Reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan
Reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan
Mughal
rule under Jahangir (1605-1627) and Shah Jahan (1628-1658) was noted
for political stability, brisk economic activity, beautiful paintings, and
monumental buildings. Jahangir married Mehr-Un-Nisaa,
a Persian beauty whom he renamed Nur Jahan (“Light of the World”),
who emerged as the most powerful individual in the court besides the emperor.
As a result, Persian poets, artists, scholars, and officers—including her own
family members—lured by the Mughal court's brilliance and luxury, found asylum
in India. The number of unproductive, timeserving officers mushroomed, as
did corruption—while the excessive Persian representation upset the delicate
balance of impartiality at the court. Jahangir liked Hindu festivals,
but promoted mass conversion to Islam; he persecuted the followers
of Jainism and even executed Guru Arjun Dev, the fifth saint-teacher
of the Sikhs. He did so, however, not for religious reasons. Guru Arjun
supported Prince Khursaw, another contestant to the Mughal throne, in the civil
war that developed after Akbar's death. The release of 52 Hindu princes
from captivity in 1620 is the basis for the significance of the time
of Diwali to Sikhs.
Nur
Jahan's abortive efforts to secure the throne for the prince of her choice
led Shah Jahan to rebel in 1622. In that same year, the Persians took
over Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, an event that struck a serious blow
to Mughal prestige. Intentionally, Jehangir set in motion the demise of the
empire when he granted King James I's ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe,
permission for the British East India Company to build
a factory at Surat.
Between
1636 and 1646, Shah Jahan sent Mughal armies to conquer the Deccan and the
northwest beyond the Khyber Pass. Even though they aptly demonstrated Mughal
military strength, these campaigns drained the imperial treasury. As the state
became a huge military machine and the nobles and their contingents multiplied
almost fourfold, so did the demands for more revenue from the peasantry.
Political unification and maintenance of law and order over wide areas
encouraged the emergence of large centers of commerce and crafts—such as
Lahore, Delhi, Agra, and Ahmadabad—linked by roads and waterways to distant
places and ports. Shah Jahan also had the famous Peacock Throne built (Takht-e-Tavous,
in Persian: تخت طائوس) in Persian, with 108 rubies, 116 emeralds, and rows
of pearls. The Mughals were very conscious of their dignity as emperors,
and dressed and acted the part.
The
world-famous Taj Mahal was built in Agra during Shah Jahan's reign as
a tomb for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It symbolizes both Mughal artistic achievement and excessive financial expenditures when resources were shrinking.
The economic position of peasants and artisans did not improve because the
administration failed to produce any lasting change in the existing social
structure. There was no incentive for the revenue officials, whose concerns
primarily were personal or familial gain, to generate resources independent of
dominant Hindu zamindars and village leaders, whose self-interest and
local dominance prevented them from handing over the full amount of revenue to
the imperial treasury. In their ever-greater dependence on land revenue, the Mughals unwittingly nurtured forces that eventually led to the break-up of
their empire. Establishing an elaborate court, with bodyguards,
a harem and wearing expensive clothes, more and more tax revenue was
needed merely to finance this lavish lifestyle. Meanwhile, the gun-power
technology that had given them military superiority, which remained
unchallenged within India, could be challenged from the outside by armies with
more advanced technology. It was the greed and complacency of the emperors that
resulted in their decline, and eventual demise.
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