Was Disunity The Key Reason For The Collapse Of The Mughal Empire?

I agree to a certain extent that disunity was the key reason for the Empire’s collapse yet there were many variable in play that led it down that path. Over time history has shown that all empire’s that had expanded to fast and had great success in the beginning, had also created their own demise. The Mughal Empire is no exception. The Empire rose to greatness though favours. Its leaders were only really nominal leaders and they didn’t have real power over their country. This specific empire can be seen as only flourishing thanks to taxes and the land that it was acquiring over time. That same land would be given away as a gift for favours. There were other ways that the empire would get favours through, such as making the rich person’s daughter

But as the forces that the Jagirdaris decreased and the Zamindar’s private armies increased, it became nearly impossible for the Jagirdaris to take the taxes from the Zamindars by force, even taking money from he peasants became difficult, and therefore the Jagirdari crisis started. This emphasises that disunity in the Mughal empire was becoming more and more apparent as the years went. The zamindars were superficially under Mughal rule and therefore the influence of imperial authority was taking over and sometimes even creating peasant uprising. As a result of this, the Emperor had to auction off land (ljara) for revenue but unfortunately that plan backfired and led to the Mughal nobility being unhappy as there was not enough land for

Another reason for the demise was the ever growing influence that the British were having. British involvement in India started druing the 17th century, as a grand trading scheme between Great Britain and India it was call The East India Company, this company had all English trades to India by Royal grant and therefore India rapidly began to be the main focus of British Imports. The company was racking in an estimated £2 million a year, this was mostly thanks to the cheap textile that were readily available and in large demand in the UK. Yet from the 1750s onwards the agenda changed and they started to statigically spread their influence across india through both wars and bribery, there Anglo-French conflicts until 1756 where the british were able to aquire the province of Bengal and later overthrow the Nawab and his mother who ellegadly died in prison. This province is one of the richest in India and they benefitted greatly from this new capture. The expansion of the Brtish throughout Inida was made easy through the disunity among Indian Princely states. There was no lack of people willing to betray their country for a good price, bribiery was a key tactic. There is even a case of Mir Jaffar betraying his master since he wanted to be a