Identify the broad contours of the Mughal foreign policy and their impacts on the Mughal empire.

Answer:

Mughal foreign policy was shaped by the dynasty's Central Asian ancestry, by the strategic necessity of securing the north-west frontier, and by the commercial importance of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Its pursuit brought both security and heavy cost.

The Central Asian question

• The Timurid homeland of Samarkand and Farghana held a strong sentimental claim.
• Shah Jahan's Balkh and Badakhshan campaign of 1646-47 attempted its recovery.
• The expedition failed at enormous cost in men and treasure and was abandoned.
• The Uzbeks were thereafter treated as a power to be balanced rather than conquered.

Relations with Persia

• Kandahar was the strategic prize, changing hands repeatedly between the two empires.
• Humayun received Safavid asylum and assistance to recover his throne.
• Akbar took Kandahar in 1595; Shah Abbas recovered it in 1622.
• Shah Jahan's three attempts to retake it after 1649 all failed.
• Cultural and commercial ties with Persia nonetheless remained close.

The north-west frontier and the Afghans

• Control of Kabul and the passes was essential to defend the empire.
• Akbar annexed Kabul in 1585 and campaigned against the Roshanai and Yusufzai tribes.
• Subsidies and conciliation were used alongside force to manage the tribes.
• Aurangzeb faced costly Afghan revolts in the 1670s.

Maritime and European relations

• The Mughals had no significant navy and depended on others for sea power.
• The Portuguese controlled the cartaz pass system for Indian shipping.
• Akbar accepted Portuguese passes for Hajj pilgrims, a notable concession.
• The English and Dutch were permitted trading factories from Jahangir's reign.
• Sir Thomas Roe secured privileges for the English at Surat.

Impacts on the empire

• Frontier defence consumed a large and permanent share of imperial resources.
• The Balkh and Kandahar campaigns drained the treasury for no lasting gain.
• Neglect of sea power left the coasts exposed and trade dependent on Europeans.
• That neglect ultimately permitted European commercial and then political penetration.
• Success in holding Kabul nonetheless secured the empire's core for a century and a half.

Assessment

• The policy was essentially defensive and dynastic rather than expansionist.
• Kandahar and Balkh consumed resources better spent on internal consolidation.
• Diplomatic and cultural exchange with Persia enriched Mughal court culture.
• Historians see the neglect of naval power as the empire's decisive strategic error.

Mughal foreign policy was therefore continental in outlook and largely successful in defending the north-west, but its ancestral ambitions in Central Asia proved a costly illusion. As historians emphasise, the empire's fatal blind spot was the sea, and its indifference to naval power opened the way for the European companies that would eventually supplant it.