Rajputs, Jats, Sikhs & Travancore: 18th-Century Regional States

The Regional States: a Classification

🎯 Exam priority: Foundational. Tier 3 — tested occasionally and/or sets up the storyline; master the key facts and move on.

Why this topic matters for UPSC. Completes the 18th-century map of Indian powers; lighter Prelims weight, but the Sikh empire and the Punjab annexation (1849) occasionally appear.

• Ranjit Singh's Sikh empire, the Anglo-Sikh Wars, and the absorption of Punjab into British India are the key points.

• Jat resistance (Bharatpur) and Travancore's early British alliance are incidental.

• Read for context; don't over-invest.

"On the debris of the Mughal Empire and its political system arose a large number of independent and semi-independent powers." This is one of the most important — and most heavily tested — chapters of 18th-century India. As the Mughal centre crumbled after Aurangzeb, the provinces broke away, and a whole landscape of regional states took shape. It is these powers that the British would face, and absorb, one by one.

The Regional States: a Classification

• Historians group the 18th-century states into three broad types. (1) Successor states — old Mughal provinces whose governors made themselves virtually independent while still acknowledging the emperor in form: Hyderabad (Nizam-ul-Mulk), Bengal (Murshid Quli Khan) and Avadh (Saadat Khan). (2) New / independent states set up by rebels against Mughal authority: the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Jats, and the Afghan Rohillas. (3) Independent kingdoms that had never been part of the Mughal core and now rose on their own — most notably Mysore and Travancore in the south, and the long-autonomous Rajput states.

• For all their differences, these states shared a common character, one historian notes. Their rulers established law and order and viable administrations, and their politics were "invariably non-communal or secular" — they "did not discriminate on religious grounds in public appointments". Yet none of them succeeded in arresting the economic crisis: a swelling class of zamindars and jagirdars went on fighting over a declining agricultural income, and the states' military and administrative weaknesses left them open to British conquest.

The Rajput States: Decline, Feuds & Mughal Weakness

The Rajput states were old kingdoms, never fully absorbed by the Mughals, that now used Mughal weakness to free themselves — but they were crippled by their own divisions.

The Rajput States: Decline, Feuds & Mughal Weakness

• "The principal Rajput states took advantage of the growing weakness of Mughal power to virtually free themselves from central control," while at the same time increasing their influence within the Empire. Under the later emperors Farrukh Siyar and Muhammad Shah, the rulers of Amber and Marwar (Jodhpur) were even appointed governors of important Mughal provinces such as Agra, Gujarat and Malwa.

• But the Rajputana states "continued to be as divided as before". The larger states expanded at the cost of their weaker neighbours — Rajput and non-Rajput alike — and were "constantly involved in petty quarrels and civil wars". Their internal politics were marked by "the same type of corruption, intrigue, and treachery as prevailed at the Mughal court"; Ajit Singh of Marwar was killed by his own son. These feuds, not foreign conquest, were the great weakness of Rajput power in the 18th century.

Sawai Jai Singh of Amber: the Scientist-King

Out of this divided Rajputana rose one extraordinary figure — a statesman who was, above all, a man of science.

Sawai Jai Singh of Amber: the Scientist-King

• "The most outstanding Rajput ruler of the 18th century was Raja Sawai Jai Singh of Amber (1681-1743)" — "a distinguished statesman, law-maker, and reformer. But most of all he shone as a man of science in an age when Indians were oblivious to scientific progress." He founded the city of Jaipur (on territory taken from the Jats) and made it "a great seat of science and art", built "upon strictly scientific principles and according to a regular plan", its broad streets intersecting at right angles. He ruled Jaipur for nearly 44 years, from 1699 to 1743.

• "Jai Singh was above everything a great astronomer." He erected observatories (the Jantar Mantar) with accurate and advanced instruments — some of his own invention — at Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain, Varanasi and Mathura. He drew up a set of astronomical tables, the Zij Muhammadshahi, to help people make observations, and had Euclid's Elements of Geometry translated into Sanskrit, along with works on trigonometry and Napier's work on logarithms.

• He was also a social reformer: he tried to enforce a law to reduce the lavish expenditure a Rajput had to incur on a daughter's wedding — an expense "which often led to infanticide". (A separate UPSC/CDS source remembers him for promoting widow remarriage, though the standard text stresses his marriage-expenditure reform.)

