Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor in name only by this period — blind since 1788 after being personally mutilated on the orders of Ghulam Qadir, and entirely dependent on Maratha protection. Awadh's use of his regnal titles on coinage was a political fiction, maintaining the legal framework of Mughal suzerainty while the Nawabs exercised real autonomous power. The Najibabad mint, situated in the Rohilkhand region, operated under arrangements that shifted repeatedly as Afghan, Maratha, and Company influence contested the Gangetic plain throughout the 1790s.
Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor in name only by this period — blind since 1788 after being personally mutilated on the orders of Ghulam Qadir, and entirely dependent on Maratha protection. Awadh's use of his regnal titles on coinage was a political fiction, maintaining the legal framework of Mughal suzerainty while the Nawabs exercised real autonomous power. The Najibabad mint, situated in the Rohilkhand region, operated under arrangements that shifted repeatedly as Afghan, Maratha, and Company influence contested the Gangetic plain throughout the 1790s.