Since Shivaji's entourage is now Kabul-bound and no longer in the service of the Adil Shahs, I suppose this means that Venkoji never gets sent to Thanjavur. Without a Maratha kingdom in coastal TN, will the area will be contested by the Arcot Nawabs and the Madurai Nayaks? Since both are ostensibly Mughal feudatories, I doubt that Agra will refuse to address such a dispute.
Alamgirnama: A Mughal Timeline
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In the OTL Shivaji was imprisoned by Aurangzeb and he escaped out of the jail to return to the Maratha area where he established his independent kingdom in 1674. In this TL if Shivaji is treated with due respect by Aurangzeb, does it change the nature of their mutual relations and postpone the birth of the Maratha Kingdom?
I am curious if Shivaji and his descendants will try conquering the southern Deccan sultanates.
3. Mughal Safavid Wars
Mughal-Safavid Wars
An extract from "The Peacock Throne: The Mughal Empire Across 500 Years" by Tony Jones
Shivaji Bhonsle had already been developing a reputation in India- a ruthless and courageous warrior, a master strategist, a powerful lord; in other words, he was everything a medieval ruler could be. It was in campaigns in Persia, however, that he truly mastered his own capabilities. After stationing him in Kabul, Aurangzeb had given him one task- to retake the city of Kandahar.
Though Kandahar had been a historically important trading town, the volume of trade passing through it had declined by this time, as had its significance, in favour of overseas trade. It had, however, remained a major point of contention between the Mughal and Safavid dynasties throughout the years, swapping hands a number of times. The Safavid Shah Abbas the Second had most recently conquered it in 1653, and this despite not being particularly important militarily or economically, was a blow to Mughal prestige that demanded an answer. Prior to this point, all tussles over Kandahar had been almost a military minuet, a carefully rehearsed dance that neither side let obstruct from the generally friendly relationship between the two courts. However, upon Aurangzeb’s first receiving of a Safavid ambassador, things began to go south. The Shah had sent a letter to Aurangzeb that, though courteous, annoyingly mentioned Kandahar and the historical Safavid role in restoring the Gurkaniyan dynasty to power in Delhi. In response, Aurangzeb sent a letter that talked of his own exploits along with a gift of almost twice as much as the Shah had sent him, totalling seven hundred rupees. Far from being impressed, the Shah sent in response a most provocative letter, accusing him of being a murderer, who had only conquered his father, whose zamindars were almost in a revolt and finishes by threatening to invade India to “help restore order”.
This was a gauntlet thrown down and, after securing the aid of Shivaji, Aurangzeb picked it up. Upon Shivaji’s arrival in Kabul, he was quickly cognizant of the distance from the Mughal heartland around Agra and thus also realised that any attempt to take Kandahar would, even if successful, would be hard to consolidate. Thus, he came to the conclusion that in order to prevent the Safavid state from retaking Kandahar, he would need to make sure that they had bigger problems to deal with first, that would tire them out and leave them too weak to resist the Mughal armies that would in theory be on their way at this point. Whether he considered the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara is debatable but though it may have been because of cultural, logistical or linguistic problems, they were bypassed in his search for allies. Eventually, he settled upon Salim Khan Hotaki, an influential chief in the afghan Ghilji confederacy. An afghan-maratha joint commanded force then moved west first to Kandahar (where a large portion of Marathas remained as a defensive garrison for the rest of the wars) in 1667 and then further on towards Herat and then north-west to Meshed and Merv and finally to the shore of the Caspian sea itself. In these campaigns, lasting up until 1673, Shivaji perfected the strategies that had been developed for use against the Ahmednagar Sultanate and the Mughals, of armies that separated armies while marching and reuniting to battle, with an emphasis on mobility; such that by 1669, the Safavid state had lost the entire province of Safavid Khorasan.
