Later Mughals v2.c14.s5: Sec. 29.—Murder of Ajit Singh by His Son.
Later Mughals v2.c14.s5
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Sec. 29.—Murder of Ajit Singh by His Son.
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We shall conclude this section with the death of Rajah Ajit Singh. Tod admits that the bards and chroniclers pass over the event with a mere mention, one of them going so far as to leave a blank page at the critical point of his story. But in another part of Tod's book, we have a detailed narrative of the crime.* In any case, that Ajit Singh met a violent death at the hand of his second son, Bakht Singh, is admitted by the Rajputs themselves, and even by their ardent champion Colonel Tod. [Tod i. 698, ii. 88.]
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∗ Kamwar 264-266, Tod ii. Mahrut, identified with Marout of the Rajputana map of 1859 about 10 m. n. of the north bank of the Sambhar lake. Warid (130) says the Rajput garrison of Garh Patili only numbered four hundred, that the place was surrendered after negotiations, and that the garrison marched out with the honours of war, flags flying and drums beating. According to the Rajput account (Tod ii. 87) Taragarh close to Ajmer was also invested in July and held out for four months under the command of Umra Singh.
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According to their story, Bakht Singh after saying good-night concealed himself in a room adjoining the one in which his parents were sleeping. When all was still he entered their room, seized his father's sword, and plunged it into him. The wife was awakened by feeling her husband's blood on her breast. Bakht Singh escaped. Ajit Singh's body was cremated on the 7th June 1724, when eighty-four wives and concubines sacrificed themselves on his funeral pyre. A dispute about the succession at once arose between the sons on the spot. On the 25th July, 1724, Abhai Singh, then between twenty-one and twenty-two years of age, obtained through the intervention of Samsam-ud-daulah the title of *Rajah Rajeshwar*, with the rank of 7,000 *zat*, (7,000 horse), and was allowed to depart for Jodhpur to take possession of his father's succession. [Tod i. 699, K. K. 974, Khush-hal 1044*b*.]
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The fact of Ajit Singh's murder by his son, Bakht Singh, is not denied by any one; but a divergence of opinion exists as to the incentives to the deed. Tod's informants told him that Bakht Singh acted at the instigation of his elder brother, Abhai Singh,† then at Dihli and in the power of the Emperor. The murderer's reward was to be the appanage of Nagor and its five hundred and sixty-five townships. To account for Abhai Singh's unholy desire we are told that his ambition had been stirred by the Machiavellian Sayyids, eager to wreak vengeance upon Ajit Singh for his opposition to their dethronement of Farrukh-siyar. Now let us apply some of the simplest critical tests. Can the offered reward be looked on as sufficient to impel Bakht Singh to an act of parricide? He may not have been a very clever man, but he was hardly such a simpleton as to incur the infamy of such an act (1) for the benefit not of himself but of a brother and (2) for the grant of an appange which, by universal Rajput practice, would have been his as a matter of course whenever his father died a natural death. But coming finally to external tests, what is there left of the story? We find that its very foundation vanishes. The assassination of Ajit Singh took place in June 1724; one Sayyid had been assassinated on the 8th October, 1720, and the other, after being defeated in battle and made a prisoner on the 14th November 1720, died in prison on the 11th October, 1722. Obviously, they could not have been in 1724 the instigators of Abhai Singh. Further, it is impossible, after even the most elementary study of the period, to ignore the fact that Ajit Singh, instead of opposing, helped the Sayyids to the utmost in getting rid of Farrukh-siyar. Tod's story is thus a mere legend, which falls to pieces directly it is examined; nor, as he admits, does his usual resource, the rhyming chronicles of the bards, afford him here any countenance. And Tod himself (ii. 113) confesses that "but for that one damning crime, Bakht Singh would have been handed down to posterity as one of the noblest Princes Rajwara ever knew." Conceding the truth of even a part only of this glowing eulogy, is it not more unlikely than ever that such a paladin could have become the miserable tool of an ambitious brother with no greater incentive than the offer of an appanage already his by family custom? Is it not rather to be believed that the father did something which the son felt was an attack on his personal honour?
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∗ Tod, i. 699. This passage shows Tod at his weakest as an historian. His fastening of Ajit Singh's murder upon the Sayyids is a gross chronological error. Hardly less absurd is his assertion that Ajit Singh ever refused "sanction to the nefarious schemes of the Sayyids". He was their friend and partisan up to the end.
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† Warid 130 assigns the same reason as Tod for the murder. *Cf.* M. U. iii. 758.
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Although coming from Muhammadan sources, there is another version [Kamwar] of the facts, which, destructive though it is of any respect for the character of the "great Ajit", is much more satisfactory than that put forward by the champion of the Rajputs. It is one that furnishes a sufficient motive for the dreadful deed, and thus satisfies better the conditions of the case. We are told that soon after Ajit Singh had made his peace and returned to Jodhpur, he fell in love with the wife of his middle son Bakht Singh and was guilty of an incestuous intercourse. Overcome with shame and touched in the tenderest point of his honour, Bakht Singh sought his opportunity of revenge. One night when Ajit Singh, drunk and stupefied, was lying fast asleep, his son stabbed him to death. As a contrast to Tod's dithyrambs, we may here give the Muhammadan view of the Rajah's character. "He was exceedingly wanting in good faith, a breaker of his oath, one who had slain unfairly many of his relations and dependants. Among his evil deeds was the abandonment of Farrukh-siyar to his fate, in spite of his relationship through his daughter; nay he took an active part in that Emperor's dethronement. In the end he attained the reward for his misdeeds:
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He who sows the seed of evil and hopes for good,
Racks his brain uselessly and imagines a vain thing."