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History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c58: Chapter XXXVIII. The Keynote of Deccan History in the Seventeenth Century.

History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c58

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Chapter XXXVIII. The Keynote of Deccan History in the Seventeenth Century.

§ 1. Muslim Powers in the Deccan.

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In the middle of the Fourteenth century the foundation of the Bahmani kingdom created an independent centre of Muslim power in Southern India. The conquest of the western coast-strip (Konkan) by the kings of this line also put them in possession of sea-ports like Dabhol, Chaul, Rajapur and Goa, through which they established direct intercourse with Persia, Arabia, Africa and the Malay Peninsula. Thus, the stream of recruits could flow into the Deccan from the outer Muhammadan world without being intercepted by the rulers of Delhi. At a time when the force of the first Islamic penetration of Northern India was spent, the Muslim advance there was arrested by impact on the northern and eastern natural barriers of our country, and the Delhi monarchy was seized with decay and dissolution,—Indian Islam started on a new career of expansion in the south and crushed out the great Hindu kingdoms of the Deccan which had hitherto retained their independence.

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This process went on throughout the Fifteenth century. Even when, at the end of the first quarter of the next century, the great house of Bahmani fell almost in the same year that Babur sowed the seed of a new and mightier growth of Islamic power in Northern India,—there was no eclipse of Muhammadanism in the South. The heritage of the Bahmanis passed into the worthy hands of Nizam Shah and Adil Shah. Ahmadnagar and Bijapur now became centres which fully kept up the traditions of Islamic dominion and Islamic culture founded by the Sultans of Kulbarga. The greatness of Ahmadnagar filled the 16th century; but the first quarter of the 17th century saw its final extinction. Bijapur, which had begun the race for empire in the Deccan a little later and hitherto stood second, now rushed in to fill the leadership vacated by Ahmadnagar.

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But with the commencement of the Seventeenth century a new combatant had entered the southern arena. Forty years of vigorous and successful rule by one undisputed sovereign having settled and strengthened the realm of Northern India from Bengal to Gujrat and Kashmir to Sind, the Mughal Emperor was now free to conquer the Deccan, and this fact dominated the whole history of Southern India throughout the 17th century. Adil Shah found a rival he had not reckoned with. Long and desolating wars waged against him by Shah Jahan both during his father's lifetime and in his own reign, at last convinced the ruler of Bijapur that he must give up the dream of winning the hegemony of the Deccan, as the heir of the Bahmanis and the Nizam-Shahis, and that he must find an outlet for his ambition eastwards and southwards only, so as not to cross the path of the dreaded Mughals of the north. The last of these wars for deciding the claim to supremacy in the Deccan had been fought in 1636, as we have seen in Chapter 3. By the partition-treaty of 1636, the southern boundary of Mughal Deccan had been clearly marked out, and during the following twenty years Bijapur had risen to the pinnacle of her greatness by stretching her sway from sea to sea across the Indian peninsula, while the capital city had become the mother of arts and letters, of theology and science. But the warrior-kings of an earlier poorer and ruder generation were now followed by successors who preferred the harem and the darbar to the tented field and the saddle. The great conquests of the middle Seventeenth century were all achieved by servants of the State and not by its supreme lord and master. The climax of the Adil-Shahi power was also the beginning of its rapid decline and dismemberment.

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A number of generals who had conquered kingdoms for their master with their own blood and sweat and had been long accustomed to giving the law to millions, were not likely to obey a child or a sluggard on the throne of a far off capital, nor a veiled woman or a man of their own class acting as the power behind the throne. A feudal State cannot be governed by a faineant king nor by a constitutional prime minister. When the king is no longer a hero, the military viceroys of the provinces will obey him as little as the major-generals obeyed Richard Cromwell. Only a superman,—a Henry V. or a Napoleon I.,—can control the feudal barons and hold together the military type* of State, such as all the Islamic monarchies in India were. Therefore, after the death of the last great Adil Shah (in November 1656), the dissolution of the remaining Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan and their absorption into the Mughal empire would have taken place as an inevitable, speedy and almost silent operation of Nature, but for the entrance of a new factor into Deccan politics.

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∗ The State founded by Akbar was an exception to this description to a limited extent only, as even the Mughal empire did not become a truly national and constitutional State, but remained subject to the influence of the Muslim priesthood and the personal discretion of the sovereign,—more in some reigns, less in others.

§ 2. Marathas in Deccan History.

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These were the Marathas. A small body, no doubt; but they leavened the entire mass of the Deccani population. They dominated Deccan history for the century and a half that followed the accession of Aurangzib and North Indian history for the last fifty years of the 18th century. The Maratha people had been there from time out of mind, but since the 13th century they had lived dispersed through many States, as the subjects of aliens in the land of their birth, without any political organization or status of their own. A genius was needed to unite these scattered units into a *nation* and drive them like a solid wedge into the Mughal empire, shivering it to bits. That genius was Shivaji, the contemporary and antagonist of Aurangzib.