This marks the first time the Mughal state used these tactics as it was used to having a numerical advantage but being extremely difficult to manoeuvre because of its size. Here, fairly deep in enemy territory, and without the commitment of the vast majority of Mughal armed forces, this relatively small army was freed from massive supply chains and was able to live more or less through loot. The Mughal state however, had no desire for more northern territory to administer that was of questionable value anyway and so instead of granting the afghans a mansab over the conquered area, Aurangzeb sent orders to create a new state of Gharzistan, based around Meshad, whose borders were guaranteed by the Mughal empire in exchange for tribute but was otherwise independent; this was emphasised by Salim Khan taking the title Amir, which had no ties to the Mughal bureaucracy. To secure the loyalty of this new state a marriage was arranged between Aurangzeb’s son, Mohammad Akbar and the daughter of Salim Khan, whose original name is unknown as she was promptly renamed Shams un-nissa upon arrival at the Mughal court. Kandahar and its surrounding areas, were given as mansab to a Maratha commander and brother of Shivaji, Venkoji Bhonsle as reward for his service in the battle for Herat especially. The vast convoys of loot taken back to Kabul meant that the Mughals almost broke even financially on the venture as well.
The wars took a hefty toll on the Safavid state- Abbas the second had died of illness in late 1666, his son Suleiman had ruled from 1666 to 1672, when he was deposed by the eunuchs in his own court in favour of his younger brother Hamza, who took Abbas the third as his own regnal title and sued for peace. The dynasty itself would never quite recover from this blow, though Persia would at various points regain some of Khorasan.
Shivaji himself returned to India as soon as his four years were up in 1670, long before the final conclusions of the war; reportedly commenting that as long as he lived he never wished to hear the name Kabul, or the memory of the cold itself would freeze him to death. Upon arrival at Delhi, he was given a massive imperial welcome as a war hero and Aurangzeb himself conferred upon him the title “Sher-e Kabul”, or the lion of Kabul. As Maratha forces returned from the north, they were employed to put down various rebellions, aiding in the Satnami rebellion, the Jat rebellion and the Sikh rebellion. Meanwhile, on the other side of the empire, Mughal forces had been badly defeated by Ahom kingdoms in Assam but this didn’t really pose a threat to any part of the empire proper.
With their northern borders now secured, the Mughal machine was free to turn its gaze to the Deccan.
Cultural Developments of the Same Period
Aurangzeb’s allegiance to orthodox Islam and his personal piety are indisputable and led to some changed in court ceremony. In the late 1660s and 1670’s Aurangzeb’s court became more austere as he prohibited the use of gold in mens clothes, ended the hindu practice of the emperor weighing himself against gold on his birthdays and ceased the practice of presenting himself to the public in his jaroka-i-darshan (viewing window) because it wasn’t in accordance with Sharia. He also dismissed musicians and official historians (who he thought were a sign of vanity). Once, when a group of musicians made a joint complaint, they used the metaphor that Aurangzeb had killed Music, to which he replied “you should make preparations for her funeral then, and be sure to pray for her soul for me”. Painting was also an art that declined in the Mughal court, but because those painters (and musicians and historians) moved to regional courts such as the Rajputs’ the Marathas’ and the Deccan courts, this period saw the initial growth of a more strongly regional identity and flowering of poetry in regional languages and art in regional styles. Ethnomusicologist Anjali Kaur has suggested that rather than condemning Aurangzeb for his marginalisation of the arts, he should be credited for causing a dispersal of patronage away from the imperial centre to regional centres. Outside of his own court, Aurangzeb made no effort to ban any arts- literature especially thrived in the Delhi region under the sponsorship of Aurangzeb's daughter Zeb-al-Nissa, who was herself an accomplished poet. A number of poets still admired today produced work in this decade, some of it outright satire of Aurangzeb. Around the time music was banned, a number of other immoral activities were banned, including cannabis, gambling, prostitution and alcoholism (Manucci, a european visitor to court tells us “upon ascending to the throne and seeing all the nobles drinking liquor, the Moghul once exclaimed that there is no one in court who does not drink but for him and the Kazi. In respect to the kazi, however he is wrong for I myself sent him a bottle of wine every day which he drank in secret”)
While such orders reflect Aurangzebs orthodoxy in religious beliefs, he wasn’t very consistent in his actions. Despite his orders against ostentatious clothing, he continued to display himself on Shah Jahan’s gold bejewelled Peacock Throne. And while luxury goods were discouraged, Aurangzeb still gave ceremonial gifts to major nobles of elaborate robes and jewelled swords- though he may have wanted an austere court, Aurangzeb knew that abandoning the Mughal shows of wealth and splendour, he would weaken his own legitimacy. Similarly, portraiture of Aurangzeb in this period shows him with a halo, even when kneeling in prayer.
