Anatomy of a Massacre

In 1739, the Iranian ruler Nadir Shah spearheaded a rapid invasion of the Mughal realm, which culminated with his occupation of the Mughal capital of Shahjahanabad (Delhi) and the extraction of a vast tribute from the Mughal king Muhammad Shah and his nobles. While Nadir Shah’s brief time in Delhi is remembered for his sanguinary massacre of the city’s inhabitants, this chapter demonstrates that Nadir Shah’s violence was driven by a forgotten but large-scale popular uprising against his troops. Through a close analysis of the uprising and its aftermath, this chapter shows that by 1739, elites and commoners in Delhi had developed divergent views about Mughal kingship: While the nobility were happy to cooperate with Nadir Shah, the ordinary people of the city would not consent to any ruler other than their own.