To begin with a Mughal Empire. Modern Western sources like to praise this state as both very powerful and very enlightened even by modern standards. Powerful is simple, they had more soldiers, more and often better weapons, more money and more everything compared to any coloniser in the area. Enlightened needs clarification. Mughal rules were very educated: versed in many languages as well as in culture science and technology. Westerners who visited their court, were impressed with its level of culture and sophistication. As rulers they supported religions tolerance and multiculturalism. They patronised arts and build many famous Indian landmarks such as Taj Mahal, that is probably the most famous Indian structure in the Western World. So how could such wonderful people lose their country to colonisers?
The answer to that does not lie in some evil western weapons or such, but rather in the problems within Mughal Empire itself. To begin with I had to point out the obvious, Mughals were not of Indian origin. Just like many others before and after them, they were descendants of foreign invaders who conquered their empire with force and later made India their home. For those who came after the conquest was complete that fact might be unobvious, after all Mughals are born in India and rule from Delhi in India, however for locals that was not so.
Mughals like other conquerors were Muslims, they preached religious tolerance but that was due to the fact that most of their country was Hindu, and they had to somehow coexist with it. For a European both Islam and Hindu equally foreign but for Indians Hindu is a local native faith and Islam is the faith brough in by conquerors from the West: Iran is west of India even if its east of Europe. Officially Mughals preached religions co-existence, but in order to advance in society one likely had better chances if they were Muslim or converted to Islam. That certainly did not sit well with Hindu majority.
Finally Mughal court used Parsi as its official language. Parsi is Iranian language, no one in India speaks it natively. Yet Mughals insisted that their subjects have to learn their language to speak to them rather than the other way around. It was not just language either, Mughal rulers liked Persian art, architecture and other such things. Taj Mahal too was built in Persian, rather than Indian style, a fact likely missed by many tourists who visit it every year.
All in all, Indians did not feel like Mughals were one of their own but rather saw them as foreigners who occupy their land and rule it as they see fit.
That provoked an uprising. A Maratha Confederation/Empire was an attempt by Hindus to drive the Mughals out. At first, they were successful and nearly took over the country. Then the founder and the original ruler died and things went downhill. A succession war broke out between several contenders for the throne. That war gradually completely destroyed Marathas. There was always another princeling, wanting to take the throne and common Maratha solders kept killing each other for their ambitions. They would have completely destroyed themselves with this fratricidal war, unless they figured a way out. That way out was East India Company.
Relationship between Marathas and EIC begun way back. Maratha founders likely convinced them to lend them weapons, promising to pay back when they won. That later never came and when Maratha infighting begun, in leu of paying with money, different pretenders gave EIC right to tax people in areas they conquered. With taxing came administrative burdens too. Gradually Marathas pawned all their land to EIC.
Maratha solders defected to EIC too as EIC could pay them stable salaries and did not require them to keep killing each other. It may be called British Raj but most of the personnel especially military was local. Indian Sepoys and Nepalese Gurkhas were not only the military of British colonial rule but also important component of all British forces. They saw service in many British wars outside of India.
EIC did not just taxed land, they figured they could improve things by running more tea and cotton plantation, textile factories and then sell all that produce to Europe for money. That was the solution everyone wanted and liked. Europeans liked their newfound tea and preferred cotton clothes to those made from local materials. The money this trade made India richer, making this overall a successful business operation. EIC kept expanding its business opening more plantations and textile mills, employing more and more people, gradually this became the biggest business in the area.
EIC eventually capsized under its debts and was dissolved. Even before that many in UK's parliament were saying that scope of EIC operations have long since exceeded the trade in tea that it was created to do. By early 18th century it effectively ran a country much larger than UK itself. After Sepoy Uprising of 1857 EIC was dissolved and UK government took civil control over British India.
That did not end British rule, it merely changed its administrative structure. Instead of being run by commercial executives, it was ruled but civil servants instead. The second part of the Raj saw creation of various civil institutions and other things, countries typically have.
So, why the British Raj succeeded while both Marathas and Mughals faded into history. Because it managed to solve various economic and social problems that India had at that time. Fundamentally people preferred it to both Mughals and Marathas. As foreign as British were, they could bring them more prosperity and stability that either Mughals or Marathas could. Aslo British that generally loved India and all things Indian were preferable to Persophilic Mughals of Uzbek origin or local Maratha princelings who cannot pay their solders but expose them to unnecessary dangers.
Societies are complex structures. The more complex they get, the stranger are solutions, that are needed to fix their problem. That can apply to modern times as well. For example, one might find it strange why Western world is so obsessed with Japan and all things Japanese. Chinese would particularly be baffled by the fact that Japanese, whom they see as inferior to them in every possible way, are for some reason loved so much by the West and Chinese themselves are not. The answer to this problem once again lies in unique problems of Western society, Western family and Western women, that Western men seek solution to these problems in Japan and Thailand.
That is also why we need Universal Basic Income to fix the economy.
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