Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor in name during one of the dynasty's most turbulent collapses — blinded by the Rohilla chieftain Ghulam Qadir in 1788, restored under Maratha protection, and ultimately reduced to a pensioner of the British after 1803. Bharatpur's rulers struck coins in his name throughout this period as a matter of political legitimacy, not Mughal loyalty. The fiction of imperial authority was useful currency long after the empire itself had ceased to function.
Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor in name during one of the dynasty's most turbulent collapses — blinded by the Rohilla chieftain Ghulam Qadir in 1788, restored under Maratha protection, and ultimately reduced to a pensioner of the British after 1803. Bharatpur's rulers struck coins in his name throughout this period as a matter of political legitimacy, not Mughal loyalty. The fiction of imperial authority was useful currency long after the empire itself had ceased to function.