Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Bengal Campaign: The Mughal Conquest of a Golden Delta
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've covered a lot of Aurangzeb's campaigns — the Marathas, Bijapur, Golconda — but there's one region that was absolutely crucial to his empire's finances that we haven't really touched: Bengal. Luna: Bengal? I always think of it as the rice bowl of the Mughal Empire, but I don't know the details of how it came under Aurangzeb's control. Lucas: Exactly. Bengal was the wealthiest province of the Mughal Empire by far. It supplied something like 40% of the empire's revenue in the late 17th century. And Aurangzeb didn't just inherit it — he had to conquer it, or rather, reconquer it, after a rebellion. Lucas: The story starts with Aurangzeb's brother, Prince Shuja. During the war of succession after Shah Jahan's illness, Shuja was the governor of Bengal. He declared himself emperor and minted coins in his own name. Aurangzeb defeated him at the Battle of Khajwa in 1659, and Shuja fled to Arakan, in modern-day Myanmar, where he was killed. Luna: So Aurangzeb then had to install a loyal governor to secure the province. Lucas: Right. And he appointed his uncle, Shaista Khan, as the new governor of Bengal in 1664. Shaista Khan was a veteran general and a very capable administrator. But Bengal was not an easy place to govern. It was a huge delta, crisscrossed by rivers, with dense mangrove forests in the south — the Sundarbans — and a climate that was deadly for the Mughal soldiers used to the dry Deccan. Lucas: The Portuguese and the Arakanese had been raiding the coast for decades, and there were independent zamindars and local rulers who paid only nominal allegiance to Delhi. Shaista Khan's job was to bring the whole province under direct Mughal control. Luna: How did he do that? The terrain seems incredibly difficult for a land-based empire. Lucas: This is where it gets interesting. Shaista Khan realized that to control Bengal, he needed a navy. The Mughals were never a great naval power, but Shaista Khan built a fleet on the Hooghly River, near Kalighat — that's the area around modern Kolkata. He used Portuguese and English shipbuilders and mercenaries. The English East India Company was already trading there, and they were happy to help in exchange for trading privileges. Lucas: One of his first major targets was the Portuguese stronghold at Hooghly. The Portuguese had been raiding and even slaving in the region. Shaista Khan's fleet blockaded the port and eventually forced the Portuguese to sue for peace. Then he turned his attention to the Arakanese, who had been raiding the Sundarbans and capturing Mughal subjects to sell as slaves. Luna: I've read that the Mughals actually fought a naval war against the Arakanese in the Sundarbans. That must have been terrifying — those mangroves are a maze. Lucas: Absolutely. The Sundarbans are a labyrinth of tidal channels and mudflats. The Mughal fleet, with shallow-draft boats, could navigate them, but the Arakanese were expert raiders. Shaista Khan launched a massive expedition in 1666, combining land forces and riverine boats. They captured the Arakanese fort at Chittagong — that's in modern Bangladesh — and annexed it. Chittagong became the main Mughal naval base in the east. Lucas: The campaign was a turning point. By securing the coastline and the major river routes, Mughal Bengal became a safe zone for trade. The revenue from Bengal exploded. The province produced the finest muslin in the world, saltpeter for gunpowder — which the European companies were desperate for — and huge quantities of rice. The Mughals introduced a system of revenue farming, where local zamindars collected taxes and forwarded a fixed sum to Delhi. This system, while efficient, also laid the groundwork for the later exploitative land policies of the British. Luna: All of that wealth must have funded Aurangzeb's endless wars in the Deccan. Lucas: Exactly. The cash flow from Bengal was what allowed Aurangzeb to maintain his massive army in the Deccan for 25 years. The historian Jadunath Sarkar estimated that Bengal sent about 8 million rupees to the imperial treasury annually. Without Bengal, the Deccan campaign would have been impossible. Luna: But it also created dependency. If Bengal ever stopped sending money, the empire would be in trouble. Lucas: That's a great point. And that's exactly what happened later. After Aurangzeb's death, the governors of Bengal became increasingly independent. Murshid Quli Khan, who was the governor under Aurangzeb's successors, effectively ruled as a semi-independent nawab. He still sent tribute to Delhi, but he controlled the revenue. And when the British took over in the 1750s, after the Battle of Plassey, they inherited that same revenue system. Luna: So the wealth of Bengal is really the story of the Mughal Empire's expansion and its eventual fracture. Lucas: Absolutely. And there's another layer — the environmental impact. The Mughal revenue farming system encouraged the clearing of forests and the expansion of rice cultivation in the delta. That changed the landscape permanently. The Sundarbans, for example, were much larger in the 17th century. The Mughal push for revenue led to a slow but steady deforestation that continued under the British. Luna: It's fascinating how economic policy and environmental history are so intertwined. Lucas: Indeed. And it's a reminder that Aurangzeb's Bengal campaign was not just a military conquest. It was an economic and ecological transformation. And if this episode has given you something new to think about, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's what keeps these conversations ad-free and allows us to dive into topics like this. Luna: Yeah, I know our listeners appreciate the depth we go into, and listener support is what makes it possible to keep the episodes free for everyone. Lucas: So, back to Bengal — one detail I love is that Shaista Khan also commissioned a massive embankment along the Hooghly River to protect Calcutta from flooding. That embankment, called the 'Lal Dighi' or 'Red Tank' in some accounts, was a precursor to the later British engineering works in the city. Luna: So the Mughals were also doing public works, not just conquest. Lucas: Exactly. The Mughal state was deeply involved in infrastructure. Canals, embankments, roads — these were all part of consolidating control and maximizing revenue. And in Bengal, controlling water was essential. The rivers were highways, and the floods were a constant threat. The Mughals adapted their administrative system to manage the water, which was quite sophisticated for its time. Luna: It sounds like the Mughal governors had a lot of autonomy, especially in a province like Bengal. Lucas: They did. Shaista Khan governed Bengal for almost 20 years, from 1664 to 1682. He was effectively a viceroy. He built mosques, caravanserais, and even a new capital at Murshidabad. But he also enriched himself and his family, which was typical. The Mughal system tolerated a degree of corruption as long as the revenue kept flowing. And it did — Bengal's contribution to the imperial treasury only grew. Lucas: After Shaista Khan, his son-in-law and then his son succeeded him. But by the late 17th century, the governors were becoming more independent. When Aurangzeb died in 1707, Bengal was already a de facto autonomous state, though it still recognized Mughal suzerainty. Luna: So the very wealth that made Bengal so valuable also made it the first province to drift away from the empire. Lucas: Exactly. And that pattern repeated across the empire — the Deccan, Gujarat, Awadh. The empire's fiscal structure was decentralized, and the provinces that generated the most revenue had the most leverage. By the 1720s, the Mughal emperor in Delhi was a figurehead, and the real power lay with the provincial nawabs. Luna: It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of over-reliance on a single revenue source. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's also a story of how environments shape empires. Bengal's rivers, its monsoons, its fertile soil — these were both a blessing and a challenge. The Mughals succeeded in controlling Bengal for a century, but they also sowed the seeds of its later independence. Luna: Thanks for unpacking this. I think a lot of people, myself included, don't think of Bengal when they think of Aurangzeb. Lucas: It was a pleasure. And if you want to learn more, I recommend reading John F. Richards's 'The Mughal Empire' or Jadunath Sarkar's 'The History of Aurangzib'. They have excellent chapters on Bengal. And as always, if you found this episode useful, consider supporting the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It really helps us keep going.