New History of the Marathas v1.c19.s1.21

v1.c19.s1.21

6. Tragedy of Aurangzeb’s life.—The Emperor’s last three years in the Deccan were the darkest in his long reign. The Marathas constantly hovered round the Mughal camp and carried away everything they could lay their hands on. Even when they surrendered their forts to the Emperor, they hardly left anything valuable in them, so that these captured forts proved mere dry rocks and stones difficult to be protected and replenished. They could be held only by those who were used to the hard and rugged life of Maharashtra and not by the heavily-armoured Mughal soldiers. The keenly observant Manucci’s pen has given graphic accounts of these last years of Aurangzeb’s life. As Sir Jadunath Sarkar writes, “The wastage of the Deccan war, which raged intensely for over twenty years, was a hundred thousand lives of soldiers and followers and three times that number of animals, elephants, horses, camels and oxen, for each of those years. In the imperial camp pestilence was always present and the daily mortality was heavy from the immense number of men crowded together, the accumulation of filth and flies and the unbearable stench. His soldiers and camp followers suffered unspeakable hardships in marching over flooded rivers, muddy roads, and broken hilly tracks. Posters disappeared, transport beasts died of hunger and overwork, scarcity of grain was ever present in the camp. His officers were awfully wearied. Aurangzeb burst into wrath at any suggestion of return to north India and taunted the unlucky counsellor with cowardice and love of ease. One by one the old, able and independent officers of his earlier years passed away, and he was now surrounded only by timid cycophants and upstart nobles of his own creation, who would never venture to contradict him in his errors, nor give him honest counsel. The mutual jealousies of his generals ruined his affairs, so that the Emperor had to conduct every operation in person and nothing would be done. The Marathas find their raids of late immensely beneficial. As soon as they arrive into a district, the Mughal officer in charge of it sends his agents to the Maratha leaders and negotiates the amounts to be paid. If they don't get the stipulated sum, plunder and fire are the result. The Maratha king is now all powerful. He has a hundred thousand well trained fighting men in his charge : so he is not afraid of giving an open fight to the Emperor. It is now the Maratha Raja's turn to inspire the same terror among the Mughals which Aurangzeb in his earlier days used to do among the Marathas."⁴