The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.242

v4.c20.242

The languid movement of Nizām-ul-Mulk was stimulated by the issue of a commission appointing his eldest son, Ghāzī-ud-Dīn Khān, governor of Mālwā and Gujarāt, on the condition of his expelling the Marāthā. He marched through Āgra and then through Kālpī into Mālwā and halted at Sironj. Bājī Rāo’s business in the Konkan did not occupy him for long, and he returned to Mālwā. Nizām-ul-Mulk advanced to Bhopāl, where the two armies met in January, 1738, and betrayed his weakness by entrenching himself in a strong position. A battle produced no decisive result and Nizām-ul-Mulk’s camp was surrounded by predatory hordes who cut off his supplies and repelled forces sent to relieve him. At length, leaving his heavy baggage behind him, he forced his way through the screen of light horse surrounding him and began a laborious retreat. At every step he was harassed by the Marāthās and though these failed to capture his artillery, his troops progressed slowly, and on 17 January, 1738, near Sīronj, he was obliged to sign a convention undertaking to obtain for Bājī Rāo the whole of Mālwa, with sovereignty in the territory between the Narbadā and the Chambal and a subsidy of five million rupees. These terms were sufficiently disgraceful. They included nothing that was the Nizām's, and the cession of sovereignty in the tract between the two rivers may have covered a design to protect his dominions in the south by establishing an independent state between them and the territories of the emperor.