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European historians like Elphinstone have charged Aurangzib with political blindness because he destroyed Bijapur and Golkonda first, instead of crushing the Maratha power with the help of these two States. (*Hist. of India*, 6th ed., p. 649.) But this criticism misses the cardinal fact of Deccan politics in the 17th century. From the day when the Emperor Akbar launched forth into a policy of conquest south of the Vindhyas to the day 94 years later, when Aurangzib rode in triumph into the fallen capital of the last of the Qutb-Shahis, the Sultans of Bijapur and Golkonda could never for a moment forget that the sleepless aim of the Mughal Emperor was their final extinction and the annexation of all their territories. They had at all times had Maratha auxiliaries,—Shahji Bhonslé was only the most eminent among many such,—and now they found in the genius of Shivaji and the reckless audacity of Shambhuji their only shield in the hour of supreme danger. A union of hearts between Bijapur or Golkonda and the Mughal empire was a psychological impossibility.

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These European historians further maintain that it would have been wiser for Aurangzib to have left Bijapur and Golkonda in independence to serve as the police of the Deccan against the growing Maratha lawlessness which finally proved too strong for the Mughals. This view also attaches too much importance to mere appearances and names and is based on ignorance of the true political condition of the Deccan during the period in question. By the time Shivaji had succeeded in forming a national State as a nucleus round which the Maratha chiefs hitherto in Muslim pay might cluster, the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golkonda had arrived at the last stage of decline. Their kings were mere puppets sunk in pleasure, their capitals ran blood during the frequent faction-fights for the office of wazir, the administration had utterly broken down, law and order had disappeared, the provincial governors had become independent, the generals were selling themselves to the highest bidder. In the touching words of the last historian of Bijapur, "No man from *sardar* down to *ryot* ate his bread for a single day in peace; none from the Sultan down to the pauper slept for a single night in happiness." (B. S. 523.) And such Governments were expected by Elphinstone to tame Shambhuji and chastise Shanta Ghorpare more effectually than Aurangzib himself could do!

§ 3. Relations among the Deccan Powers.

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Briefly put, the grouping of Powers in the Deccan was thus: The dread of Mughal aggression drove the Sultan of Golkonda whole-heartedly, and that of Bijapur distrustfully and intermittently, into the arms of Shivaji. But the Bijapuri ministers could never forget that Shivaji was their rebel subject; they always looked upon him with suspicion and took precautions lest by entering as their ally he should end by making himself their master. Hence, Bijapur's leagues with Shivaji were formed only when Mughal invasion was an insistent fact and the situation of Adil Shah was desperate; and these leagues were soon dissolved by the growing fear that Shivaji was trying to enrich himself by treacherously seizing its forts and lands. Occasionally the Adil-Shahi Government made a show of joining the Mughals in the war with Shiva, but the aid thus given was insincere and of no military value (except in 1660.) Golkonda’s friendship with the Maratha king was stronger and of longer duration, though its full extent remained a secret to the Mughals. It was finally cemented by the influence of the Brahman minister Madanna Pandit and the discovery of the earnest determination of the Mughal Emperor to annex the Deccani Sultanates.

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Of the three Deccani Powers, Qutb Shah may be left out of our account, as he never sought a rupture with the Mughals during this period, (his war in 1677 was purely defensive), nor refuse to pay tribute;—but his failure to clear the arrears of tribute, his attempt to retain possession of the Karnatak ceded to the Mughals in 1656, and the armed aid he gave to Bijapur during the Mughal invasion of 1666, were serious breaches of a vassal’s duty. Abdullah, who filled the throne of Golkonda from 1626, was a fool (as Aurangzib calls him in the *Adab*) and a voluptuary, and his successor, Abul Hasan, was as bad. Such a State hardly counted in the politics of the Deccan.

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The Bijapur Government fell into a hopeless decline[^ *] after 1666, when Ali Adil Shah II. gave

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[^ *]: The downward course had begun much earlier, in 1646, when Muhammad Adil Shah was prostrated by a severe and lingering illness.

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himself up entirely to wine, while rival nobles began to fight for the wazirship and the control over the capital and the *fainéant* king. Matters grew worse when the boy-king Sikandar succeeded in 1672, and the history of Bijapur became in effect the history of its regents. Great disorder prevailed in the administration, the country was eternally unsettled and impoverished, the State gradually became too weak to defend itself from foreign attack, or even to continue its sluggish normal course of existence. This was the opportunity which made Shivaji's rise to independent power possible, and once secure in the possession of a kingdom, a capital and an army, he was strong enough to defy all his enemies together.

