Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Deccan Campaigns: The War That Broke the Mughals
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, we've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's policies and his wars in the north, but I think the real story of his reign — the thing that actually broke the empire — was the twenty-five-year war in the Deccan. And we haven't really dug into that yet. Luna: Twenty-five years? That's almost his entire reign. Lucas: Pretty much. He came to the throne in 1658, but it wasn't until the 1680s that he personally moved south and never came back. He spent the last twenty-five years of his life camped out in the Deccan, fighting the Marathas and the Deccan sultanates. And it just drained everything — money, manpower, the whole imperial system. Lucas: The immediate target was the Sultanate of Bijapur, one of the last great Deccan kingdoms. It was ruled by the Adil Shahi dynasty, and Aurangzeb decided to crush it in 1686. Luna: What was the siege like? Bijapur had a reputation for being impregnable. Lucas: It was massive. The fort was surrounded by a double wall and a moat, and inside were thousands of defenders. Aurangzeb's army was huge — maybe 100,000 men — but the real story is the artillery. There was a French gunner named Eustache de Lisle who managed the Mughal siege cannons. And he was good — he breached the outer wall after several months. Lucas: But even after the wall was breached, the defenders fought on. The Adil Shahi commander, Sidi Masud, held out for another few months. Eventually, though, the Mughals stormed the citadel. Bijapur fell in September 1686. Luna: So one sultanate down. But then came the Marathas. Lucas: Exactly. Shivaji had died in 1680, and his son Sambhaji took over. The Marathas were using guerrilla tactics — hit and run raids, attacking supply lines, vanishing into the hills. Aurangzeb couldn't bring them to a set-piece battle. Lucas: He eventually captured Sambhaji in 1689 after a betrayal. Sambhaji was tortured and executed — accounts say his eyes were gouged out, his tongue cut off, and then he was beheaded. But that didn't end the Maratha resistance. His brother Rajaram took over, and the war continued. Luna: So the execution just made things worse? Lucas: Yes. It turned Sambhaji into a martyr. The Marathas became even more determined. And Aurangzeb kept pouring resources into the Deccan. He moved his entire court and army south — a moving city of maybe half a million people. The cost was astronomical. Lucas: The maasir i alamgiri, the official court chronicle, records that the treasury was so depleted that Aurangzeb had to melt down his own gold and silver utensils to pay the soldiers. That's a sign of desperation. Luna: And meanwhile, the empire was falling apart elsewhere. Lucas: Right. The Rajputs revolted. The Sikhs in the Punjab under Guru Gobind Singh were in open rebellion. And the Deccan itself was devastated by famine — the famine of 1696-97 killed hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions. The war had wrecked the agricultural economy. Lucas: There's a passage in the maasir i alamgiri where a chronicler describes the roads of the Deccan lined with corpses. Whole villages were abandoned. And Aurangzeb just kept fighting. Luna: Why didn't he stop? Couldn't he see it was destroying the empire? Lucas: That's the big question. Some historians say he was obsessed with the idea of conquering the entire subcontinent. Others say he saw the Marathas as an existential threat — if he didn't crush them, they'd eventually overrun the Mughal heartland. But it's also a matter of pride. He couldn't back down after twenty years. Lucas: And there's a personal dimension. Aurangzeb was a pious Muslim, but he was also a pragmatist — he employed Hindu generals, levied jizya, then exempted some Hindus. But the Deccan war became his Vietnam, a quagmire. Luna: It's almost tragic. He expanded the empire to its largest extent, but he broke it in the process. Lucas: Exactly. When he died in 1707, the empire was bankrupt, the administration was in shambles, and the Marathas were already recovering. Within a few decades, the Mughal emperor was a puppet of the Marathas and later the British. Lucas: You know, it's funny — we make these deep dives into history because listeners like you support the show. It's a small group, but it makes a real difference. If you've been following the series on Aurangzeb and want to help us keep going ad-free, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure at all, just an honest thing. Luna: Yeah, it really does help. Every bit keeps the research going. Lucas: So let's wrap up with one more thing. After Aurangzeb's death, the Marathas under the Peshwas eventually took control of the Deccan. But the damage was done. The Mughal Empire never recovered. And the Deccan became a byword for a war that just ate everything. Luna: It's a sobering lesson. What's the biggest takeaway for you? Lucas: That even the most powerful empires can be destroyed by their own ambitions. Aurangzeb was a brilliant administrator, a skilled general, but he couldn't see the limits of his power. And the Deccan war is the perfect example of imperial overreach. It's a story that resonates even today.