Shah Jahan’s prolific patronage of architecture would remain unmatched by Aurangzeb, but in accordance with his own personal beliefs, he built several mosques- the Badshahi Mosque is still the largest in India, and the mosque in the private complex of Shah Jahans fort is arguably the most elegant. On both these structures, we see ornate décor of the sort that was reserved for palace architecture in earlier periods but now transferred to the type of building Aurangzeb most valued. He also built a tomb for his first wife, Dilras Banu Begum, that was modelled on the Taj Mahal. This was the last of the large structural tombs in Early Mughal style. Unlike in Shah Jahans reign, the emperor was not the taste setter for the elite and the nobility began to make use of design elements that symbolised semi divine status, that were originally reserved for imperial use, symbolising the devaluing of central authority that was beginning to occur.
Perhaps the best reflection of Aurangzeb’s personal beliefs is the Fatwa-I Alamgiri, which he commissioned between 1667 and 1675. This multi volume text, originally written in Arabic and then translated into Persian, is a compilation of legal decisions consistent with the Sunni Hanafi school of law, regarding many issues where Islamic judges in India tended to follow local custom rather than Sharia. By providing various interpretations of law in a single text, the Fatwa allowed judges to see the range of ways that sharia could be applied and thus encouraged them to use it more. Much of the text has no bearing on non-Muslims, sections that deal with taxes, especially agrarian taxation, being an attempt to reconcile Mughal and Islamic practices (Akbars uniform land tax wasn’t mandated by sharia). The complexity of the various rates, rules and exceptions must have caused significant confusion and increased the corruption of the bureaucracy.
In this period as well, we begin to see Aurangzebs religious beliefs shaping policy- in 1669, he banned the Shi’a muharram procession and in 1671, he placed some restrictions on Divali and Holi celebrations. In that year he also ruled that revenue officers in the crownlands could only be Muslim, seeking converts through the lure of office, though this failed so badly that by 1673, he had to modify it so that only half had to be Muslim. This, and the policy of favouring new converts in political disputes, though not successful in this instance showed Aurangzebs early refinements of the manipulation of human greed towards his own ends, which as we all know was the defining characteristic of his reign as a whole. Restrictions on Hindus were never even nominally imposed on the Rajputs, the Marathas or any other community that the Mughal state had need of and when asked about the continuing prominence of Shia Muslims in the empire he replied “what connection have worldly affairs with religion? And what right have matters of religion to enter bigotry? For you is your religion and me is mine... Wise men disapprove of the removal of able officers from their offices”
Ok that was a lot to write. I think its quite a good idea to include periodic updates on culture as well as politics so this is me trying that out. The political situation is basically a Mughal sponsored, earlier Hotaki state in Safavid Khorasan while the cultural situation has only the slightest of differences at this point (the 1669 edict of temple destruction is avoided because there is a major campaign happening commanded by a Hindu, so he doesn't want to antagonize there)
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What Maratha kingdom? Shivaji is one of Aurangzebs best generals, why on earth would he secede? wink wink
Nice update but quick question, wasn't the Fatwa-I-Alamgiri relied upon by Wahabbists in OTL?
Well like I say, it includes a variety of potential judgements, the strictest of those being adopted by wahabbism. Nevertheless, no wahabbi would’ve considered Aurangzeb a Muslim because of his veneration of saints, celebrating the prophets birthday, and ornamental mosques. Not to mention his outright unwillingness to attempt to convert any Hindu or Shi’a mansabdars.
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
What is Aurangzebs view on European Companies in India? Okay or nah.?
