Mughals in the 1600s

#flo #disorganized

• Akbar's rule of the Mughals
  • Tried to align his subject's interests to the Mughal's interest
  • Goal was to maintain adequate compensation and preventing officials form unjust enrichment by overtaxing the peasants who could then not work on government projects
    • Directed administration to award land revenue salary instead of assigning land
    • Value of government official based on cost w.r.t. operating military men
      • a local commander = 500 men
      • a provincial government = 5000 men
    • First model of separation of powers between government and military
    • Prevented financial corruptiona
      • Made constant transfers and deferrals
      • Prevented passing on of wealth to offspring
    • His minister, Todar Mal, made tax collection proportional to value generation
      • So bad crop year could pay less tax
      • Prevented overluxuriation and benefitted peseants
  • Favored appointement of native born over foreign — due to pledges of loyalty to Mughal state: promoting religious indignity
• CLAIM: Melded together Mughal and indigenous elites
  • Encouraged intermarriage
  • Reformes aimed at selling Mughal to other people
  • All official appointments are treated as gifts from the emperor
  • Gave grants to Muslim and Hindu cultural institutions
  • Supported the arts and sciences
• Akbar made empire popular by pimping it up
  • Improved living quaters
  • Regulation of school
  • System of laws
  • Challenged the patriarchy and improved the role of woman
  • Discouraged child marriages and encouraged remarrying of widowns
• Intended all of his social reform to support his object of sulh-i-kul => universal harmony. (Not a fan of raison d'etat, I see)
• The Porchuguese
  • Acted as middlemen between Venitians, Arabs, and Turks
    • Traded spices and cotton
    • Served as foundation of Western medicines
    • De Gama's Explorations
      • Invaded port of good hope in Africa
        • Disguised as Muslim traders
        • When about to be kicked out, fought and burned the city
      • Zamorin also got scammed by de Gama too
        • Convinced that he was a pirate
        • Did not drive off, and permitted to trade
        • Kidnapped some local fishermen for crew along the way
    • Evenutally, setup a larger network of trade
• Mughals saw the Porchuguese, and wanted to curtail them
  • Resorted to a model of compromise => “Gave free passage to ships in exchange for pilgrims on their way to Mecca
  • Porchuguese, Dutch, and English collectively tried te “interfere in international shiping
    • Seisure of a ship by practicing Hindu
  • Mughals eventually partnered with english and dutch to try to curtail the porchuguese and create competiton
  • English and Dutch both adopted the porchuguese model
  • Mugals tried to create strategic partnership with European cultures
    • Ordered christian symbolism to be painted
    • Europeans impressed with Mugal style that Mogul became associated with power
• Aurangzeb's rule
  • Orthodox muslim
    • Took religious values over tradition
    • Dismaltiled Mughal's multicultralism
      • Banned music and dance
      • Enforced islam codes of pubilc conduct via censors
      • Halt constructions of new Hindu temples
      • Attack established structuers
      • Reimposed the jizya payment in leu of state service that is demanded from non-muslims
      • Enforced system of jizya payments that had to be done while chanting about inferoity
      • Opposed appointing hindus to highest ranks
    • Hindus and other non-muslim cultural icons lamented this
    • Shah Janan's army campaigns increased tax revenue to meet higher expectations
      • Hindu agricultural exploration fell hardest
      • Shivaji contradicted the Mughal court
        • Which means, he got quickly struck down
        • Escaped the court, and went to the Marathas
        • 1674-1680 started invading Mughals in gurilla campaigns
        • Which, is a self-deprecating loop — causing Auranzb to invest even MORE moneyon fighting
          • Created the Marathas empire
      • Muhammed Akbar opposed his fathers rules
        • Fled to Arabia
        • Tortured and killed son of Shiviaji
    • Also started a struggle with the Briting East India Company
      • Started complaining of higher taxes
      • Interpreted their license to say that they would only need to pay taxes at major international ports
      • In defense, the company declared war against the Mughals
      • The Mughals retailated by destroying corporate stations
      • Eventually forced negotiations to sink Muslim ships bound for Mecca
      • Eventually forced back into trade negotiations after a larger fine
      • This incident humiliated both the Mughals and the company — displeasing European directors
    • Fights of independence broke out amoung the Marathas and the Hindu-predominant north between 1674-1680
  • In the end, Aurangzeb ended his life noting "I don't know who I am, nor what I have been doing"
  • Marathas won great parts of Mughal territory
    • Empire's rulers force to pay tribute to Marathas
    • Others paid a largely symbolic to the Mughals

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#disorganized #flo

• India is very hard to rule in a very centralized way
  • Deccan plateu to the south
    • Hard to conquer
    • Have to re-conquer because people did not respect his rule
  • Gangatic plain to the north
    • Easy to conquer
  • Rajputs
    • Small city-states with isolated rules
    • With independent principalities

And now, we are comparing palaces?

• Chende constructed to match people's religions
  • Instead of meeting people in the impressively Han seat of power, meet at a more relaxed place
  • Both asserted power in the main palace and appeased ethnicity in the summer palace
• Agra constructed to be a mix of religions
  • Instead of meeting people in the strictly Muslim seat of power, meet at a more…. fortified place
  • Both asserted power in to Tokata and appeased ethnicity in the summer palace