We often think of empires as shows of brute force, where the mightiest wins out and forces everyone else to submit. But successful empires have to win over large numbers of their subject population. An unpopular ruler who no one believes has the right to govern them is unlikely to do well and keep his dynasty going.
In the case of the Mughal Empire, the situation was complicated: Muslims were ruling over a majority non-Muslim population.
The Mughals thus developed an ideology of kingship to bind Muslims and non-Muslims alike in loyalty to the Emperor, who was ‘His Divine Highness’. Sometimes he appeared to both his Muslim and non-Muslim subjects as a mystical figure, capable of miracles.
The Mughals were building on earlier precedent. As early as the fourteenth century, an ideology of ‘universal kingship’ developed from a mix of Persian and Indian ideas had been widely accepted in India. The Mughals adopted and adapted this ideology to win support from diverse local populations.
Richard Eaton, India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765 (2019)
Robert Travers, Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India (2007)
