1 Paisa - Shah Alam II

Shah Alam II was Mughal emperor in name only for most of his reign — blinded by the Rohilla chief Ghulam Qadir in 1788, held under Maratha protection, and largely irrelevant to the actual governance of Awadh, which operated as a de facto independent state under its Nawabs. Coinage struck in his name by Awadh was a political formality, acknowledging nominal Mughal suzerainty while the Nawabs exercised real authority under an increasingly brittle arrangement with the East India Company.

KM#12 spans nearly five decades of issue, making die variation across the type considerable.