There are two major debates in the eighteenth century: one is virtually resolved.

First Debate

Dark Age: It has to do with whether the eighteenth century was a dark age or not.

While colonial writers like James Mill and the early Indian historians like Jadunath Sarkar and Iswari Prasad and even Tara Chand saw this century as a twilight period, characterized by decline in all areas of life, from the economic to the political to the cultural.

According to them, the Mughal empire collapsed, regional powers failed to establish empires and stability returned only with the spread of British supremacy in the late 18th Century. It suited the British writers of the Cambridge History of India, and their Indian followers, to paint the 18th Century as black so that British rule would show up as a blessing in comparison.

Manifestation:

institutional financial crisis referred variously as jagirdari crisis or agrarian collapse of central institution which were giving stability to he empire- power struggle between different groups of nobles leading to collapse because of the decline of fiscal structure and unable to raise resources by themselves short term measures by the ruling class to raise the resources ike ijardari opposition movements against this -jat, maratha, sikh, satnami break down trade and stability of agriculture On the otherhand the new kingdoms opened up new trade routespolitical decline-> economic decline->decline in society

More recently there has been a revision of this view. In the writings of K.N. Panikkar, C.A.Bayly, Muzaffar Alam, Chetan Singh and others, this century comes across as being an extremely vibrant one with new trends in culture, the development of regional commercial centres, the re-routing of trade etc.

Decline of the Mughal state did not indicate an overall economic decline. Political and social forms also survived in areas where the Mughal reach had been limited.

Second Debate

The second debate revolves around whether the eighteenth century can be seen as onecontinuum or whether there is a structural break in the 1750s. This debate is still an active one with the battle lines being drawn between Irfan Habib, Athar Ali, Sushil Chaudhuri, Om Prakash on one side and C.A.Bayly, Rajat Datta etc. on the other.

Did the acquiring of political control by the British, beginning with Bengal in the mid-eighteenth century have far reaching consequences which changed the entire character of the Indian economy? Irfan Habib and others subscribe to this view

These historians argue that with the collapse of the centralized Mughal state structure the important political, economic and social institutions tied with the state also crumbled, bringing unrest and havoc through the century.

Break (a) Politics1. Previous two centuries were age of political unity, centralized control.2. Indian powers had superior military.(b) Economy1. Prosperity in previous two centuries.(c) Socio-Cultural1. Remarkable progress in cultural pursuits in past 2 centuries.

While Bayly believes that there were no structural changes and that there was a continuity from the first half of the eighteenth century into the second. This line of argument is referred to as the continuity thesis.Continuity(a) Politics1. Marathas filled up the void with an empire almost as large as the Mughal empire.(b) Economy1. Highly developed economy continued. Economic activities largely similar to previous centuries.2. Indian products, specially textiles, were still in high demand in whole world. The European governments had to impose trade barriers. India continued to be thesink of bullion of the world. India had a great share in the world trade.3. Urban centers were still flourishing. There was no decline in ports, craft centers and trade centers.(c) Socio-Cultural1. Culture also flourished. Examples of Jai Singh, Imam-bada of Lucknow. Literature also flourished specially Urdu and regional language. A number of regionalschools of painting flourished like the Kishangarh school, the Bundi school, the Bikaner school.2. The social evils prevalent were not a product of this century.