Decline of Mughals & 18th-Century India — Part 6: Jat/Rohilla Powers & Anglo-French Rivalry
Part 6: Jat and Rohilla powers of 18th-century India, and the three Carnatic Wars between the British and French East India Companies.
Modern India — Part 1 of 5
3.4 Jat and Rohilla Powers
The Jats were an agriculturist caste inhabiting the Delhi-Agra belt whose revolts against Mughal domination in the latter half of the seventeenth century shook the stability of the Mughal heartland. As Mughal power declined, Jat power grew. Churaman and Badan Singh founded the Jat state at Bharatpur; it was Suraj Mal (r. 1756–1763) who consolidated Jat power, extending the state's boundaries to the Ganga in the east, the Chambal in the south, Delhi in the north, and Agra in the west. Despite originating in a peasant rebellion, the Jat state remained feudal, with zamindars controlling administrative and revenue powers; revenue demands under Suraj Mal were actually higher than under the Mughals. His death in 1763 also marked the effective demise of the Jat state as a significant power.
The Rohilla state of Rohilkhand was established by Ali Muhammad Khan in the Himalayan foothill area between Kumaon and the Ganga, arising from large-scale Afghan immigration following the collapse of authority after Nadir Shah's invasion. Mohammad Khan Bangash, another Afghan, set up an independent kingdom at Farrukhabad, east of Delhi. Politically, however, the Afghans played a predominantly destabilising role: they accentuated the decline of the Mughals and helped Abdali to subdue Awadh, which could otherwise have checked British expansion.
The Rajput rulers consolidated their position during this period by slowly loosening ties with Delhi. None was large enough to contend with the Marathas or the British for the position of paramount power. They participated in the struggle for power at the Delhi court and gained lucrative governorships. The most well-known Rajput ruler, Jai Singh of Amber, ruled Jaipur from 1699 to 1743. Kerala comprised the three states of Cochin, Travancore, and Calicut. Travancore gained importance after 1729 when King Martanda Verma expanded his dominions with a modern army trained in Western lines and expelled the Dutch. Hyder Ali's invasion of Kerala in 1766, however, annexed Malabar and Calicut.
4. Anglo-French Rivalry in India
4.1 The Carnatic Wars (1746–1763)
The conflict between the British and French East India Companies, popularly known as the Carnatic Wars, unfolded across roughly two decades and proved decisive in determining which European power would shape India's political future.
First Carnatic War (1746–1748): Hostilities in Europe between Britain and France in 1742 eventually spread to India by 1745. The English attacked French ships near Pondicherry; the French responded by occupying Madras. When the Nawab of Carnatic intervened on the English side, his forces were defeated by the small but disciplined French army at St. Thomas near Madras. The war ended when the European conflict concluded, leaving the question of Indian supremacy unresolved.
Second Carnatic War (1749–1754): French Governor-General Dupleix demonstrated the transformative potential of European military intervention in Indian succession disputes. He backed Chandra Sahib for the Carnatic throne and Muzaffar Jang for Hyderabad. When they prevailed in 1749, France secured the Northern Sarkars, Masulipatnam, and villages near Pondicherry, as well as a French agent at the Nizam's court. The English response came from Robert Clive, who with only 200 English and 300 Indian soldiers seized Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic. This forced Chandra Sahib to abandon his siege of Trichinopoly and release the British-backed Muhammad Ali. The French, having incurred heavy losses in both America and India, lacked the governmental will to sustain the contest. Dupleix was recalled in 1754, and the French challenge was effectively over.
Third Carnatic War (1756–1763): A new European war triggered a third round. Count de Lally was dispatched to India but his ships were sent back and French troops were defeated in Carnatic. The French position and territory in Hyderabad were taken over by the English. The Battle of Wandiwash in 1760 decisively eliminated French military presence. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 reduced the French East India Company to a pure trading body stripped of all political privileges.
4.2 Significance of British Victory
The outcome of the Carnatic Wars was structurally decisive. The British demonstrated that a disciplined, professionally-led force — even a small one — could defeat much larger Indian armies when combined with effective diplomacy and exploitation of succession disputes. The lessons about military organisation, the use of Indian sepoys, and political manipulation of local rivalries were systematically applied in Bengal and beyond. The conflict also revealed that European rivalry, rather than Indian resistance alone, would shape colonial outcomes: the weakness and irresolution of the French state, not British arms alone, settled the issue. At the end of 20 years of conflict, British superiority over the French was clearly proved, and the lessons learnt in the Carnatic were well applied in other parts of the country.