History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c66.s3: § 3. Madanna's pro-Maratha policy.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c66.s3
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§ 3. Madanna's pro-Maratha policy.
v4.c66.s3.1
During the twelve years of Madanna's ministry the internal administration of the country was marked by the same disorder and tyranny as in the reign of Abdullah, and matters naturally declined from bad to worse. As the English at Madras wrote on 23rd July 1676, "Madanna has sole control, and nothing is thought of but peeling and squeezing the people. . . . The government of the country (i.e., the Karnatak) is now in so bad hands that nothing but fraud and oppression, and so void of shame that no credit can be given to either agreements, promises, qauls or farmans." (Love, i. 356-357.) With a grasping and suspicious paramount Power, a sensual king, a venal aristocracy, and an ignorant and timid people, the reform of the kingdom was hopeless.
v4.c66.s3.2
In foreign affairs, ever since the extinction of the Nizam-Shahi dynasty in 1636, the Deccan Powers had but one absorbing thought,—How to avert the approaching annexation by the Mughals? For this the Qutb Shahs had very wisely professed lip-obedience to the Emperor of Delhi, but secretly helped Adil Shah with money and assembled their forces on the frontier as a threat to the aggressor, every time the Mughals had tried to invade Bijapur. No Mughal general could undertake such an invasion without running the risk of a Golkonda army raiding the imperial dominions or attacking the Mughal expeditionary force from two sides in concert with the Bijapuris.
v4.c66.s3.3
Madanna continued the same foreign policy with a necessary variation. There was no estrangement from the Adil-Shahi Government, but that Court was now the scene of chaos, faction-fights and changes of regency, so that co-operation by that weak and unsteady State was practically impossible and would have been useless. Madanna, therefore, built his hopes of national defence chiefly on a close alliance with the ever-victorious Maratha king. In 1677 he had given Shivaji a more than royal welcome on his visit to Haidarabad and promised him a regular subsidy of one lakh of hun for the defence of Golkonda. After Shivaji's death the alliance had been renewed with his successor and the subsidy continued.