At a local archive in Pakistan, a historian reads records from 1803 showing that the East India Company had taken Delhi and kept the Mughal emperor as a pen...
Question 1 Report
At a local archive in Pakistan, a historian reads records from 1803 showing that the East India Company had taken Delhi and kept the Mughal emperor as a pensioner. The records still use the emperor's name on some documents, but Company officials controlled military and financial decisions. The historian asks which mattered more by this stage: the survival of the Mughal title or the loss of real power.
(a) Identify the organisation that took control of Delhi in 1803. [1]
(b) Explain why the Mughal emperor had little real authority after 1803. [2]
(c) Analyse why the continued existence of the emperor could still be important to people in India. [3]
Answer Details
(a) The East India Company [1] (b) Company officials controlled armed forces and revenue [1]; the emperor depended on a Company pension / could not make independent decisions [1]. (c) Any three from: the emperor remained a symbol of Muslim and Mughal legitimacy [1]; traditional elites could continue to show loyalty to the dynasty [1]; the title linked people to centuries of imperial rule [1]; symbolic authority could later be used to unite opposition [1].
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