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Aurangzeb and the Decline of Mughal Authority
Aurangzeb was an energetic, capable, and determined ruler who presided over a stable and prosperous realm. Agriculture, trade, and industry were the true foundations of India's prosperity. Taxes on peasant agriculture were the principal source of government revenue. Aurangzeb's constant military campaigns were largely driven by the need to assert central control over restive provinces. -
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Aurangzeb's Rule
Mughal emperor who used military force to extend his power but whose constant campaigns drained the treasury and whose policy of favoring Islam at the expense of India's other religions generated social and political tensions. -
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Nader Shah
Iranian ruler who invaded India from the north in 1739, defeating the Mughal army and capturing the Mughal emperor, who handed over the keys to his treasury before Nader Shah agreed to withdraw. Mughal power went into permanent decline. -
Calcutta was Founded
Rammohun Roy's city of residence, had its origins as one such "factory" founded in 1690 when the nawab of Bengal granted a license to the English East India Company to settle and trade. -
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Aurangzeb Leaves Delhi
Aurangzeb left Delhi to live in military encampments, spending vast sums on his campaigns. As military affairs preoccupied the emperor, corruption and incompetence crept into the government. -
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Joseph Francois Duplex
Governor-general in charge of all French establishments in India. Duplex used diplomacy to forge alliances with local rulers and with their help defeated a much larger British force in the 1740s. -
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Lord Charles Cornwallis' Rule
British general who surrendered to American forces at Yorktown and later served as governor general of India and Ireland. -
Nader Shah's Army Invades India
After Nader Shah's armies stormed into Northern India, the Mughal emperor handed over his keys to the treasury, and even the fabled Peacock throne. -
Iranian Invasion
With the decline of Mughal authority after the Iranian of 1739, some European agents, like many provincial Indian rulers, seized the opportunity to expand their enterprises and retain more of their profits. -
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Seven Years' War
Threatened by French Advances in South Asia during the Seven Years' War, the British fortified their trading post at Calcutta. -
Battle of Plassey
Battle that gave the British East India Company control of the rich eastern Mughal province of Bengal. Sir Robert Clive used alliances with Indian rulers to defeat the larger forces of Siraj ud-Daulah, the nawab of Bengal. -
Bengal Famine of 1769
When a terrible famine in 1769 killed one-third of bengal's population, some in Parliament blamed the East India Company, which fed its own employees and soldiers but did nothing for starving Bengalis. -
Rammohun Roy's Return to Calcutta
Roy vigorously supported the development of an English language college for Calcutta. "The pupils will there acquire what was known two thousand years ago with the addition of vain and empty subtleties." -
British Defeat the Marathas
When Maratha armies threatened the British East India Company's factory at Bombay, the British engaged in a series of alliances and interventions in that region. Finally, in 1818 they defeated the Marathas, and from thence moved toward control of all South Asia.
