Not every post-Mughal kingdom ended the same way. Hyderabad, Awadh and Bharatpur all broke from a weakening empire.
But they rose by different paths, and by 1947-48 they fell by three very different ones too.
Successor state: a regional kingdom carved out of Mughal territory by a governor or local ruler as central control weakened.
Subsidiary Alliance: a British treaty system where a ruler kept the throne but gave up control of defence and foreign policy.
Doctrine of Lapse: a British policy of annexing a state when its ruler died without a natural heir. It did not apply to Awadh.
Contents
- How did Hyderabad, Awadh and Bharatpur all break away from a weakening Mughal empire?
- How did Hyderabad grow from a Deccan outpost into a full kingdom?
- How did Awadh turn a frontier post into a cultural capital at Lucknow?
- How did Suraj Mal turn a small Jat clan into “the Plato of the Jats”?
- Why did Hyderabad and Awadh bend to British terms while Bharatpur fought back?
- Why did these three successor states end so differently by 1948?
1How did Hyderabad, Awadh and Bharatpur all break away from a weakening Mughal empire?
The Mughal centre was crumbling. Ambitious governors and local chiefs carved out kingdoms of their own.
- Nizam-ul-Mulk, born Chin Qilich Khan, defeated the Mughal-appointed governor Mubariz Khan at the Battle of Shakar Kheda on 11 October 1724.
- Emperor Muhammad Shah reappointed him Subedar of the Deccan and gave him the title Asaf Jah in 1725, founding the Hyderabad state.
- In Awadh, Saadat Khan Burhan-ul-Mulk became governor in 1722 and ran the region as his own hereditary domain.
- In Bharatpur, the Jat chief Churaman built a fortified base from 1722, later consolidated by his nephew Badan Singh.
- All three rulers stayed formally loyal to the Mughal emperor in Delhi, even while ruling almost independently.
True or False: Nizam-ul-Mulk won the Battle of Shakar Kheda in 1724 and received the title Asaf Jah that same year.
2How did Hyderabad grow from a Deccan outpost into a full kingdom?
Hyderabad’s capital did not start out as Hyderabad city.
- Asaf Jah I first ruled from Aurangabad, the old Mughal headquarters for the Deccan.
- His descendant Nizam Ali Khan, Asaf Jah II, shifted the capital to Hyderabad city in 1763.
- The Asaf Jahi dynasty kept Hyderabad as its capital for the rest of its long rule.
- Hyderabad accepted Lord Wellesley’s Subsidiary Alliance on 1 September 1798, the first Indian state to do so.
3How did Awadh turn a frontier post into a cultural capital at Lucknow?
Awadh’s nawabs moved their capital twice, and built it into a cultural showpiece.
- Nawab succession ran from Saadat Khan to Safdarjung, then Shuja-ud-Daula, then Asaf-ud-Daula.
- Shuja-ud-Daula built up Faizabad as Awadh’s capital after the 1764 Battle of Buxar.
- Asaf-ud-Daula moved the capital again, from Faizabad to Lucknow, in 1775.
- He built the Bara Imambara there in 1784, during a famine, as a food-for-work relief project. Embarrassed nobles worked by night so no one would see them labouring for food.
- Awadh accepted the Subsidiary Alliance in 1801, under the Treaty of Lucknow, losing roughly half its territory to British control.
True or False: the Bara Imambara at Lucknow was built as a famine-relief project, giving paid work to labourers, including nobles who worked at night.
4How did Suraj Mal turn a small Jat clan into “the Plato of the Jats”?
Bharatpur’s rulers built a kingdom the British could not easily break.
- Suraj Mal ruled Bharatpur from 1755 to 1763, earning the title “Plato of the Jats” for his statesmanship.
- At its peak, his kingdom stretched across parts of today’s Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
- He built Deeg Palace partly with marble taken from the Red Fort after an 1761 raid on Delhi.
- Lohagarh Fort, Bharatpur’s stronghold, was never taken by direct assault during his lifetime.
- He also built the Ajan Bund dam for irrigation; its water later filled what became Keoladeo Ghana National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
5Why did Hyderabad and Awadh bend to British terms while Bharatpur fought back?
Two of these states accepted British control on paper. Bharatpur chose to fight it instead.
- Hyderabad accepted the Subsidiary Alliance in 1798, and Awadh followed in 1801, both losing real independence while keeping their thrones.
- Bharatpur refused, and fought the British directly at its fortress of Lohagarh.
- In 1805, Lord Lake besieged Lohagarh and was repulsed four times, failing to take the fort.
- In 1825-26, Lord Combermere returned with heavier siege guns and finally breached the fort on 18 January 1826.
- That defeat ended Bharatpur’s open military resistance, though the state kept its throne under British oversight.
True or False: Lord Lake’s 1805 siege of Bharatpur’s Lohagarh Fort succeeded in capturing it on his first attempt.
6Why did these three successor states end so differently by 1948?
All three states reached the end of their independence by very different roads.
- Awadh ended first: the British annexed it outright on 7 February 1856, citing years of alleged misrule. It was not done under the Doctrine of Lapse, since Wajid Ali Shah had natural heirs.
- Wajid Ali Shah was exiled to Metiabruz near Calcutta, on a pension of about 12 lakh rupees a year. He recreated Lucknow’s culture there until his death in 1887.
- Bharatpur survived longest as a princely state, acceded to India in August 1947, and later merged into Rajasthan.
- Hyderabad held out the longest of all. The Nizam resisted joining India until the army’s Operation Polo, 13-17 September 1948.
- The government’s own Sunderlal Committee put that violence’s death toll at 27,000 to 40,000. Some independent estimates run far higher, and the report stayed suppressed until 2013.
Watch for exams that treat “successor states” as one bloc. Hyderabad, Awadh and Bharatpur ran on different timelines, by different mechanisms: gradual annexation, a losing siege, and military action. That mechanism is usually what gets tested.
All three states kept some independence under British oversight for decades. Why did only Hyderabad resist until military force was used?
Awadh and Bharatpur had already lost real power peacefully — Awadh by annexation in 1856, Bharatpur by accepting British paramountcy after its 1826 defeat. Hyderabad’s Nizam alone still held full internal sovereignty into 1947, and chose to test whether that could continue against an independent India.
UPSC Mains 2022, GS1, Q11
Asked how India’s states have been reorganised across history, as a continuing process, not one fixed in 1956. Good answers can cite Hyderabad, Awadh and Bharatpur as one such phase of change, accelerating through 1947-48.
- Answers score better naming each state’s own date and mechanism of absorption, not just saying “princely states joined India.”
MCQ on Successor States: Hyderabad, Awadh and Bharatpur
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