Well, he mostly just didn’t care. It was a nice little extra source of revenue for the central government, so he had no problem allowing factories to be built and they for the most part posed no threat. The major exception OTL was the Child’s War, which was basically the British East India Company trying to carve out their own state in Chittagong after they were refused a firman guaranteeing trade privileges. It did not work. They were soundly defeated and forced to pay a massive indemnity. As well as that, Aurangzeb retaliated against the EIC for British piracy. A variation of this is in the works, but perhaps with a few different outcomes.
Though the Mughal Empire was usually indifferent to the commercial activities of the Europeans there were occasions when the Empire intervened with force. In Hughly in Bengal the Portuguese obtained a permission from the Emperor to set up commercial facilities around AD 1579. Slowly they strengthened their position and started to collect certain taxes. They also kidnapped orphan children and converted them. Among those kidnapped were two slave girls of Mumtaz Mahal. This enraged Shahjahan who had become the emperor at the time. He ordered Kassim Ali Khan, the Governor of Bengal to teach the Portuguese a lesson. In 1632 a large Mughal army led by Kassim Ali Khan surrounded Hughly and defeated the Portuguese. Many Portuguese were killed in the battle and the others were taken as prisoners and taken to Agra. There most of the prisoners were tortured cruelly and died.
4.Deccan Conquests
Into the Deccan
An extract from "The Peacock Throne: The Mughal Empire Across 500 Years" by Tony Jones
Shivaji stayed at Delhi for the summer of 1671 and from almost as soon as he arrived he began asking for the title of Maharaja from Aurangzeb. He was a proud man, perhaps overly conscious of his dignity, and now craved the status to match his military prestige. Aurangzeb initially refused outright, perhaps on the instigation of his sister Jahanara, who was still resentful of Shivaji for his having looted her jagir in Surat almost a decade prior, or perhaps because of heavy Rajput opposition, as they all viewed Shivaji as an upstart of immense proportions, who now was claiming titles that were their traditional reservation. In any case, this refusal was taken badly by Shivaji and he created what can only be described as a scene, barricading himself in his rooms and refusing to talk to anyone for the better part of the next day. Aurangzeb later had a change of heart and assented to giving him the title of Maharaja, but still had to show that such behaviour could not be tolerated.
In reaction to this breach of decorum, Aurangzeb sent him back to his birthplace, en route to yet further military campaigning against the Deccani sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda. This was in fact, not a prospect that in itself was disagreeable to Shivaji- he had missed his homeland and hungered to be back in his own territory, but the way in which he had been dismissed hurt his pride and caused a cooling of relationships. In this period, Shivaji carried out devastating penetrative raids into Bijapur and Golconda, going as far as the world famous diamond mines in Golconda and amassing a considerable personal wealth through loot. Here as well was the point in which Shivaji appointed his ashtapradhan, a council of eight ministers to advise him on statecraft.
Meanwhile, in north India, rebellions by small local magnates were starting. As soon as the Jat rebellion had been subdued, the Satnami rebellion began. This was an interesting case because it was a group of Hindu fanatics protesting Aurangzebs religious policies that covered themselves in rags and ashes and were believed by the Mughal army to have supernatural powers granted by the witch who led them. This took Aurangzebs personal attention as he decided to fight fire with fire and played up his own piety to supernatural levels; he wrote prayers and gave them to the Mughal commanders, thus he claimed, Allah would not allow any harm to fall upon them. In due course, this rebellion too was crushed. Finally in 1674, he decided that he would put an end to the sikh community, as they had been increasingly becoming a political power rather than a heretical movement. To this end, he summoned Shivaji up from the Deccan and charged him with destroying the Sikh threat.
Shivaji duly made his way up to the Panjab, but not, as it turns out as a particularly loyal servant of the emperor. Once he arrived in the vicinity of the area, Shivaji disguised himself as a travelling merchant and visited a Sikh gurdwara. All versions of the tale agree that, impressed by the community service ethos of Guru Tegh Bahadur and his followers, Shivaji resolved not to destroy them. Instead, he took the Guru to a private place and revealed himself as the legendary Shivaji- it is not difficult to imagine the panic that the Guru must have felt at this point, so it is commendable that he did not call for help or draw his own sword. Instead a round of furious negotiations began where Shivaji used all his knowledge of his emperor to fashion an agreement that there was even a small chance that Agra would accept.
