# The Successor States: Hyderabad, Bengal & Awadh (18th Century) Source: https://tracknation.in/story/the-successor-states-hyderabad-bengal-awadh-18th-century (TrackNation — free UPSC notes with PYQs) > How regional powers rose on the debris of the Mughal Empire — the 'successor states' carved out by old Mughal governors: Hyderabad (Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah, 1724), the Carnatic, Bengal (Murshid Quli Khan & Alivardi Khan) and Avadh (Saadat Kh ## Two Roads from the Mughal Wreck 🎯 **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.** Awadh's annexation (1856) resurfaced in Prelims 2026 — and knowing how these successor states formed explains why each region fell when it did. - The Diwani of Bengal (1765), Nawabs of Awadh and their relation to the British, and Nizam of Hyderabad (subsidiary alliance) are occasional match questions. - 2026 tested British post-annexation policy in Awadh (taluqdars, revenue settlement) directly. - Know the three major states and their eventual relationship with the British. When the great **Mughal Empire** broke down in the 18th century, it did not leave a vacuum. On its debris arose **a large number of independent and semi-independent powers** — Bengal, Avadh, Hyderabad, Mysore and the Maratha kingdom — and it was these powers, not the dying empire, that would **challenge the British attempt at supremacy** in the second half of the century. Understanding them is the key to understanding how India was conquered. ## Two Roads from the Mughal Wreck - One historian divides these 18th-century states into **broad groups by their origin**. **Some arose as the result of the assertion of autonomy by the governors of Mughal provinces** — the classic **"successor states"** such as **Hyderabad, Bengal and Avadh**, where an old *subahdar* simply stopped obeying Delhi while keeping the Mughal forms. **Others were the product of rebellion against Mughal authority** — the "new states" / "independent kingdoms" such as the **Marathas, the Sikhs and the Jats**. **Mysore** and the **Rajput states** form a third type of regional independent kingdom. - The successor states are thus the **old Mughal provinces gone independent** from the inside: their founders never overthrew the emperor — they remained, in form, his governors. This article concentrates on the four classic successor states of the Mughal heartland and Deccan — **Hyderabad, the Carnatic, Bengal and Avadh** — and their shared character. ## Common Features of the Successor States Different though they were, the successor states shared a striking **family likeness** — and the same fatal blind spots. ## Common Features of the Successor States - **1. Nominal Mughal allegiance, real independence.** Their founders **never formally declared independence**. They continued to **send tribute to the emperor** and to rule in his name, but in practice they **waged wars, concluded peace, conferred titles and granted jagirs and offices without reference to Delhi**. Nizam-ul-Mulk is the model: he "never openly declared his independence from the Central Government but in practice he acted like an independent ruler." - **2. Secular, non-communal politics.** The rulers **did not discriminate on religious grounds in public appointments, civil or military**, and their rebel opponents likewise paid little attention to the ruler's religion. The Nizam's Dewan was a Hindu (Puran Chand); the highest post under Safdar Jang was held by the Hindu Maharaja Nawab Rai; in Bengal the highest civil posts and many military posts went to Bengalis, mostly Hindus. - **3. New revenue arrangements.** Each ruler **re-established law and order and reorganised the finances** — fresh revenue settlements, the conversion of *jagir* land into *khalisah*, the system of **revenue-farming (ijara)**, and the disciplining of turbulent zamindars to secure a larger share of the peasant's surplus. - **4. They failed to arrest the economic crisis.** **None of these states succeeded in arresting the underlying economic crisis.** The number of zamindars and jagirdars kept rising, all fighting over a **declining agricultural income**, while the condition of the peasantry continued to deteriorate. They preserved internal trade but **did nothing to modernise the basic industrial and commercial structure** of their states. - **5. Weakness vis-à-vis the Europeans.