WI: Aurangzeb crushes the Marathas

So, as the Marathas began to challenge the supremacy of the Mughals, there was a big war that lasted 27 years between the Marathas and Aurangzeb the Mughal Emperor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_27_years

(worst Wikipedia article ever)

What would've happened if Aurangzeb had managed to win, early or late in the conflict? Would the decline of the Mughals have still been certain? Would the actions of the British have been different?

If they would've won late in the conflict, when they had had many losses, would the Mughal Empire still have been split up in multiple kingdoms, like IOTL?
 
So, as the Marathas began to challenge the supremacy of the Mughals, there was a big war that lasted 27 years between the Marathas and Aurangzeb the Mughal Emperor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_27_years

(worst Wikipedia article ever)

What would've happened if Aurangzeb had managed to win, early or late in the conflict? Would the decline of the Mughals have still been certain? Would the actions of the British have been different?

If they would've won late in the conflict, when they had had many losses, would the Mughal Empire still have been split up in multiple kingdoms, like IOTL?

Aurangzeb's problem was not the Marathas. It was his policy and the overextended Mughal empire. There was no way he could rule south of the Vindhyas from Delhi and if he came to the Deccan, the northern regions would rise in revolt. Add to all this was his strict version of Islam, when the majority of his kingdom was Hindu, and everyone was fed up of him and the Mughal empire.

The Marathas were a symptom of the disease - rising in a vacuum of power after the fall of the Deccan sultanates. For the Mughal empire to be stable in any degree, they need to return north of the Vindhyas, and accept token tribute from the regions south. And even then, they need a return to Akbar's policy of relative toleration. Aurangzeb's pure Islam (which was itself a consequence of his fight for the throne with his more liberal brother, Dara Shikoh) is a recipe for disaster. But in his war for the throne, he had come to rely on more conservative factions in the empire, and they demanded their share of the flesh after the war. Which meant that the empire was doomed.
 
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