Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Maratha War: The Guerrilla Conflict That Broke the Mughals
Transcript
- Lucas: So if you've been following along with our Aurangzeb series, you know he spent the last twenty-seven years of his reign camped in the Deccan, fighting a war he could never quite win. We've talked about the sieges of Bijapur and Golconda, but the real drain on the empire—the one that actually broke the Mughal treasury and military—was the war against the Marathas. Luna: The Marathas under Shivaji, right? But he died in 1680, before Aurangzeb really turned his full attention south. Lucas: Exactly. After Shivaji's death, his son Sambhaji took over. And Sambhaji was a different kind of leader—more reckless, more confrontational. He raided Mughal territories, allied with the Deccan sultanates, and even sheltered Aurangzeb's rebellious son Prince Akbar for a time. That was the last straw for Aurangzeb. Luna: So Aurangzeb personally marched south in 1681 and didn't leave until he died in 1707. Lucas: That's right. He moved his entire court to the Deccan—the imperial camp became a mobile city of tens of thousands. And for the first few years, things went his way. In 1689, the Mughals captured Sambhaji after a tip-off from a Maratha commander. They paraded him through the streets, tortured him for weeks, and then executed him brutally—his eyes gouged out, his tongue cut off, and then beheaded. Aurangzeb wanted to send a message. Luna: That's horrific. But it didn't break the Marathas, did it? Lucas: No, it backfired. Sambhaji's half-brother Rajaram escaped to the fortress of Jinji in the Carnatic, and the Maratha resistance became even more decentralized. They adopted a pure guerrilla strategy: avoid pitched battles, raid Mughal supply lines, and melt back into the hills and forests. The Mughal army was a lumbering beast—heavy artillery, enormous baggage trains, tens of thousands of camp followers. The Marathas moved light and fast. Luna: So it was like the Mughals were trying to catch smoke. Lucas: Exactly. The Maratha light cavalry—they called them bargirs—could cover sixty miles in a day, while the Mughals struggled to move ten. They'd raid a Mughal convoy, burn the supplies, and vanish before the imperial cavalry could even mount a response. And they knew the terrain: every pass, every forest, every water source. Aurangzeb tried to build a chain of outposts to control the countryside, but the Marathas just bypassed them or cut their supply lines. Luna: What about the Maratha forts? I know Shivaji had a network of hill forts—like Raigad, Torana, Sinhagad. Lucas: Those forts became the heart of the resistance. The Mughals could storm one fort after another—and they did, taking dozens of them over the years—but holding them was nearly impossible. The Marathas would retake them as soon as the Mughal army moved on. It was a war of attrition, and the Mughals were losing. Every fort siege cost thousands of lives and enormous sums of money. The historian Jadunath Sarkar calculated that Aurangzeb's Deccan campaign drained the imperial treasury of over ten million rupees a year. Luna: And that's at a time when the empire was already facing revolts elsewhere—the Jats, the Satnamis, the Sikhs. Lucas: Precisely. The Mughal Empire was like a body hemorrhaging from a dozen wounds, and the Deccan was the biggest wound. After Rajaram died in 1700, his widow Tarabai took command—she was a brilliant strategist who kept the resistance alive from the fort of Panhala. Meanwhile, the Mughal generals were growing exhausted and corrupt. Many of them began making side deals with the Marathas, accepting bribes to look the other way. Luna: So the empire was essentially being hollowed out from within. Lucas: Yes. By the time Aurangzeb died in 1707, the Marathas controlled most of the Deccan. The Mughals had spent a generation pouring resources into a war they couldn't win, and the empire never recovered. Within a few decades, the Marathas were raiding deep into Mughal heartlands—they even sacked Delhi in 1737. The war Aurangzeb thought would secure his legacy actually destroyed it. Luna: It's almost tragic—an emperor who was so disciplined and pious, undone by his own ambition. Lucas: It really is. And you know, this is exactly the kind of deep dive we love to do on this show. We spend weeks researching these stories because we believe history matters. And honestly, the only reason we can keep doing it—episode after episode, ad-free—is because a small group of listeners chips in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's what funds the research, the recordings, everything. Luna: Yeah, it's a real labor of love. And for anyone who's been following our Aurangzeb series, if you want to help us keep going, that page is the simplest way. No pressure, just—if you find value in what we do, it makes a huge difference. Lucas: Exactly. So back to the Maratha war—one of the most fascinating aspects is how the Marathas used the monsoon season to their advantage. During the rains, Mughal roads turned to mud, and their heavy guns couldn't move. The Marathas would launch their most aggressive raids then, when the Mughals were stuck in their cantonments, unable to respond. Luna: That's brilliant. Turn the weather into a weapon. Lucas: And they also had a navy, which people don't always associate with the Marathas. Under Kanhoji Angre, the Maratha fleet harried Mughal shipping, the Portuguese, and even the British East India Company. Angre's base was at Vijaydurg on the Konkan coast, and his ships were fast, maneuverable—perfect for intercepting merchant vessels. He essentially created a maritime guerrilla force that controlled the west coast for decades. Luna: So the Mughals couldn't even control the sea approaches to the Deccan. Lucas: Right. And that's the final irony: Aurangzeb, who conquered more territory than any previous Mughal, died with his empire in chaos, the treasury empty, and the Marathas ascendant. He was buried in an unmarked grave at Khuldabad, near the Sufi saint Shaikh Zainuddin—a simple dirt grave, open to the sky, as he had requested. A stark contrast to the grandeur of his predecessors. Luna: It's a powerful image. The emperor who tried to rule the entire subcontinent, reduced to a humble grave. Lucas: And that's where we'll leave it for today. Next time, we'll look at what happened after his death—the war of succession and the rapid decline of the Mughal Empire. Thanks for listening.