RBSE Class 7 Social Science Notes History Chapter 10 Eighteenth Century Political Formations

These comprehensive RBSE Class 7 Social Science Notes History Chapter 10 Eighteenth Century Political Formations will give a brief overview of all the concepts.

RBSE Class 7 Social Science Notes History Chapter 10 Eighteenth Century Political Formations

→ Eighteenth century political formations—In eighteenth century after the death of Aurangzeb, a number of independent kingdom emerged such as Sikhs, Rajptus, Jats, Awadh, Malwa, Marathas, Hyderabad, Gujarat and Bengal.

→ The Crisis of the Mughal Empire and the Later Mughals:
Mughal Empire reached at the height of success but it declined because of many reasons such as Emperor Aurangzeb depleted the military and financial resources of his empire by fighting long wars in the Deccan.

• His successors were weak and inefficient.
• The mansabdars grew very powerful and appointed subadars to control military, revenue and administrative functions in the areas they controlled.
• Peasants and Zamindari rebellions also created problems. The new rebellions were able to seize the Mughal government’s sources of income, and this made it difficult for the Mughals to suppress them.
• The Iranian king, Nadir Shah invaded and looted Delhi in 1739, which was followed by raids by the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali.

→ Emergence of New States:
Through the eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire fragmented into number of independent regional states. These groups can be divided into three groups such as :
(a) Awadh, Bengal and Hyderabad,
(b) Several rajput principalities,
(c) Maratha, Sikhs, and Jats.

→ The Old 'Mughal Provinces: 

• Amongst the states that were carved out of the old Mughal provinces in the eighteenth century, three stand out very prominently. These were Awadh, Bengal and Hyderabad. All three states were founded by members of the high Mughal nobility who had been governors of large provinces.
• These aristocrates viewed the jagirdasi system of Mughals with suspicion. Thesefore, they implemented the jagirdari system. This led to the entry of the rich people into the political system.

→ The Watan Jagirs of the Rajputs:
Nagaur was conquered and annexed to the house of Jodhpur, while Amber seized large portions of Bundi.

→ Seizing Independence Sikhs:

• The organisation of the Sikhs into a political community during the seventeenth century helped in regional state-building in the Punjab.
• The Sikh territories in the late eighteenth century extended from the Indus to the Jamuna but they were divided under different rulers. One of them, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, reunited these groups and established his capital at Lahore in 1799.

→ The Marathas:

• The Maratha kingdom was another powerful regional kingdom to arise out of a sustained opposition to Mughal rule.
• Shivaji (1627-1680) carved out a stable kindgom with the support of powerful warrior families (Deshmukhs).
• After Shivaji’s death, effective power in the Maratha state was wielded by a family of Chitpavan Brahmanas. Poona became the capital of the Maratha kingdom.
• They succeeded in competing with the Mughals from the partisan warfare system.
• Between 1720 and 1761, the Maratha empire expanded. But their military campaings also made other rulers hostile towards the Marathas. As a result, they were not inclined to support the Marathas during the third battle of Panipat in 1761.
• The Marathas, along with realization of land revenue in their administration system, encouraged agriculture, revived trade.

→ The Jats:

• The Jats consolidated their power during the late seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries.
• Under their leader, Churaman, they acquired control over territories situated to the west dty of Delhi, and by the 1680s they begun dominating the region between the two imperial cities pf Delhi and Agra.
• Under Suraj Mai the kingdom of Bharatpur emerged as a strong state.