The Jats: Churaman, Badan Singh & Suraj Mal of Bharatpur

South of Delhi, a "caste of agriculturists" turned peasant revolt into a kingdom — the Jats of Bharatpur.

The Jats: Churaman, Badan Singh & Suraj Mal of Bharatpur

• "The Jats, a caste of agriculturists, lived in the region around Delhi, Agra and Mathura." Oppression by Mughal officials drove the Jat peasants around Mathura to revolt under their Jat zamindars in 1669 and again in 1688. The risings were crushed, but after Aurangzeb's death the Jats "created disturbances all around Delhi". Though "originally a peasant uprising," the Jat revolt, led by zamindars, "soon became predatory" — they plundered rich and poor, Hindu and Muslim alike, and took active part in the court intrigues at Delhi, "often changing sides to suit their own advantage".

• "The Jat state of Bharatpur was set up by Churaman and Badan Singh." Churaman was the early Jat leader who built up the power (and, in the earlier chapters, joined Bahadur Shah's campaign against Banda Bahadur); Badan Singh consolidated the principality of Bharatpur.

• "The Jat power reached its highest glory under Suraj Mal, who ruled from 1756 to 1763 and who was an extremely able administrator and soldier and a very wise statesman." He extended his authority "from the Ganga in the East to Chambal in the South, the Subah of Agra in the West to the Subah of Delhi in the North", his state including the districts of Agra, Mathura, Meerut and Aligarh. A contemporary historian called him "the Plato of the Jat tribe" — popularly, the "Jat Ulysses" — saying that in "prudence and skill, and ability to manage the revenue and civil affairs he had no equal among the grandees of Hindustan except Asaf Jah". After his death in 1763 the Jat state declined and was split up among petty zamindars, most of whom lived by plunder.

The Rohillas & the Bundelas: the Minor States

Two smaller powers shared this same region between Delhi and the Himalayan foothills — the Afghan Rohillas and the Hindu Bundelas.

The Rohillas & the Bundelas: the Minor States

• The Rohillas (Rohilkhand): in the disorder following Nadir Shah's invasion, the Afghan adventurer Ali Muhammad Khan carved out a separate principality, Rohilkhand, in the foothills of the Himalayas — between the Ganga in the south and the Kumaon hills in the north — with its capital first at Aonla and later at Rampur. "The Rohelas clashed constantly with Avadh, Delhi and the Jats." (A related Afghan adventurer, Muhammad Khan Bangash, set up a principality around Farrukhabad.)

• The Bundelas: the Bundela Rajputs of Bundelkhand were another autonomous power of the region. Chhatarsal, the Bundela chief, had risen against Aurangzeb and was later conciliated by Bahadur Shah, remaining a loyal feudatory. The Rohillas were a "new state" founded by rebellion; the Bundelas, like the Rajputs, an older autonomous kingdom.

The Sikhs: the Khalsa, Banda Bahadur & the Misls

In the Punjab, a religious community founded by Guru Nanak was forged into a fighting power — and then into a state.

The Sikhs: the Khalsa, Banda Bahadur & the Misls

• "Founded at the end of the 15th century by Guru Nanak, the Sikh religion spread among the Jat peasantry and other lower castes of the Punjab." The transformation of the Sikhs into "a militant, fighting community" was begun by Guru Hargobind (1606-1645), but it was under Guru Gobind Singh (1664-1708), the tenth and last Guru — who founded the Khalsa (from 1699) — "that they became a political and military force". Guru Gobind Singh waged constant war against Aurangzeb and the hill rajas; after Aurangzeb's death he joined Bahadur Shah's camp as a high noble and was treacherously murdered in the Deccan.

• After his death "the institution of Guruship came to an end" and leadership passed to Banda Singh, known as Banda Bahadur. Banda "rallied together the Sikh peasants of the Punjab" and "carried on a vigorous though unequal struggle against the Mughal army for eight years"; he was captured in 1715 and put to death, and Sikh power declined for a time.