** Above all, they **underestimated the European trading companies**, treating them as mere merchants rather than as the spearhead of an aggressive, expansionist colonialism — a blindness that would cost them everything. ## Hyderabad: Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah (1724) The first and one of the most powerful of the successor states rose in the Deccan, founded by the ablest noble of the post-Aurangzeb age. ## Hyderabad: Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah (1724) - The state of **Hyderabad was founded by Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah in 1724**. One of the leading nobles after Aurangzeb, he had played a role in the **overthrow of the Saiyid brothers** and was rewarded with the **viceroyalty of the Deccan**. From **1722 to 1724 he was the wazir (chief minister) of the Empire**, but disgusted that Emperor **Muhammad Shah frustrated his attempts at reform**, he returned to the Deccan — marching south in **October 1724** — where he could safely maintain his supremacy. - There he **laid the foundations of the Hyderabad State and ruled it with a strong hand**. He **never openly declared independence**, yet acted as an independent ruler — **waging wars, concluding peace, conferring titles and granting jagirs and offices without reference to Delhi**. He followed a **tolerant policy towards Hindus** (his Dewan, Puran Chand, was a Hindu), built an orderly administration, forced the **turbulent zamindars to respect his authority**, kept the powerful Marathas out of his dominions, and tried to cleanse the revenue system of corruption. - But the order he created was personal, not institutional. **After his death in 1748, Hyderabad fell prey to the same disruptive forces as were operating at Delhi** — succession disputes and factional intrigue — opening the door to Anglo-French interference in the Deccan. ## The Carnatic: A Sub-Successor Breaks Free Hanging off Hyderabad was a province that repeated the same story one level down — and in doing so handed the Europeans their first opening into Indian politics. ## The Carnatic: A Sub-Successor Breaks Free - The **Carnatic was one of the subahs of the Mughal Deccan** and so came **under the Nizam of Hyderabad's authority**. But **just as the Nizam had become independent of Delhi, so the Deputy Governor of the Carnatic — the Nawab of Carnatic — freed himself of the control of the Viceroy of the Deccan** and made his office **hereditary**. Autonomy, in other words, cascaded downward. - Thus **Nawab Saadatullah Khan of the Carnatic made his nephew Dost Ali his successor without the approval of his superior, the Nizam**. After **1740 the affairs of the Carnatic deteriorated** because of **repeated struggles for the Nawabship** — and these disputed successions **provided the opportunity for the European trading companies to interfere in Indian politics**. The Carnatic became the stage of the **Anglo-French Carnatic Wars**, the laboratory in which Europeans learned that Indian thrones could be bought and won with small disciplined armies. ## Bengal: Wealth Without a Sword If Hyderabad was the most powerful successor state, Bengal was the richest — and its very wealth, undefended, became the prize that founded the British Empire. ## Bengal: Wealth Without a Sword - Taking advantage of the weakening centre, **two men of exceptional ability — Murshid Quli Khan and Alivardi Khan — made Bengal virtually independent**. Though **Murshid Quli Khan was formally made Governor only in 1717**, he had been Bengal's **effective ruler since 1700** (when appointed its Dewan). He freed himself from central control while **sending regular tribute to the emperor**, and crushed the few zamindar uprisings. He **died in 1727**; his son-in-law **Shuja-ud-din ruled till 1739**, when **Alivardi Khan** deposed and killed Shuja-ud-din's son **Sarfaraz Khan** and made himself Nawab. - These three Nawabs gave Bengal **peace and orderly administration**. Murshid Quli Khan **reorganised the finances** — converting much **jagir land into khalisah**, carrying out a **fresh revenue settlement**, introducing **revenue-farming**, and granting **taccavi (agricultural loans)** to cultivators. He **gave equal opportunity to Hindus and Muslims**, preferring local zamindars and mahajans as revenue farmers — and so **laid the foundations of a new landed aristocracy in Bengal**. (His system, though, increased pressure on the peasant and displaced many older zamindars.) - The Nawabs **encouraged trade** but kept **strict control over the foreign companies**: they **compelled the English Company to obey the law and pay the same customs duties as other merchants**, and **Alivardi Khan refused to let the English and French fortify their factories** at Calcutta and Chandernagore. - Yet they were **short-sighted in two fatal ways**. First, they did **not firmly check the growing tendency of the English Company (after 1707) to use, or threaten, military force** — wrongly believing "a mere trading company" could never threaten their power, ignorant of the devastation such companies had already caused in Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America. Second, they **neglected to build a strong army** (Murshid Quli Khan's army was only **2,000 cavalry and 4,000 infantry**). When the English declared war on **Siraj-ud-Daulah**, Alivardi's successor, in **1756-57**, the absence of a strong army "contributed much to the victory of the foreigner." ## Awadh: Saadat Khan, Safdar Jang & the Birth of Lucknow Culture To the north-west, a third Mughal province went the same way under a line of able and unusually upright rulers — and gave India one of its great cultural capitals. ## Awadh: Saadat Khan, Safdar Jang & the Birth of Lucknow Culture - The founder of the autonomous kingdom of Avadh was **Saadat Khan