The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.74

v4.c20.74

After Aurangzīb had left Rājputāna for the Deccan (1681) his troops continued to hold the cities and strategic points of Mārwār; but the Rāthor patriots remained in a state of war for twenty-seven years more. They occupied the hills and deserts and every now and then swooped down upon the plains, cutting off convoys, capturing weakly held Mughul outposts, and rendering the cultivation of the fields and traffic on the roads wellnigh impossible, so that famine was constantly present in Mārwār, and in some years "the sword and pestilence united to clear the land". The Rāthor national opposition would have gradually died out through attrition, if the emperor had not been plunged into a more serious conflict in the Deccan, which drained all his resources and ensured the ultimate success of the Rāthor patriots. The history of these twenty-seven years (1681–1707) in Mārwār falls into three well-defined stages: from 1681 to 1687 there was a people's war, because the chief was a child and the national leader Durgā Dās was absent in the Deccan. The Rāthor people fought under different captains individually, with no central authority and no common plan of action. By adopting guerrilla tactics they wore the Mughuls out and minimised the disadvantages of their own inferior arms and numbers. The second stage of the war began in 1687, when Durgā Dās returned from the Deccan and Ajīt Singh came out of concealment and the two took the command of the national forces. The success of the Rāthors was at first brilliant; joined by the Hārā clan of Būndī they cleared the plains of Mārwār and advancing beyond their own land raided Mālpurā and Pur-Mandal and carried their ravages into Mewāt and the west of Delhi. But they could not recover their own country, because in this very year 1687 an exceptionally capable and energetic officer named Shujā'at Khān became the imperial governor of Jodhpur and held that office for fourteen years, during which he successfully maintained the Mughul hold on Mārwār. He always kept his retainers up to their full strength and was very quick in his movements. Thus, he succeeded in checking the Rāthors when it came to fighting, while he also made an understanding with them by paying them one-fourth (*chauth*) of the imperial custom-duties on all merchandise if they spared the traders on the roads. On Shujā'at Khān's death (in July, 1701), A'zam Shāh, who succeeded him as governor, renewed hostilities with Ajīt Singh and the third stage of the Rājput war began which ended in the complete recovery of Mārwār by Ajīt Singh in 1707.