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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Account for the rise of the Marathas as a political power. How did they influence the course of history?

  • UPSC 1986
  • The Eighteenth Century

The rise of the Marathas from a service gentry in the Deccan sultanates to the dominant power of the eighteenth-century subcontinent is one of the pivotal transitions of medieval Indian history.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • Explaining the Rise: The Historiographical Debate
  • The "Hindu Reaction" Thesis
  • The "Proto-Nationalist" Thesis
  • Mughal Pressure and Socio-Economic Ferment
  • Shivaji's State: The Institutional Foundation
  • From Kingdom to Empire: The Peshwa Period
  • …and 1 more sections, with a conclusion

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