Burhan-ul-Mulk**, appointed **Governor of Avadh in 1722**. Bold, energetic and iron-willed, he found the province in chaos — rebellious zamindars refusing the land tax, raising private armies and building forts. He **waged years of war to suppress the lawlessness and discipline the big zamindars**, increasing his government's resources, and carried out a **fresh revenue settlement in 1723**, levying **equitable land revenue** and protecting peasants from oppression. **Before his death in 1739** he had become **virtually independent and made the province a hereditary possession**. - He was succeeded by his nephew **Safdar Jang**, who in **1748 was simultaneously appointed wazir of the Empire and granted the province of Allahabad**. Safdar Jang gave Avadh and Allahabad **a long period of peace until his death in 1754**: he suppressed rebellious zamindars, **allied with the Maratha sardars** to save his lands from their raids, fought the **Rohelas and the Bangash Pathans**, organised an **equitable system of justice**, and like the others **employed Hindus and Muslims impartially** (his highest post went to the Hindu Maharaja Nawab Rai). - Avadh's prosperity bred a glittering high culture: the long peace and the wealth of its nobles produced a **distinct Lucknow culture** around the court. **Lucknow — the seat of the Nawabs after 1775 — soon rivalled Delhi** in its patronage of arts and literature and grew into an important centre of handicrafts. - One historian adds a corrective to a popular myth: the founders of all three autonomous kingdoms — **Nizam-ul-Mulk, Murshid Quli Khan and Alivardi Khan, and Saadat Khan and Safdar Jang — were men of high personal morality who led austere, simple lives**. The belief that all 18th-century nobles were decadent is false; it was only in **public and political dealings** that they "resorted to fraud, intrigue and treachery." ## Why the Successor States Mattered — and Why They Fell The successor states were, in the end, a paradox: strong enough to rule provinces larger than European kingdoms, yet too narrow in vision to see the storm gathering on their coasts. ## Why the Successor States Mattered — and Why They Fell - They proved that the **collapse of the Mughal centre was not the collapse of Indian governance**: able rulers could still raise revenue, keep order and patronise culture. But because they shared the empire's **structural economic crisis** — a swelling parasitic class living off a shrinking agrarian surplus — and because they were **divided, mutually hostile and contemptuous of the European companies**, they could be picked off one by one. Disputed successions (the Carnatic, post-1748 Hyderabad), neglected armies (Bengal) and isolation from world events made them ripe for conquest. - The lesson the British learned in the **Carnatic and Bengal** — that a small disciplined European-led force, backed by Indian bankers and rival claimants, could topple a Nawab — is exactly what they applied at **Plassey (1757)** and **Buxar (1764)**. The successor states are, therefore, the indispensable prologue to the British conquest. ## Why This Matters for UPSC - **Prelims:** the founder–state pairs (**Hyderabad–Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah 1724; Bengal–Murshid Quli Khan; Avadh–Saadat Khan Burhan-ul-Mulk**); the classification into **successor states** (autonomy by governors) vs **rebel/new states** (Marathas, Sikhs, Jats); **Safdar Jang as wazir 1748 + Allahabad**; **Alivardi Khan deposing Sarfaraz Khan (1739)**; the **Carnatic under the Nizam** and Saadatullah Khan / Dost Ali; **Bengal's exports** (the 2018 PYQ below). - **Mains:** the common features of the successor states; why their secular, capable administration still failed to arrest the economic crisis or resist the Europeans; the policies of the rulers of Hyderabad, Bengal and Avadh (a direct one historian exercise question). ## 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 successor states of the Mughal Empire — Hyderabad, the Carnatic, Bengal and Avadh, their founders, their common features and their failure against the Europeans. Decide your answer, then open Show answer. ## Practice Questions **Q1.** Which of the following is the correct classification of the 'successor states' of the Mughal Empire? - (a) States founded by rebellion against the Mughals (Marathas, Sikhs) - (b) Old Mughal provinces made independent by their own governors (Hyderabad, Bengal, Avadh) - (c) European-founded trading settlements - (d) States created by the Treaty of Allahabad **Answer: (b)** — Successor states arose from the assertion of autonomy by Mughal governors (subahdars) — Hyderabad, Bengal and Avadh — as distinct from the 'new states' founded by rebellion (Marathas, Sikhs, Jats). **Q2.** The state of Hyderabad was founded in 1724 by: - (a) Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah - (b) Alivardi Khan - (c) Murshid Quli Khan - (d) Saadat Khan Burhan-ul-Mulk **Answer: (a)** — Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah, a leading post-Aurangzeb noble and former wazir (1722-24), marched to the Deccan and founded Hyderabad in 1724. **Q3.