Aborted Transitions: The Indian State in the Long Eighteenth Century

The decline of the Mughal Empire brought about attempts on the Indian sub-continent to construct a series of regional states: more territorially compact, fiscally intrusive and oriented towards mercantilism. These new states shared in processes of state formation common to early modern Europe. However, ultimately they failed to establish themselves and were overtaken by forms of colonial rule which partially reconstructed the old Mughal imperium, but also introduced novel features related to the West’s rising dominance over global capitalism. This paper seeks to explore the reasons for, and the implications of, India’s failed transition.