The final letter to Aurangzeb, drafted by Shivaji’s Persian secretary, was brilliantly composed, filled with koranic verses and Islamic precedent (just the sort of thing needed to convince Aurangzeb) whereby the Sikh community was presented as a heresy, but an intermediate heresy designed and necessary to acclimatise the Hindu masses to orthodox islam by bringing them into contact with a moderated version of it. This was evident, claimed Shivaji in the common Sikh and Sufi traditions, especially that of Langar, or the free community meal. To clarify, this was most certainly not what was preached by the Gurus and they privately maintained its purity and superiority to Islam- even so, for the purpose of avoiding bloodshed, Shivaji convinced Tegh Bahadur to go along with it. The Guru swore that he would only convert Hindus and allow any and all Islamic preachers to preach to the Sikhs, as well as that the Sikh community would demilitarise and aid in Sufi langars instead of holding their own. In return, they would be left unmolested, with their security guaranteed by the Marathas (it is doubtful whether the Marathas could have provided this in the long term, but it appears Tegh Bahadur, shown to the right, was slightly awed by the legend of Shivaji and the daring he had shown).
Aurangzeb cannot but have admired the style of writing in the letter, but predictably, the contents enraged him- not only was one of his most valuable generals aiding a rebel, a kafir was quoting the Quran at him. In his rage, he sent the letter to his sister Jahanara, presumably in the expectation that as she too hated Shivaji, they could join in their hatred. She however, took much the opposite view. Not only did she admire the style of the letter, she wholeheartedly agreed with the contents- she had after all, supported her religiously tolerant older brother Dara in the previous succession wars. So, she urged her brother to listen and perhaps simply because he hadn’t expected her to disagree with him, he listened. The Sikhs were safe, for now- but if they ever broke the terms of this treaty, and became a political threat, he promised not a single one of them would be spared.
This was an immense political triumph for Shivaji, but now he had to face the full wrath of a Timurid Shahenshah. He was forced to make yet another grand bargain- he would personally bring the entirety of the Bijapur sultanate into Mughal hands within the next two years, or, he said, he would commit suicide.
This, Aurangzeb could agree to, but for such a chronically paranoid man as Aurangzeb, allowing Shivaji home unguarded would have been the ultimate folly. So, in his characteristic fashion, he decided to do it himself, and go with Shivaji. First, he had to deal with his chief Kazi, declaring that it was unislamic for him to attack these kingdoms on account of their being muslim (probably a result of a bribe)- Aurangzeb responded by saying that Shiahs didn’t deserve the protection given to other muslims and named his favourite dagger Rafizi-Kush, the heretic slayer. Setting up a base in Aurangabad in the winter of 1674, Aurangzeb and Shivaji prepared for a joint assault. Now that Aurangzeb himself had descended south, there was little hope for either Bijapur or Golconda. Though theoretically, they were sizable states with large armies and significant wealth, they were even more faction ridden than the Mughals and both of their internal affairs were chaotic. In 1672, Adil Shah the Second of the Bijapur Sultanate had died, leaving in the throne his four year old son. Sikander Shah. The sole reason the Bijapuris hadn’t been the focus of a major offensive was that they were sending significant bribes to most of the Mughal and Maratha leaders. Now that Aurangzeb had arrived however, there was no possibility of delaying the inevitable. Still, they tried to bribe Aurangzeb, multiple times and each time he took the bribe and kept on fighting. The siege of Bijapur lasted 13 months and eventually they managed to bribe their way into the city. During those months, Shivaji and Aurangzeb spent a considerable amount of time together and while maintaining their suspicion and to some extent hatred of each other, found a sort of camaraderie in each others wit, austere lifestyles and intelligence in matters of statecraft. Additionally, they were both especially good tacticians and didn’t much care for the Rajput view of war as an end in itself- for this pair, winning was the only thing that mattered. Finally, though aided by a contingent from Golkonda, which attempted to lift the siege, the city of Bijapur fell in January 1676. Additionally during the seige of Bijapur, a Maratha contingent led by Shivaji's brother Venkoji was asked to assist in a succession dispute in the kingdom of Thanjavur but when he got there, he set himself up as the independent ruler.
