The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.26

v4.c21.26

For a quarter of a century Āsaf Jāh had been the most outstanding personality in the Mughal empire. He was universally regarded as the sole representative of the spacious times of Aurangzīb and of the policy and traditions of that strenuous monarch. The higher minds among the younger generation of the court nobility looked up to him with the respect due to a father, while fools and knaves hated him for his love of discipline and honesty of administration. He was undoubtedly the foremost general of his time in India. In statecraft and diplomacy he was no less eminent. He had the true statesman's length of vision and spirit of moderation, and of this we have many proofs. He won over the surviving partisans of Mubāriz Khān by liberal provision for their support. After crushing the rebellion of his son Nāsir Jang, he destroyed unread the rebel's despatch-box, which was reported to contain promises of adhesion from thirty-eight nobles of his own court. Still more strongly was his wisdom shown when in 1739, Nādir Shāh, disgusted with the imbecility of Muhammad Shāh, offered the throne of Delhi to Āsaf Jāh, but the latter refused to be disloyal to his master. On his deathbed he gave his son Nāsir Jang several pieces of very good counsel—telling him to live on good terms with the Marāthās, to abstain from putting men to death except by the judge's sentence, to scorn repose and frequently to go out on tours, to live laborious days in doing state business, to respect the rights of his servants and treat every man in a manner worthy of his position, to be loyal to his king, and not to provoke war by aggression. The only wrong policy that he followed and recommended to his son was that of removing his local officers after only a year or two of service and putting new men in their places, on the strange ground that thus "a large number of God's creatures would be fed".¹ In fact, in spite of his possessing exceptional military capacity, his conduct was throughout marked by prudence, the avoidance of waste or unnecessary expenditure, and simplicity of living, worthy of a pupil of Aurangzīb.