Chapter 6 traverses the aftermath of Mughal rule as members of the Maratha confederacy, led by the Gaekwads, and officials of the early colonial state in the form of the British East India Company sought to capture Ahmedabad and strategic routes connected to the city. It was in this context that the sons of Khushalchand, Nathushah (1720–1793) and Vakhatchand (1740–1814), became entrenched in financing new forms of political organization by guaranteeing loans to groups seeking the purchase of revenue farms from emerging stately authorities. I call this phase of political-business relations competitive coparcenary. By becoming speculators in land revenue farms and advancing capital to those seeking to establish state power, the Jhaveris tactfully adapted their expertise to new political circumstances. This was a major departure from the high tide of Mughal rule in the seventeenth century when power manifest through warfare. Now, principles of the market and revenue sharing diplomacy became the hallmark of political organization, and the later Jhaveris were central to such emerging diplomacy.

By the late eighteenth century, Mughal power gave way to more pluralistic geopolitics led by the Marathas and representatives of British East India Company authority in India. Chapter 7, a postlude, focuses on how the Gaekwads of Baroda consolidated power in the wake of Mughal dissolution in Gujarat. The political landscape was held together largely by debt relations and novel forms of financial diplomacy. This chapter explores how the Jhaveris, and the analogous Haribhakti family of bankers, became central to post-Mughal political power in Gujarat. The chapter demonstrates how, by the late eighteenth century, the Gaekwads were able to establish and grow their stately influence by relying on a group of elite financiers led by family banking firms. Over time, this led to the accumulation of enormous debt. Such a decisive shift to debt-based sovereignty both enhanced and challenged those in the business of bankrolling the state, and ultimately provided the British East India Company an opportunity to coopt native state formation as a strategy of establishing their colonial hegemony.

Chapter 3 focuses on the final years of Shah Jahan’s rule, including the princely rivalry between Aurangzeb and his brothers for their father’s throne. Through local evidence, I demonstrate that during moments of crisis when members of the state needed ready capital, they relied on the Jhaveris to provide cash loans. The timeliness of loans was the most important factor, since battles for the imperial throne were fought quickly and decisively. Such loans were deployed by princely retinues to muster additional troops and resources. Even the slightest advantage in resources could catapult a prince to emperorship. This chapter traces how the Jhaveri family entered into the risky business of political financing. We learn that their services as merchants, bankers, and financiers were highly valued by Mughal elites, and even bad bets placed on a losing prince did not compromise their exalted positions as preeminent merchants of Gujarat. I characterize this phase of Mughal-Jhaveri relations as political commensalism, for the Mughals benefited immensely from emergency loans, while the Jhaveris neither benefited nor were decisively harmed in any manner.

Taking a pause from direct focus on the Jhaveris, Chapter 4 is an interlude that outlines major shifts across the Mughal Empire between the 1680 and 1720s. I suggest that military campaigns in the Deccan region impinged the Mughal treasury and undermined administration to an extent never seen before. Officials in Gujarat started to engage in behavior that undermined Mughal sovereignty. Yet, they also had little choice as monetary resources were becoming scarce. Financial limitations impacted the quality of state machinery including the upkeep of buildings, delay in salary payments, and even the ability of officials to legitimately demand taxes. Despite this, local Gujarati poems suggest that residents preferred Mughal rule to ruthless attacks from the Maratha marauders, whose periodic raids were increasing in frequency and intensity. After Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, successive Mughal emperors were poorly equipped to revive the grandeur of their ancestors. Their short stints as emperors, sometimes as brief as a few months, led to the further breakdown of Mughal authority. This manifest most clearly in the form of rivalries between Mughal governors sent to control and profit from Gujarat. Insecure in their positions and strapped for cash, these governors turned to assaulting key members of the business fraternity in the city of Ahmedabad.

This chapter introduces the study, setting, argument, and plan of progression of Bankrolling Empire. In particular, I introduce the Jhaveri family of Ahmedabad and identify how the Mughal state provided new opportunities and challenges for the family by the early seventeenth century. The reader is left with the idea that traditional explanations of Mughal collapse such as bigotry of emperors, superior fighting power of rival warlords, and communal distrust between Muslim rulers and Hindu subjects are not adequate. Instead, I suggest financial crises were the chief cause that tipped Mughal administration beyond recovery. Such transformations in state and locality in Mughal Gujarat are highlighted by focusing on four generations of a remarkable business family, the Jhaveris of Ahmedabad, and their relations with political elites. The Jhaveris were deeply involved in political intrigue, courtly life, and the finances of Mughal officials and their rivals across two centuries.

Returning to the Jhaveri family, Chapter 5 explores the climax of full-blown antagonism between key financial agents and sources of Mughal authority in what I am calling a phase of expedient extortion. I focus on the life and activities of Khushalchand (1680–1748), a third generation Jhaveri brought into the whirlwind of financing gubernatorial rivalries to the point of being violently extorted and forced into exile. In contrast to his forefathers, whose personal security was safeguarded and whose loans were repaid, Khushalchand experienced grotesque violence at the hands of Mughal officials. As a reaction and response, he sought protection by gambling capital on political futures. Given that multiple groups were vying for power as the Mughal state atrophied, Khushalchand reoriented his business towards raising finance for political elites, and brokered deals between armed groups who aspired control of Ahmedabad and its environs. In the process, he faced both criticism and praise from local residents and members of the business fraternity.

Chapter 1, a prelude, provides necessary background about the Mughal Empire, and details about its conquest of Gujarat beginning in 1572. Standard histories portray conquest as swift and decisive. The picture I present is somewhat different. Akbar’s annexation of Gujarat was a slow and protracted effort requiring the astute balancing of military force and the pacification and absorption of local political elites into Mughal administration. A successful campaign, as we shall see, absorbed local elites into the Mughal idiom of hierarchy, privileges, duties, and system of wealth distribution. The arranging of tribute payments and indemnities was a core feature of this system. Money over the course of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries became central to Mughal political dispensation. This background chapter concludes by laying out key opportunities Mughal rule provided for the Jhaveri family as they built their influence.