The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.100

v4.c20.100

His successor, Ibrāhīm Khān (1689–97), was an old man of mild disposition and sedentary habits, and a great lover of books; personally just and free from caprice, but without strength of purpose or capacity for action. He let matters drift till a serious rebellion broke out. Shovā Singh, the chief of Cheto-Bardā (Midnapore district), rebelled, and in alliance with Rahīm Khān, the chief of the Orissa Afghāns, defeated and slew Rājā Krishna Rām, the revenue-farmer of the Burdwān district, and captured its chief town with the family and property of the raja. Then they seized the fort and city of Hooghly. They next plundered the rich cities of Nadiā and Murshidābād, Māldā and Rājmahāl. Shovā Singh was stabbed to death by a daughter of the Burdwān raja, and the rebels then chose Rahīm Khān as their king with the title of Rahīm Shāh. The English, French and Dutch, on the outbreak of the rebellion, obtained the viceroy’s permission to fortify their settlements at Calcutta, Chandernagore and Chinsura, and the Dutch afterwards helped to wrest Hooghly fort from the rebels. The emperor dismissed Ibrāhīm Khān and appointed his own grandson ‘Azīm-ush-shān in his place, but before the arrival of this new viceroy, Zabardast Khān, the commandant of Burdwān, recovered Rājmahāl and Māldā, Murshidābād and Burdwān and captured the rebel encampment at Bhagwāngolā. After the prince’s arrival at Burdwān, his minister Khvāja Anwār was treacherously slain at an interview by Rahīm Khān, but that rebel leader was killed and his army broken up.