A successor state
Muhammad Khan Bangash, of a Pashtun family settled in the Doab, rose in Mughal service and was granted the governorship of Allahabad; he founded Farrukhabad in 1714, naming it for the emperor Farrukhsiyar. The state that resulted was one of the many carved out of the empire in its dissolution — held by military force, legitimated by an imperial title that had ceased to mean much.
His campaigns against Chhatrasal in Bundelkhand brought the Marathas into northern India: Chhatrasal appealed to Bajirao I, whose intervention gave the Marathas their first foothold in the region and a share of Bundelkhand.
Farrukhabad was ceded to the East India Company in 1802 and the nawabs retained a pension. The town remained known for its printed textiles and its perfume distilling.
Further reading
- Keay, John. India: A History. HarperCollins, 2000
- Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India. Oxford University Press, 2009
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Bayly, C. A. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1988
- Brown, Judith M. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy. Oxford University Press, 1994
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.