After this, Aurangzeb decided to press on into Golconda without pause. Here, the inefficiencies of the Mughal army became especially apparent. Most generals preferred to extend campaigns for as long as possible to maintain their own power, as in court they would just become another flunky while on a campaign they had supreme authority. Additionally the diamond mines of Golconda funded bribe after bribe and the Shia Mughal mansabdars were reluctant to destroy the last Shia monarchy in India. Aurangzeb and Shivaji spent many nights discussing how to fix these problems and others as well. While besieging Golkonda fort, the monsoon struck and an epidemic flared up in the Mughal camp and still, Aurangzeb would not lift the siege. By May 1677, Aurangzeb had conquered the entirety of the Deccan. While the siege was still going on, however, the city of Hyderabad was subject to full fledged loot and rapine, with Khafi Khan estimating that the sum of the loot totalled 50 million rupees. Once again, the Mughals managed to bribe their way into the fort. Abul Hasan, who had ruled Golkonda for just six years, surrendered with dignity. When he realised the Mughals had penetrated the fort, he met with his harem and then moved to the throne room to watch his unbidden guests entering. He saluted them, greeted them in the most elegant of Persian as though nothing at all was wrong, and then called for horse to escort him to Aurangzeb. He was given an annual pension of 50,000 rupees and confined to Daulatabad fort for the rest of his life.
Now however, the problem to consider was, what next? Would he return to Delhi? Asad Khan, the wazir petitioned thus “Praise be to God! Through the grace of the omnipotent, two great kingdoms have been conquered- it is now good policy to return to paradise like Hindustan, that the world might know there is nothing more for the emperor to do”.
The reply he received was outraged- “I wonder how an all-knowing hereditary servant like yourself could make such a request- if you want people to know there is nothing left to be done, it would be contrary to the truth. For as long as a single breath remains in my body there is no release from labour and work”. It appears Aurangzeb simply did not know how to win. Luckily for him, he had Shivaji, who reminded him of all the discussions they had had about the rot at the heart of the Mughal state. Aurangzeb had always been a particularly reform minded individual and one of the main reasons he had garnered enough support to become emperor was that people assumed that his diligence would revitalise the government. Unfortunately, Aurangzeb suffered from such a lack of imagination that he had been unable to think of much that would actually help, partly leading to his focus on military campaigns- he attacked problems like a clerk, not a king. Meeting Shivaji, and in a sense finding a kindred spirit had given Aurangzeb a lot of the solutions he had been looking for and so Shivaji managed to convince him that he would do more good for the empire in Delhi than in the frontiers.
On the way back, Shivaji took leave of the imperial company and went back to Pune, where he shocked the entirety of the Mughal court by claiming the ancient Hindu title of Chattrapati. Well, the entire court apart from Aurangzeb that is, who had never trusted him in the first place. Shivaji’s motivation for this was that even though he sported the title of Raja and the Marathas were now the dominant military power in the Deccan, he was considered by many of his contemporaries as a mere warlord or even just a fabulously successful bandit. This condition was common to almost every dynastic founder in medieval india, but Shivaji craved something that would put him above the other Maratha chieftains,now and forever. He first hired a team of brahmins that discovered he was actually descended from the Rajput Sisodias of Mewar, who already traced their descent from Lord Rama, who was of course, the omnipotent Vishnu himself. Not only was this the start of a new dynasty, it was the beginning of the Hindu political renaissance and Shivaji took care to have his pandits trace and restore long neglected rituals (though the centuries since a full fledged Indic coronation had happened in the region led rather to a sort of invented tradition, which was in fact, quite new). Preparations for the coronation took several months and Shivaji took care to feed the brahmins luxurious meals and commissioned two epic poems, one in Sanskrit and the other in Braj Bhasa, the dominant literary language of north india at the time. Though he increased his legitimacy using Hindu symbols, the emphasis must be placed on the fact that he did it to increase his legitimacy, seeing as he also used many islamicate symbols and governmental ideas and reflected the extremely composite and tolerant culture prevalent in the Deccan, where many poems started with invocations to the goddess Saraswati and then to Muhammad, no matter what religion the author was.