** Which statement best describes the political status of the successor states? - (a) They never openly declared independence but acted as independent rulers, sending tribute to the emperor - (b) They formally proclaimed full independence from the Mughals - (c) They restored the Mughal Empire's old power - (d) They were directly ruled by the East India Company **Answer: (a)** — Like Nizam-ul-Mulk, the founders never openly declared independence; they sent tribute to Delhi but waged wars, made peace and granted offices without reference to the emperor. **Q4.** The Carnatic, before its Nawab became autonomous, was a subah under the authority of the: - (a) Peshwa - (b) Nawab of Avadh - (c) Nawab of Bengal - (d) Nizam of Hyderabad **Answer: (d)** — The Carnatic was a subah of the Mughal Deccan and came under the Nizam of Hyderabad; its Deputy Governor (the Nawab of Carnatic) then freed himself of the Nizam's control and made his office hereditary. **Q5.** The disputed successions in the Carnatic after 1740 were significant because they: - (a) united south India under one ruler - (b) led to the founding of Hyderabad - (c) provided the opportunity for the European companies to interfere in Indian politics - (d) ended Mughal rule in the south **Answer: (c)** — Repeated struggles for the Carnatic Nawabship gave the English and French an opening to intervene — the origin of the Anglo-French Carnatic Wars. **Q6.** Murshid Quli Khan and Alivardi Khan are remembered chiefly for: - (a) founding Hyderabad - (b) making Bengal virtually independent of the Mughals - (c) winning the Battle of Buxar - (d) serving as wazirs of the Empire **Answer: (b)** — These two able governors made Bengal virtually independent while sending tribute to Delhi; Murshid Quli was effective ruler from 1700 (Governor from 1717). **Q7.** A fatal weakness of the Bengal Nawabs, which contributed to the English victory, was that they: - (a) allied with the Marathas against Delhi - (b) persecuted Hindus - (c) neglected to build a strong army and underestimated the English Company - (d) refused to collect any revenue **Answer: (c)** — The Nawabs neglected their army (Murshid Quli's was just 2,000 cavalry + 4,000 infantry) and dismissed the English as 'a mere trading company' — a blindness that aided the conquest of Bengal. **Q8.** The founder of the autonomous kingdom of Avadh, appointed its Governor in 1722, was: - (a) Asaf-ud-Daula - (b) Saadat Khan Burhan-ul-Mulk - (c) Safdar Jang - (d) Shuja-ud-Daula **Answer: (b)** — Saadat Khan Burhan-ul-Mulk, appointed Governor of Avadh in 1722, suppressed rebel zamindars, carried out a revenue settlement (1723) and made the province hereditary before his death in 1739. **Q9.** Safdar Jang, the successor in Avadh, was in 1748 also appointed: - (a) Nizam of Hyderabad - (b) wazir of the Mughal Empire, with the province of Allahabad - (c) Peshwa of the Marathas - (d) Nawab of Bengal **Answer: (b)** — Safdar Jang was simultaneously made wazir of the Empire in 1748 and granted Allahabad; his court at Lucknow nurtured the famous Lucknow culture. **Q10.** A feature COMMON to the successor states of Hyderabad, Bengal and Avadh was that they: - (a) did not discriminate on religious grounds and followed secular politics, but failed to arrest the economic crisis - (b) discriminated against Hindus in appointments - (c) built powerful navies - (d) modernised their industry and commerce **Answer: (a)** — All three pursued non-communal, secular politics (Hindus held high office) and reorganised revenue, yet none modernised industry or arrested the deepening agrarian/economic crisis. ### UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs) *The successor states are a high-yield Prelims topic — expect founder-state matching (Nizam-ul-Mulk–Hyderabad, Murshid Quli Khan–Bengal, Saadat Khan–Avadh), the successor-vs-rebel classification, and Bengal's wealth/exports (the real PYQ below, UPSC CSE 2018) — and a recurring one historian Mains question on their policies.* **Q1.** The staple commodities of export by the English East India Company from Bengal in the middle of the 18th century were: (UPSC CSE 2018) - (a) Raw cotton, oil-seeds and opium - (b) Copper, silver, gold, spices and tea - (c) Sugar, salt, zinc and lead - (d) Cotton, silk, saltpetre and opium **Answer: (d)** — Bengal was the richest successor state precisely because of this wealth: its fine cotton and silk textiles, saltpetre (for gunpowder) and opium were the Company's staple exports. So option (d) is correct. ### 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. - Examine the policies followed by the rulers of the states of Hyderabad, Bengal and Avadh in the 18th century. - What were the common features of the 18th-century successor states? Why did none of them arrest the economic crisis? - Distinguish between the 'successor states' and the 'rebel/new states' that rose on the ruins of the Mughal Empire. - “The successor states were strong enough to rule but too blind to resist the Europeans.” Discuss with reference to Bengal and the Carnatic.