MULUKGIRI SYSTEM IN THE PRINCELY STATE OF BARODA: CONTEXT AND CONCEPT Dr. Maitree Vaidya Sabnis Assistant Professor, Department of History, M.K. Amin Arts & Science College and College of Commerce The M.S. University of Baroda Vadodara The collapse of the Mughals‟ central authority in the early eighteenth century also led to loss of political stability in Gujarat. The provincial governors began to exercise power rather independently and often undermined imperial expectations. Non-compliance with imperial orders contributed to political chaos and confusion. To continue in power, the governors resorted to forging alliances, political manipulations and military force. Since the 1720s, each succeeding governor of Ahmadabad displaced his predecessor militarily from office. 1 The unstable political situation in Gujarat encouraged the Marathas to participate in race. They soon emerged more powerful than the rest and the Marathas got a share in the land revenue (chauth literally one-fourth). 2 The Marathas too were politically fragmented and some warrior families such as those of Dabhade, Gaikwad, Sindhia, Holkar and Bhonsle, were only nominally under the control of the sovereign and the Peshwa. These warrior groups came to form complex political factions which was fluid in nature insofar as their allegiance to and support of some major political players was concerned. From the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the Gaikwad ruled over Gujarat and controlled the fiscal resources of the region. Initially, the Marathas adopted the strategy of invading, roving and taking possession of the region or otherwise at least forcing the local governors to surrender a part of the revenue of those regions. Mughal imperial control was gradually pushed back to some major cities and forts such as Ahmadabad and Broach. 3 In 1753, the Gaikwad took control of Ahmadabad and thus put an end to the hundred and eighty years of Mughal rule in Gujarat. The decline of Mughal authority in Gujarat in the 1690‟s, led the states to evade their payments of tribute to their authority; to force them to remit their dues, the imperial viceroy of Gujarat, backed by an army called the mulukgiri, annually visited the peninsula to collect the year‟s payments. After the death of the emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, many of the rulers became dependent, and for a time were freed from paying tribute. By the mid-1730s, however, the Gaikwad, the principal Maratha leader in Gujarat, had begun to bring Saurashtra, Banas Kantha and Mahi Kantha under the suzerainty. He did not at first levy tribute systematically as the Mughals had done, but occasionally sent troops to extort money or crops from the states; in imitation of the Mughals, he called these expeditions mulukgiri. Then in 1753 the Marathas