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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Aurangzeb’s Deccan policy was a major factor in Mughal decline. Discuss.

  • UPSC 2022
  • Mughal Empire in the Seventeenth Century

Aurangzeb spent the last twenty-five years of his reign (1682–1707) camped in the Deccan, and it was here, not in Delhi, that the Mughal empire's institutional foundations were quietly hollowed out.

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What the full answer covers

  • From Viceroy to Obsession: The Evolution of Aurangzeb's Deccan Policy
  • Removal of the Buffer States and the Direct Maratha Confrontation
  • Fiscal and Administrative Drain: The Jagirdari Crisis
  • Erosion of Central Authority in the North
  • Political and Moral Costs
  • Locating the Deccan Policy Within the Broader Causes of Decline

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