• The invasions of Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali, which dislocated Punjab's administration, gave the Sikhs their chance to rise again. With Abdali's withdrawal they "began to fill the political vacuum", and between 1765 and 1800 they brought the Punjab and Jammu under their control. The Sikhs were organised into "12 misls or confederacies", originally "based on the principle of equality", with every member having an equal voice in electing the misl's chief. Gradually this democratic character disappeared as "powerful chiefs dominated them" and quarrelled with one another, setting themselves up as independent chieftains.

Ranjit Singh & the Kingdom of Lahore

Out of the squabbling misls rose the man who would unite them into a kingdom — though that empire's full story belongs to the Anglo-Sikh chapter.

Ranjit Singh & the Kingdom of Lahore

• "At the end of the 18th century, Ranjit Singh, chief of the Sukerchakia Misl, rose into prominence" — "a strong and courageous soldier, an efficient administrator, and a skilful diplomat… a born leader of men." He captured Lahore in 1799 and Amritsar in 1802, brought all the Sikh chiefs west of the Sutlej under his control, and established his own kingdom in the Punjab (the Kingdom of Lahore). He later conquered Kashmir, Peshawar and Multan.

• He built "a powerful, disciplined, and well-equipped army along European lines", recruiting not only Sikhs but Gurkhas, Biharis, Oriyas, Pathans, Dogras and Punjabi Muslims; it is said he possessed "the second best army in Asia", after the Company's. He was tolerant in religion — his trusted minister Fakir Azizuddin was Muslim, his finance minister Dewan Dina Nath a Hindu — "in no sense was the Punjab ruled by Ranjit Singh a Sikh state".

• When the British forbade him in 1809 to cross the Sutlej (the Treaty of Amritsar) and took the Sikh states east of the river under their protection, "he kept quiet, for he realised that his strength was no match for the British". By this "diplomatic realism" he saved his kingdom in his lifetime — but he "did not remove the foreign threat, he only left it to his successors". After his death the kingdom was torn by an internal struggle for power, and the British moved in and conquered it. (His reign and the Anglo-Sikh Wars are covered in detail in the dedicated article.)

Travancore: Martanda Varma & the Defeat of the Dutch (Colachel, 1741)

Far to the south, untouched by the Mughal core, a small Kerala kingdom rose under a remarkable statesman — and won one of the few clear Indian victories over a European power.

Travancore: Martanda Varma & the Defeat of the Dutch (Colachel, 1741)

• At the start of the 18th century, Kerala was "divided among a large number of feudal chiefs and rajas" — the four chief powers being Calicut (under the Zamorin), Chirakkal, Cochin and Travancore. "The kingdom of Travancore rose into prominence after 1729 under King Martanda Varma, one of the leading statesmen of the 18th century," who "combined rare foresight and strong determination with courage and daring".

• Martanda Varma subdued his feudatories, conquered Quilon and Elayadam, and "defeated the Dutch and thus ended their political power in Kerala" — the decisive blow being the Battle of Colachel (1741), in which the Travancore army routed the Dutch East India Company; the Dutch never recovered their power on the Malabar coast. He raised "a strong army on the western model with the help of European officers", armed it with modern weapons, and built a modern arsenal.

• With this new army he expanded northwards, so that "the boundaries of Travancore soon extended from Kanya Kumari to Cochin". He undertook irrigation works, built roads and canals, and encouraged foreign trade. By 1763 all the petty Kerala principalities had been "absorbed or subordinated by the three big states of Cochin, Travancore and Calicut". Haidar Ali of Mysore began his invasion of Kerala in 1766, annexing northern Kerala (including the Zamorin's lands) up to Cochin — the Mysore/Carnatic pressure that would soon bring the south into the Anglo-French and Anglo-Mysore wars.

• Travancore was also a cultural centre: its capital Trivandrum became "a famous centre of Sanskrit scholarship", and Martanda Varma's successor Rama Varma was himself a poet, scholar, musician and actor who spoke English fluently and read newspapers from London, Calcutta and Madras.

