Epilogue

Abstract

The dynamic relation between enunciations of sovereignty and the rise of a popular politics that emerged over the course of the Mughal empire’s history was disrupted in the years after Nadir Shah’s invasion of 1739. Yet, even as the empire was reduced to a purely nominal entity, both the visions of sovereignty it engendered and the popular politics it enabled would persist for much longer. These concluding pages sketch the longer life of both conceptions of sovereignty and the workings of a popular politics, tracing their final manifestation in the great revolt of 1857.