1/2 Paisa - Muhammad Ali

The Nawabs of the Carnatic occupied an increasingly hollow political position through this period — nominally Mughal viceroys, they were in practice clients of the East India Company, whose military muscle had propped up Nawab Muhammad Ali Walajah against French-backed rival Chanda Sahib during the Carnatic Wars of the early 1750s. The Company's debts to Muhammad Ali, and his debts to Company servants, became so entangled that historians have described the relationship as mutual financial hostage-taking.

Small copper fractions like this circulated in bazaar economies largely outside Company oversight. KM#18 is among the more commonly encountered Carnatic coppers, suggesting sustained local production across the nearly three decades of Muhammad Ali's reign.