The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.6

v4.c21.6

After the victory of Shakarkhelda, the terror of Āsaf Jāh’s arms and the high reputation for capacity and spirit which he had brought with him cowed his own refractory subjects. But the Marāthās were an ever present menace to his state and proved his chief preoccupation throughout his rule, and they succeeded in nibbling away his state when he was no more. And yet he was sincerely desirous of living at peace with them. He had seen with his own eyes how the whole force of the empire wielded by a sovereign of the stamp of Aurangzīb for twenty-five years had failed to crush the Marāthā people. Āsaf Jāh therefore recognised the basic truth that the Marāthās were the native landowners of the Deccan and that the Mughul governor of that country must cultivate their friendship if he was to live at all. On the other side, Rājā Shāhū too was eager to remain on good terms with the Mughul government and to avoid war at all costs. Completely enervated by his long captivity in Aurangzīb’s harem, constitutionally weak and unenterprising, faced with disobedience and tumult by many of his own subjects, the Marāthā king was content with the *chauth* and *sardeshmukhī* which had been legally granted to him by the Delhi sovereign in 1718, so long as he could collect them in peace.¹ Thus, the principals on the two sides sincerely sought peace and the maintenance of the *status quo* established in 1718, but their followers forced their hands.