28. The Kingmaker Brothers Who Ushered the Decline of the Mughal Dynasty
In the early eighteenth century, two Indian courtiers, the brothers’ Sayyid Hassan Ali Khan Bahra and Sayyid Hussain Ali Khan, became powers behind the throne in the Mughal Empire. They appointed and deposed emperors as they saw fit, and ushered in the decline of the Mughal Dynasty. The siblings became extremely influential – when they were not outright ruling through puppet emperors – and dominated the Mughal realm until the early 1720s. They were born into a military family, sons of a general who faithfully served Emperor Aurangzeb, the last powerful and effective Moghul ruler.
The Sayyid brothers followed in their father’s footsteps, served as officers in the Mughal army, and grew steadily more influential in the Mughal court. However, they quit the court in high dudgeon over a slight by an imperial prince, Jahandar. When Jahandar became emperor in 1712, the brothers remembered the slight. To pay him back, they backed one of his nephews, Farrukhsiyar, who rose up in rebellion against his uncle. With the Sayyid brothers’ help, Farrukhsiyar defeated his uncle in 1713 and became Mughal emperor. Jahandar was captured, imprisoned, and eliminated soon thereafter.