Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Failed Diplomacy: The Emperor Who Lost the Marathas
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's wars in the Deccan — the sieges, the famines, the guerrilla tactics that bled his empire dry. But I think there's a thread we haven't really pulled on, which is the diplomatic side. Because for all his military might, Aurangzeb was remarkably bad at making lasting alliances with the Marathas. Luna: Bad how? He had plenty of Hindu generals in his service. Lucas: He did — Mirza Raja Jai Singh I, the Kachhwaha Rajput, is the classic example. In 1665, Aurangzeb sent Jai Singh to deal with the rising Maratha leader Shivaji Maharaj. Jai Singh was a brilliant commander and diplomat. He didn't just fight Shivaji — he besieged the fort of Purandar so effectively that Shivaji agreed to negotiate. The result was the Treaty of Purandar in June 1665. Lucas: Under that treaty, Shivaji surrendered 23 of his forts to the Mughals, kept 12, and agreed to serve as a Mansabdar — a Mughal rank-holder — in the Deccan campaign against the Sultanate of Bijapur. It was a classic Mughal co-option strategy. In return, Shivaji's son Sambhaji was granted a mansab, and Shivaji himself was invited to the imperial court at Agra to meet Aurangzeb. Luna: But that didn't go well. Lucas: It went disastrously. In May 1666, Shivaji arrived at Agra with his nine-year-old son. Aurangzeb deliberately humiliated him. Instead of being received with the honors due a high-ranking Mansabdar, Shivaji was placed among the nobles of 5,000 zat — a rank far below what he expected. He stormed out of the court. And then things got worse. Lucas: Aurangzeb put Shivaji under house arrest, effectively a hostage. But Shivaji famously escaped — hiding in a basket of sweets, or so the story goes — and made it back to the Deccan. From that point on, any chance of a lasting Mughal-Maratha alliance was dead. Shivaji never trusted Aurangzeb again. Luna: So Aurangzeb's own courtly arrogance cost him a powerful ally. Lucas: Exactly. And it wasn't just Shivaji. Compare Aurangzeb's approach to Akbar's. Akbar brought the Rajput kingdoms into the empire through marriage alliances and high rank — he married a Kachhwaha princess, gave her brother Man Singh a top command. Aurangzeb could have done something similar with the Marathas. He didn't. He treated Shivaji as a rebel chief, not a potential peer. Lucas: After Shivaji's death in 1680, his son Sambhaji continued the war. Aurangzeb captured and executed Sambhaji in 1689 in a particularly brutal way — the maasir i alamgiri records he was beheaded after being tortured. That didn't end the resistance. It just made the Marathas more determined. Luna: I've read that after Sambhaji's death, his brother Rajaram escaped to Jinji and kept the war going. Lucas: Yes — and that's another diplomatic failure. Rajaram fled from the Mughal siege of Raigad to the distant fortress of Jinji in the Tamil country, which the Marathas held. Aurangzeb sent Zulfikar Khan to besiege Jinji — a siege that lasted from 1689 to 1698. Nine years. And during that time, Rajaram's wife Tarabai emerged as a fierce regent. Lucas: Tarabai was a brilliant strategist. She led the Maratha resistance from the fort of Panhala, coordinating guerrilla raids deep into Mughal territory. Aurangzeb never offered her any serious terms. He kept demanding unconditional surrender. So the war dragged on, year after year. Luna: Would a negotiated settlement have been possible at any point? Lucas: There were moments. In 1698, when Jinji finally fell, Zulfikar Khan actually wanted to make a deal with Rajaram — grant him a mansab, bring him into the Mughal fold. But Aurangzeb vetoed it. He insisted on crushing the Marathas completely. The same thing happened later with Tarabai. The emperor simply refused to recognize the Marathas as a legitimate polity. Lucas: Meanwhile, he was spending a fortune — the Deccan campaign consumed perhaps half the empire's revenue. The Mughal army was huge, but it was fighting a guerrilla war it couldn't win. The Marathas would melt away into the hills, then strike at supply lines. And all because Aurangzeb couldn't stomach the diplomacy his father Shah Jahan and grandfather Akbar had used so effectively. Luna: It's such a contrast with his treatment of the Rajputs. He married his daughters to Rajput princes, didn't he? Lucas: He did — but even there, his policy was inconsistent. He had a Rajput wife from the Rathore clan, but he also provoked the Rathore rebellion by trying to annex Marwar after Maharaja Jaswant Singh died without an heir. That led to a war that lasted years. So he alienated the Rajputs too, just not as comprehensively as the Marathas. Lucas: The real tragedy is that Aurangzeb had capable diplomats in his service. Jai Singh, as we saw, had negotiated the Treaty of Purandar. Later, Zulfikar Khan was a pragmatist who wanted to make peace. But the emperor always overruled them. His personal piety and his vision of a strictly Islamic empire made it hard for him to treat Hindu powers as equals. Luna: Did any Maratha leader ever seriously negotiate with him? Lucas: Not after 1666. Shivaji wrote him a famous letter after the Agra insult, which survives — it's a masterclass in diplomatic anger. He calls Aurangzeb out for breaking the norms of hospitality and honor. After that, the Marathas' goal was survival and eventually independence. They never really trusted any Mughal offer. Lucas: And here's the irony: when Aurangzeb died in 1707, the Marathas were stronger than ever. Within a few decades, they would become the dominant power in India. The Mughal empire, exhausted by the Deccan wars, went into terminal decline. So Aurangzeb's failure to make one lasting diplomatic arrangement arguably cost his dynasty the entire empire. Luna: That's a huge claim. But it makes sense — you can't just conquer people forever. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a lesson that applies well beyond Mughal history. If today's conversation was useful to you — if it gave you a new angle on how empires fall — the way we keep these shows ad-free is through listener support. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to say this kind of history matters to you. Luna: Yeah, it really helps keep the research deep and the conversations honest. Lucas: So back to the Marathas: one thing that's often overlooked is the role of the Siddi of Janjira. The Siddis were African-origin Muslim rulers of a coastal fort in the Deccan. They were nominal Mughal allies, and they raided Maratha coastlines. But even they couldn't tip the balance. The Marathas under Kanhoji Angre built a navy that matched them. Luna: Right, Kanhoji Angre — the Maratha admiral who harassed European ships too. Lucas: Yes. So you had this multi-front war: land, sea, guerrilla raids, sieges — and Aurangzeb trying to micromanage it all from his camp in the Deccan. By the end, he was in his eighties, still fighting. He died in 1707 in a humble hut in Bidar, leaving instructions that his funeral expenses be covered by sewing caps and copying Qurans. Luna: That's so stark — the contrast between his personal austerity and the empire's vast expenditure. Lucas: It really is. And the diplomatic failure sits at the heart of it. Because if he'd made peace with Shivaji in 1666, the whole history of India might have been different. Instead, the Marathas became the empire's nemesis, and the British eventually walked into the vacuum. It's a cautionary tale about pride in statecraft. Luna: We should do a whole episode just on the Maratha navy and Kanhoji Angre. Lucas: That's a great idea. Let's put that on the list. For now, I think the takeaway is that Aurangzeb's empire was broken not just by bullets and swords, but by the failure to make friends when it mattered.