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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Discuss the nature of the Mughal State under Akbar.

  • UPSC 2023
  • Mughal Empire in the Seventeenth Century

The Mughal state as it took shape under Akbar (r. 1556–1605) resists reduction to any single label — "centralised," "despotic," "bureaucratic" — because historians reading the same institutions have arrived at genuinely different characterisations.

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What the full answer covers

  • The Institutional Case for a Centralised, Bureaucratic State
  • The Mansabdari and Jagir System
  • Revenue Administration: The Dahsala System
  • Checks, Balances and a Rule-Based Bureaucracy
  • The Ideological Foundation: Sulh-i-Kul and Divine Kingship
  • The Counter-Argument: A State Less Centralised Than It Appeared
  • …and 2 more sections, with a conclusion

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