It is almost as if Aurangzeb expected this move, as immediately afterwards, he reinstated the Jizya tax, leading most historians to believe that he had expected it because Shivaji had talked about it earlier. In any case, a spate of a few temple destructions and border skirmishes, it didn’t really change the relationship between Aurangzeb and Shivaji- they still were ideologically opposed to each other and to an extent hated each other, but also respected each others strength and were willing to work together as long as it served both their purposes. After being crowned, Shivaji was summoned back to Delhi in late 1679, from which he would never return. At this point, he also named his ten year old son Rajaram as his heir apparent over his older son Sambhaji, whom he considered unfit to rule. He sent letters to Delhi, asking for permission to reform the administration of the newly conquered sultanates as he had reformed his own jagir, which was promptly declined. This enraged Shivaji and he did it anyway, abolishing the Jagirdari system and introducing the ryotwari system amongst other things, thus making the Deccan the first medieval region to abolish feudalism. This was only really enacted in areas directly ruled by Maratha chiefs in the ex-Bijapur sultanate, Thanjavur and a few other places.
Much has been made of Aurangzeb re-instituting the Jizya. His own sister Jahanara petitioned him to undo this, using the metaphor that the Mughal throne was a ship in the sea of Hindustan, and the Jizya was a storm that could ruin them all. He proceeded to simply ignore her and bade her good day, a move which cut the princess to the very quick. Crowds gathered in Delhi to protest the Jizya such that even with an armed guard, the imperial procession couldn’t reach the Friday mosque and when some officers said they wouldn’t collect the Jizya, Aurangzeb said that though any other tax could be lifted, the Jizya was the one thing he could never compromise on or the entire imperial administration would fall.
When Shivaji arrived at Delhi he immediately began putting pressure on the emperor to enact his reforms over the entire empire, which Aurangzeb was now forced to do, not because Shivaji said so, but because he had planned to enact them in a few years to lessen the chance people might think he had been influenced by Shivaji during their campaigning together. Now however, he had two options, either to copy the Deccan reforms later, and be seen as copying a mere Bhumia or to act now and pretend that he had told Shivaji to enact these reforms just before rolling them across the entire empire.
It was an embarrassment of kingly proportions either way, for which Shivaji was immediately confined to house arrest. The course was obvious however and Aurangzeb soon issued farmans that would fundamentally change the nature of the Mughal state. While in imprisonment, Shivaji fell ill with dysentery and died in 1680, leading to heated debate that has never really stopped over whether Aurangzeb had him killed. To avoid restating the arguments of others, this will not be covered in depth here, though it does seem prudent to mention that an awful lot of Aurangzebs enemies died of illnesses while imprisoned, including his own brother and father.
Aurangzeb continues his transformation of the empire, extending his sway to cover the Deccan sultanates, extinguishing for the moment the independent tradition they maintained- how long it lasts remains to be seen. Shivaji is a useful sword the emperor can point towards his enemies, such as Jats and Satnamis, ensuring that long lasting warfare never happens. It's also a useful reminder that peasant rebellions are a fact of Mughal life, a constant background presence, that could never come close to threatening the integrity of the state- rather, they are an opportunity to renegotiate local hierarchies and demonstrate to Mughal sovereigns that the revolt leaders are worthy of the status they demand. Aurangzeb imposes Jizya, and though on balance it loses money as jizya collectors need payment and yet collection is so patchy, he feels he has to. The Sikh community continues its existence as a quasi parastate within the empire, though relations do not come to a crisis as in Otl.
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Didn't Venkoji get Kandahar as a jagir in the last update? Who governs that land now?
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