Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor whose name appeared on Maratha-struck coinage long after the empire had any real control over him — he had been blinded by Ghulam Qadir in 1788 and spent his final decades as a pensioner under Maratha and later British protection. The Peshwas continued striking rupees in his name as a legitimizing fiction, a common practice that kept Mughal imperial iconography alive on coins issued by powers that had effectively supplanted the Delhi throne.
By 1814, the Peshwa authority itself was collapsing. Baji Rao II's political maneuvering had exhausted British patience, and the Third Anglo-Maratha War was only four years away.
Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor whose name appeared on Maratha-struck coinage long after the empire had any real control over him — he had been blinded by Ghulam Qadir in 1788 and spent his final decades as a pensioner under Maratha and later British protection. The Peshwas continued striking rupees in his name as a legitimizing fiction, a common practice that kept Mughal imperial iconography alive on coins issued by powers that had effectively supplanted the Delhi throne.
By 1814, the Peshwa authority itself was collapsing. Baji Rao II's political maneuvering had exhausted British patience, and the Third Anglo-Maratha War was only four years away.