An Interesting Read Why Akbar's hard work did not pay off?

actually the rot of mughal empire started with shah jahan itself.

Shah jahan started this practice of killing all male relatives including brothers, cousin brothers, nephews etc to come to power. So subsequent generation only followed his lead. When Auragnzeb was informed that Sahh Jahan wanted the eldest son Dara Sikoh to be emperor after him and had made him crown prince he told one thing "The emperor will be decided like in the last generation". Meaning he was hinting long back before his rebellion that he intended to follow his father's footstep in succession war. Also during Akbar and Jehangir the Mughal empire was very rich and they both especially Jehangir did not waste any money on monuments(except fatekpur shikri where money went waste because of water crisis by Akbar). But Shah Jahan spent majority revenue in building monuments and cities like Shahjahanabad(old delhi). That bankurpted the Mughal empire completely.

Auragnzeb was highly suspicious of his sons and daughters he never allowed them freedom or independent commands like Akbar had done to Jehangir or Jehangir did to Shah Jahan and Shah Jahan did to Aurangzeb and Shah Sujha and their other sons. Jehangir may have rebelled against Akbar but they still had communication channels open with letters and people going across to each others courts and neither went to extreme lengths during rebellion, same with Shah Jahan he had rebelled agianst his father but Jehangir did not go to extreme lengths of prosecuting him like putting him in jail or consficating his jagir's although he killed his two brothers when Jehangir was alive.

But majority of Aurangzeb sons were prosecuted and put in jail or rebelled and thrown out of kingdom and died as destitute. So they were never given opportunity to learn about administration warfare and were treated with suspicion by their father and prosecuted. So how could they be expected to be good emperors? They were just puppets under powerful nobels/ministers

Lastly the arthodox islamic rules over a majority non-muslim population and alienation of rajpuths was the final nail in coffin of mughal empire. Credit for this lies with two empress Ruqaiah who brought up Shah Jahan in more orthodox muslim way that he was not supportive of his own mother's religion hinduism and Nur Jahan who wanted to make her daughter empress at any cost which made Shah Jahan become more orthodox muslim to gain support in court. This orthodox administration had started during Shah Jahan's era but became complete during Aurangzeb's time.

Many say that Shah Jahan's over favouratism of Dara Sukoh and Jahanara led to Aurangzeb's hatred for his siblings, but then what led to Shah Jahan's hatred for his brothers/cousins. Shah Jahan was Jehangir's favurite son and Jehangir favoured him over his other 4 sons still Shah Jahan carried out blood bath to come on throne. So i do not beileve all this favouratism theories. In ever family one child will be favourite of parents always even till today. That does not mean others take that as pertex and start removing grudge on those siblings. I am pretty sure even if Jehangir had not favoured Shah Jahan so much or Shah Jahan had not favoured Dara Sukoh so much they would have been these blood baths for succession. It is all about ambition Shah Jahna and Aurangzeb would go to any extent to become emperor's at any cost irrespective of whether their father's loved or did not show favourtism.

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Becos of Jodha, Jehangir is more like his father.