a sustained opposition to Mughal rule.
• Shivaji (1627-1680) carved out a stable kingdom with the support of powerful warrior families (deshmukhs).
• Groups of highly mobile, peasant pastoralists (kunbis) provided the backbones of the Maratha army.
• Shivaji used these forces to challenge the Mughals in the Peninsula.
• After Shivaji’s death, effective power in the Maratha state was wielded by a family of Chitpavan Brahmanas who served Shivaji’s successors as Peshwa (or principal minister).
• Poong. became the capital of the Maratha kingdom.

Q16. How did Maratha become a force to reckon with?
Ans:

• Under the Peshwas, the Marathas developed a very successful military organisation.
• Their success lay in by-passing the fortified areas of the Mughals.
• They raided cities and engaged Mughal armies in areas where their supply line and reinforcements could be easily disturbed.
• Between 1720 and 1761, the Maratha empire expanded.
• It gradually chipped away at the authority of the Mughal Empire.
• Malwa and Gujarat were seized from the Mughals by ]the 1720s.
• By the 1730s, the Maratha king was recognised as the overlord of the entire Deccan peninsula.
• He possessed the right to levy chauth and sardeshmukhi in the entire region.
• After raiding Delhi in 1737 the frontiers of Maratha domination expanded rapidly into Rajasthan, Punjab in the north, Bengal and Orissa in the east, Karnataka and the Tamil and Telugu countries in the south.
• These were not formally included in the Maratha empire. They were made to pay tribute as a way of accepting Maratha sovereignty.
• Expansion brought enormous resources but it came at a price.
• These military campaigns also made other rulers hostile towards the Marathas. This resulted in the reduced support to the Marathas during the third battle of Panipat in 1761.

Q17. Give an account of administrative system of the Marathas.
Ans:

• The Marathas developed an effective administrative system.
• Revenue demands were gradually introduced taking local conditions into account.
• Agriculture was encouraged.
• Trade revived.
• This allowed Maratha chiefs (Sardars) like Sindhia of Gwalior, Gaekwad of Baroda and Bhonsle of Nagpur the resources to raise powerful armies.
• Maratha campaigns into Malwa in the 1720s did not challenge the growth and prosperity of the cities in the region.
• Ujjain expanded under Sindhia’s patronage.
• Indore under Holkar’s.
• By all accounts these cities were large and prosperous and functioned as important commercial and cultural centres.
• New trade routes emerged within the areas controlled by the Marathas.
• The silk produced in the Chanderi region now found a new outlet in Poona, the Maratha capital.
• Burhanpur which had earlier participated in the trade between Agra and Surat now expanded its . hinterland. It included
• Poona and Nagpur in the south.
• Lucknow and Allahabad in the east.

Q18. Describe the rule of Jats.
Ans:

• The Jats were prosperous agriculturists.
• Panipat and Ballabhgarh became important trading centres under Churaman a jat who dominated Delhi and Agra.
• Under Suraj Mai the kingdom of Bharatpur emerged as a strong state.
• When Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, many of the city’s notables took refuge there.
• His Son Jawahir Shah had 30,000 troops of his own and hired another 20,000 Maratha and 15,000 Sikh troops to fight the Mughals.
• Bharatpur fort was built in a fairly traditional style.
• At Dig the Jats built an elaborate garden palace combining styles seen at Amber and Agra.
• Its buildings were modelled on architectural forms first associated with royalty