The Indian Empire’s Decline

After the leader Aurangzeb died, three of his sons went into civil war, and the oldest won the war. However, because he waited a long time and by now was probably in his 60s, he only ruled for five years. When his son took control, he paid more attention to his favorite dancing girls instead of caring about the empire, causing him to make the dancing girls friends government officials. He also didn’t care about ruling his empire, as he threw stones at people, cut down trees, and destroyed ships when passengers went on. Indian noblemen called the Ali brothers, were tired of this and sent assassins to strangle the new leader. They then crowned another Indian with Moghul blood leader, who was supposed to be a puppet state of the brothers. But because he was always suspicious and afraid, nobody liked him and the Ali brothers then sent assassins to kill him. After this, they made two more men kings but both died of illness. Finally, they found a man with Moghul blood and didn’t get ill! This man was Mohammed Shah, and because he didn’t want the Ali brothers to kill him, he decided to get rid of the Ali brothers! But instead of ruling his empire, he just watched animals fight instead. By not caring for his empire, government officials broke up pieces of land all for themselves while pretending to give allegiance to Mohammed Shah. Then, because the king of Persia, Nadir Shah, wanted to show all nations he had power, he told the Indian court to acknowledge him as the rightful leader of Persia. But because the Indian court was so corrupt, they didn’t respond! Enraged by this, he sent out an army to sack the city of Delhi as a lesson. When the Indians then met on the battlefield, frightened by Nadir’s war camels, they couldn’t get into formation fast enough, killing 30,000 Indians and a Persian victory. With this, he then sacked Delhi, capturing Mohammed Shah. He then humiliated him by making him bow to Persia! With India in turmoil by civil war, invading Hindu tribes, and the sacking of Delhi, the English, afraid that their goods could be stolen while going to Indian ports, started making forts to protect themselves in Calcutta. The king of Bengal noticed this and became suspicious of the British. Because he saw few defenders, he easily defeated the British in battle. Once he captured them, he put them in a cell nicknamed *The Black Pit* and because it was so small, over 100 British people died for being suffocated. The India East Company, enraged that their workers died, took arms and hired an army to attack Bengal. Robert Clive, the general of the army, paid off one of the Bengal generals, telling him not to help their leader in the battle. Oliver then won the battle and gave Mir Jafar, the Indian general, power, but only as a puppet state of Britain. When Mir Jafar then resisted British authority and was soon crushed. The Indian emperor, who had no control of his country, gave the British permission to collect taxes from Bengal and that people there would have to follow English law. The British conquered more of the Indian emperor’s land until all of India was controlled by the British.