History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c51.s8: §8. End of the war with Mewar.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c51.s8
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§8. End of the war with Mewar.
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Akbar's rebellion failed to change the sovereign of Delhi, but it brought unhoped for relief to the Maharana. It disconcerted the Mughal plan of war at a time when their net was being drawn closer round his State and even his hill refuge had been proved to be not invulnerable. Akbar's defection broke the cordon, and, by diverting all the untainted imperial troops into Marwar, gave automatic relief to Mewar. It was probably at this time that the Sisodias seized the opportunity of making reprisals. One of their armies in charge of the gallant Prince Bhim Singh descended from the Aravalis and spread over Gujrat, raiding Wadnagar, Vishalnagar and some other places, while this disturbance enabled the deposed Rao of Idar to recover his capital from the Muslim usurpers with the help of a band of Rajput adventurers. Another division of the Maharana's army, led by his finance minister Dayaldas, a trader by caste, descended on the eastern plains, ravaging Malwa, sacking Dhar, and carrying off a herd of imperial elephants, camels, horses and cattle that had been sent there to graze.*
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∗ Akbar's movements after the failure of his rebellion : His letter to Shambhuji: M. A. 203-206, 211; Khafi Khan (the best account), ii. 275-277; Basatin-i-salatin, 439; Ishwardas, 83b; Tod, ii. 892-893. For Khan-i-Jahan's complicity, K. K. ii. 277: Dilkasha, 171. M. A. gives reports that Akbar passed to Sanchor, then over the hill of Dungar[pur]—by way of Berun-garh (? Bhairon-garh) and Rajpipli—into the Deccan.
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But both these exploits were of the nature of incursions, and they could not affect the broader issues of the war. Such temporary successes were more than neutralized by the signal incapacity of the new Maharana, Jai Singh, who had inherited neither the military skill nor the organizing genius of his great father, and ruled, besides, over a house divided against itself.
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The Rajput war was a drawn game so far as actual fighting was concerned, but its material consequences were disastrous to the Maharana's subjects. They retained their independence among the sterile crags of the Aravali, but their corn-fields in the plains below were ravaged by the enemy. They could stave off defeat but not starvation. The Mughals, on the other hand, might fail to penetrate into the hills of Kamalmir; their outposts might be surprised and convoys cut off occasionally; but they held the low country and received supplies from all parts of the empire.
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∗ Mirat-i-Ahmadi (311) and Ishwardas (80a); the latter authority places these events after Raj Singh's death, which took place on 22nd October, 1680. M. A. (205) distinctly states that late in January 1681, Dayaldas intended to make a night attack on Prince Azam's army near Chitor, but it was defeated with heavy loss to the Rajputs. Tod's authority, the Rajasthani poem Raj-vilas (cantos 15-17), places these raids in Jan.—Feb. 1680, and greatly magnifies the success of Bhim and Dayaldas (i. 400). I attach no weight to the chronology of the bard.
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§9. Peace with Maharana.
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So, both sides desired peace. A mutual friend was found in Shyam Singh of Bikaner, who informally proposed peace to the Maharana and offered his own services as mediator. The Maharana grasped the hand extended to him, and personally visited Prince Muhammad Azam (14 June, 1681). Through this prince as intermediary a definite treaty was now made between Mewar and the empire on the following terms:
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1. The Rana ceded to the empire the parganas of Mandal, Pur and Bednor in lieu of the jaziya demanded from his kingdom.
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2. The Mughals withdrew from Mewar, which was restored to Jai Singh with the title of Rana and the rank of a Commander of Five Thousand.*
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The long interrupted friendly relations between suzerain and vassal were renewed. Maharana Raj Singh had died in a state of war; now, eight months after the event, peace having been made, the paternal overlord sent to the new Maharana the customary robe of condolence for his father's death. Two months after the treaty the heroic Bhim Singh paid his respects to the Emperor and was taken into Mughal service with his son.*
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∗ M.A., 208; Tod, i. p. 403. I cannot understand Tod, i. 408 on this treaty. The Mughals were not really so utterly crushed as the bards imagine. The authentic diplomatic papers are given in Viravinod, ii. 654-662.
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§10. Long and desultory war in Marwar.
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Thus Mewar at last recovered peace and freedom. Not so Marwar. That unhappy theatre of war was turned into a wilderness during the truceless conflict which constitutes Jodhpur history for the next thirty years. "The sword and pestilence united to clear the land."
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Time was in favour of the imperialists, and economic pressure would have worn out Rathor endurance if only the Mughals could have held on long enough. But Akbar's junction with Shambhuji raised a more formidable danger to the empire, and Aurangzib had to concentrate all his forces in the Deccan and even to be present there in person. The Mughal hold on Marwar was consequently relaxed, the garrisons were depleted, and the higher commanders withdrawn. This was the salvation of the Rathors. Throughout the succeeding generation we find the Mughal hold on Marwar pulsating with the military situation in the Deccan. When a great enterprise or a heavy reverse forced the Mughals to
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*M. A. 212. Bhim Singh was created a Rajah and posted at Ajmir for the war with the Rathors.
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draft more troops to the South, the Rajput nationalists sallied from their dens and struck heavy blows at the thinned Mughal outposts.* When the pressure in the Deccan was relieved, reinforcements were pushed up into Rajasthan and the Mughals recovered their lost positions. The Rathor system of warfare, under Durgadas's able guidance, anticipated the Maratha method and its success by harassing and exhausting the imperialists and even by driving the helpless Mughal commanders to buy a secret forbearance by paying *chauth* to the Rathors. Thus the war went on with varying fortunes, but without cessation for 30 years, till August 1709, when Ajit Singh entered Jodhpur in triumph for the last time and his lordship of Marwar was formally and finally acknowledged by the Emperor of Delhi. [Post Ch. 44.]
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The loss caused to Aurangzib by his Rajput policy cannot be measured solely by the men and money he poured on that desert soil. He had concentrated all the resources of the empire against two small States† and had failed to achieve decisive success. Damaging as this result was to imperial prestige, its material consequences were worse still. In the height of political unwisdom, he wantonly provoked rebellion in Rajputana, while the Afghans on the frontier were still far from being pacified. With the two leading Rajput clans openly hostile to him, his army lost its finest and most loyal recruits. Nor was the trouble confined to Marwar and Mewar. It spread by sympathy among the Hada and Gaur clans. The elements of lawlessness thus set moving overflowed fitfully into Malwa and endangered the vitally important Mughal road through Malwa to the Deccan. In the incessant wars which fill the remainder of his reign, the Bundela clan and a few Hada and Kachhwa families supplied the only Rajput soldiers he could secure for fighting his battles. This was the harvest that Jalal-ud-din Akbar's great-grandson reaped from sowing the whirlwind of religious persecution and suppression of nationalities.
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∗ In 1099 A. H. the faujdar of Jodhpur died; no troops could be spared from the Deccan; the faujdari of Jodhpur was made part of the duties of the subahdar of Gujrat; Durgadas returned from the Deccan; the deputy faujdari of Jodhpur went abegging among Aurangzib's officers. (Mirat, 334-335).
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† "For this campaign [1680], Aurangzib put in pledge the whole of his kingdom." Storia, ii. 240.