Why This Matters for UPSC

• Prelims: the three-fold classification (successor / new / independent kingdoms); Sawai Jai Singh of Amber (Jaipur, the Jantar Mantar observatories at Delhi/Jaipur/Ujjain/Varanasi/Mathura, the Zij Muhammadshahi); the Jats (Churaman, Badan Singh, Suraj Mal of Bharatpur, the "Plato of the Jats"); the Rohillas (Rohilkhand) and Bundelas (Chhatarsal); the Sikhs (Guru Gobind Singh and the Khalsa, Banda Bahadur, the 12 misls, the Sukerchakia misl, Ranjit Singh); and Travancore (Martanda Varma, the defeat of the Dutch at Colachel 1741 — the verified PYQ below).

• Mains: the character of the 18th-century regional states (were they signs of decline or of a new political order?); why these states, individually strong, failed to resist British conquest; and the secular, non-communal nature of their administrations.

Further Reading

• Standard NCERT-level texts and reference books on modern Indian history (any UPSC reading list).

Test Yourself: Practice Questions & PYQs

Test how well you can explain the 18th-century regional states — the Rajputs, Jats, Sikhs and Travancore. Decide your answer, then open Show answer.

Practice Questions

Q1. In one historian's classification, states like the Marathas, the Sikhs and the Jats are best described as:

• (a) European trading settlements

• (b) new states founded by rebellion against Mughal authority

• (c) successor states carved out by Mughal governors

• (d) tributary states of the Nizam

Q2. The most outstanding Rajput ruler of the 18th century, famous as an astronomer and town-planner, was:

• (a) Sawai Jai Singh of Amber

• (b) Chhatarsal Bundela

• (c) Ajit Singh of Marwar

• (d) Suraj Mal of Bharatpur

Q3. Sawai Jai Singh erected astronomical observatories (Jantar Mantar) at:

• (a) only Delhi and Jaipur

• (b) Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain, Varanasi and Mathura

• (c) Calcutta, Madras and Bombay

• (d) Agra, Lahore and Multan

Q4. The Jat state of Bharatpur was set up by:

• (a) Muhammad Khan Bangash

• (b) Banda Bahadur

• (c) Suraj Mal alone

• (d) Churaman and Badan Singh

• (e) Chhatarsal and Ali Muhammad Khan

Q5. Jat power reached its highest glory (1756-1763), and the 'Plato of the Jat tribe', under:

• (a) Badan Singh

• (b) Churaman

• (c) Suraj Mal

• (d) Jawahar Singh

Q6. Rohilkhand, at the foothills of the Himalayas, was carved out after Nadir Shah's invasion by:

• (a) Saadat Khan

• (b) Chhatarsal

• (c) Murshid Quli Khan

• (d) Ali Muhammad Khan

Q7. The Sikhs in the later 18th century were organised into:

• (a) 12 misls or confederacies

• (b) a single centralised kingdom

• (c) four subahs

• (d) two khalsas

Q8. Ranjit Singh, who founded the Kingdom of Lahore, was originally the chief of which misl?

• (a) Kanhaiya misl

• (b) Bhangi misl

• (c) Ahluwalia misl

• (d) Sukerchakia misl

Q9. King Martanda Varma of Travancore is remembered for defeating, in 1741, the:

• (a) French at Pondicherry

• (b) English at Madras

• (c) Portuguese at Goa

• (d) Dutch (at the Battle of Colachel)

UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

The 18th-century regional states are a high-yield Prelims theme (the question below is a real UPSC PYQ, CDS-I 2023) — expect questions on Sawai Jai Singh, Suraj Mal of Bharatpur, the Sikh misls, and Travancore/Colachel.

Q1. Name the battle in which the Travancore king (Martanda Varma) defeated the Dutch in 1741. (UPSC CDS-I 2023)

• (a) The Battle of Pollilur

• (b) The Battle of Changanassery

• (c) The Battle of Colachel

• (d) The Battle of Porto Novo

Mains Practice Questions

Use these to frame full-length answers. You don't have to answer one exactly — they show the angles UPSC tests, so let them guide which points you cover.

• Classify the regional states that arose in 18th-century India, with examples of each type.

• “Sawai Jai Singh was a man of science in an unscientific age.” Discuss his achievements.

• Trace the rise of Jat power under Churaman, Badan Singh and Suraj Mal of Bharatpur.

• How did the Sikhs evolve from a religious community into a political power organised in misls?

• Examine the achievements of Martanda Varma in making Travancore a strong 18th-century state.