The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.100

v4.c21.100

We must now turn our attention to Mālwā, where Udāji Powār, Malhār Rāo Holkar and Rānoji Sindia had been steadily undermining the Mughul power. On 8 December, 1728, at Sārangpur, they defeated and killed the governor, Rājā Girdhar Bahādur, who for ten years had struggled to prevent the Marāthās from getting a firm footing in his province. His successor, Dayā Bahādur, suffered a similar fate at Tālā near Dhār (12 October, 1731). In 1732, the Peshwā himself took command over the Marāthā forces, sending back his brother and Pilāji Jādav to watch over his interests at Sātārā. On his arrival there he found the new viceroy was Muhammad Khān Bangash, whom he had defeated in Bundelkhand in 1729.² Muhammad Khān, receiving no support from Delhi, was unable to stay the Marāthā incursion and was relieved by Rājā Jay Singh of Amber. In 1733 the Peshwā placed in charge of Bundelkhand a Brāhman officer named Govind Pant Kher who afterwards was known as Bundele and played a part in the Pānīpat campaign. The great Rājput barons, who had once been the guardians of the empire on its western borders, were now more and more openly throwing off their allegiance, and welcoming the Marāthās as the champions of the Hindu religion.³ In 1736, Jay Singh came to terms with the Peshwā, appointing him as deputy-governor on condition that he did not plunder imperial territories. This amounted to the virtual cession of the province, and had not the smallest deterrent effect on Marāthā depredations: the following year saw their horsemen crossing the Jumna and plundering the Dūāb. It was now that Bāji Rāo planned one of his boldest strokes. In March, 1737, Sa'ādat Khān, the governor of Oudh, had defeated Malhār Rāo Holkar, and elated by his success wrote a vainglorious letter to Delhi, boasting that he had driven the Marāthās across the Chambal. "Hearing this", wrote Bāji Rāo to his brother, "I was resolved to let the emperor know the truth, to prove that I was still in Hindūstān, and to shew him flames and the Marāthās at the gate of the capital."¹ Gathering a picked body of horsemen and covering ten days' march in two, he swooped down upon Delhi. Fugitives, distraught with terror, poured into the city. The government, at first incredulous and then panic-stricken, gathered together all available forces and despatched them to chastise the invaders. Bāji Rāo, adopting the usual Marāthā tactics, skilfully fell back until he had drawn his opponents away from the walls and well out into the open. Then he turned, and in a moment, Malhār Rāo Holkar, with Rānoji Sindia hard at his heels, crashed into their ranks. That day the Marāthā sword and lance drank deep of the blood of the proudest of the Mughul nobles: over six hundred were slain, and the troopers helped themselves freely to riderless horses with their gorgeous equipments of cloth of gold. The terrified emperor awaited in fear and trembling the approach of the victors; but before dawn Bāji Rāo had vanished as swiftly as he came, cleverly outmanœuvring an imperial army under the minister which tried to cut off his retreat (April, 1737).