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Shivaji could never for a moment be sure of the Delhi Government's pacific disposition or fidelity to treaty promises. Hence he lost no chance of robbing Mughal territory in the Deccan. With Bijapur his relations were somewhat different. He could raise his head or expand his dominion only at the expense of Bijapur. But when, about 1662, an understanding with him was effected by the Adil-Shahi ministers, he gave up molesting the heart of the Bijapur kingdom. With the Bijapuri nobles whose fiefs lay close to his dominions and across the path of his natural expansion (e.g., Kolhapur, Kanara and Kopal) he could not be at peace, though he did not wish to challenge the central Government of Bijapur. The death of Ali II. in 1672 and the faction-fights at the capital that ensued greatly stimulated his raiding and annexing activities at the expense of Adil Shah, though still along the fringe of that kingdom.

§ 4. Causes of Mughal weakness in the Deccan.

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From January 1658 when Aurangzib left the Deccan to contest his father's throne till March 1682 when he returned to the South to wear out the last quarter century of his life in ceaseless warfare, a period of 24 years intervened, during which there were five viceroys of the Mughal province of Deccan, among whom Prince Shah Alam held the office for 11 years, Bahadur Khan for 6 years, Shaista Khan for 4, Jai Singh for nearly two, and Dilir Khan for one year. During these twenty-four years the Mughals pursued a vigorous forward policy against Bijapur only under Jai Singh (1666), Bahadur Khan (1676—77), and Dilir Khan (1679—80). Military operations against the Marathas were actively carried on by Shaista Khan (1660—62), Jai Singh (1665), Mahabat Khan (1671—72), Bahadur Khan (1673—75), and by Dilir Khan for a short while in 1678—79. A state of war between Shivaji and the Mughals existed for a much longer period, but during most of it the imperial generals acted languidly, so as to hoodwink their distant master, while maintaining a secret understanding with Shivaji (and, later, with Shambhuji) and accepting bribes from him. From Shivaji's side the attacks on Mughal territory were more frequent, though twice or thrice varied by pretended submission to the Emperor, with a view to outwitting the Mughal viceroy of the Deccan and lulling him into inactivity or friendliness.

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Only a few clear successes but no decisive result was achieved by the Mughal arms in the Deccan during these 24 years. The cause of this failure was partly personal and partly political. Shah Alam was a timid unenterprising prince, inclined by nature to peace with his neighbours and the pleasures of the harem or the chase. But even if he had been made of sterner stuff, success would have been beyond his power, because his father suspected him of a design to rebel and often saddled him with a refractory lieutenant like Dilir Khan, whose open defiance of his authority made the viceregal camp in the Deccan as powerless as a country torn by civil war. Shah Alam and Dilir always worked at cross purposes and thus ensured Mughal failure in the Deccan.

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Secondly, the imperial officers were heartily sick of the ceaseless war with Shiva, the hardships of campaigning in the Mavals and Konkan or besieging Maratha hill-forts, and in constant dread of his deadly surprise attacks. The Hindu officers in Mughal pay secretly fraternized with the Deccani champion of Hinduism,—the defender of cows and Brahmans, of *tilak* and *tiki*, (as his laureate Bhushan called him); while several of the Muslim generals were glad to bribe him to let them live in peace. Above all, no Mughal governor of the Deccan was supplied with men and money even half adequate to the task of defeating Bijapur and the Marathas, as the vast military and financial resources that Aurangzib had to employ against these two monarchies during his final campaigns in 1685—89 clearly proved.

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The rebellion of Prince Akbar, though it was fostered by the Rajputs and originated, grew to fulness and expired in Northern India,—changed the history of the Deccan and hastened the fate of the Mughal empire as well. His flight to Shambhuji raised a danger to the throne of Delhi which could be met only by Aurangzib's personal appearance in the South. But for this alliance between the "Disturber of India" and "the infernal son of the infernal infidel,"—as Aurangzib called the two,—the Emperor would probably have let Deccan affairs follow their wonted course; he would have left Bijapur and Golkonda to be occasionally threatened and fleeced by his generals, who were open to bribes, and his sons, who lacked his own remorseless ambition and tireless energy. At all events, after Jai Singh's costly failure (in 1666), he could not have been easily induced to risk all the material resources and armed strength of the empire on the speculative Deccan adventure, and without such expenditure Bijapur and Golkonda could never have been forcibly annexed. The Maratha king would have been tolerated by Aurangzib as a necessary evil, or even encouraged as a thorn in the side of the Bijapuris and therefore really an ally of the Mughals, —which was the very policy towards Shiva advocated by the astute Jai Singh. And the monarchy built up by Shivaji's genius would have naturally fallen down when that master-mind was withdrawn, if Bijapur and Golkonda had not been driven by a common danger into the arms of Shambhuji.

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But Akbar's flight to the Deccan forced a complete change on the imperial policy in that quarter. The first task of Aurangzib now was to crush the power of Shambhuji and render Akbar impotent for mischief. For this he patched up a hurried peace with the Maharana (June 1681) and left for the Deccan to direct the operations of his armies there in person.