History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c66.s4: § 4. Mughal treatment of Golkonda king.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c66.s4
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§ 4. Mughal treatment of Golkonda king.
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The Qutb-Shahi kingdom was badly situated for defending itself. Its northern frontier, adjoining the Mughal dominion, was an open plain, without any natural stronghold, inaccessible mountain, or barren and arid belt like those that protected Bijapur on the north. But so long as Bijapur stood, Golkonda was safe. (Fryer, ii. 51.) Aurangzib knew it, and therefore did not try to annex the latter first. Nor was it necessary for him to do so. As Bernier noted, "Aurangzib has no great inducement to march troops into that kingdom (Golkonda), which he probably considers as his own. It has long been tributary to the Mughal . . . Aurangzib's ordinary ambassador at the Court of Golkonda issues his commands, grants passports, menaces and ill-treats the people, and in short, speaks and acts with the uncontrolled authority of an absolute sovereign.” (194-195.)
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The Emperor found it more profitable and cheaper to fleece and terrorize the Qutb-Shahi Government than to extinguish it. The Mughal “Resident” at Haidarabad domineered over the king and the people, insulted and taxed them, but without provoking armed protest. Mirza Muhammad, an exceptionally rude and heartless envoy, was sent by Aurangzib to Abul Hasan expressly for the purpose of goading him into defiance and thus giving the Emperor a valid pretext for exterminating him. As he told the envoy, “I am not really sending you there to get these useless bits of stone (namely, two famous diamonds possessed by Qutb Shah) which I do not care for. My sole intention is that you should not humour him, but bandy words with him so fearlessly that he too may be harsh to you and thus give me a justification for extirpating him. As far as possible quarrel with him, and never treat him politely in private or public.” (K.K. ii. 294.)
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But like Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Oudh, of whom Dalhousie wrote that he “would not offend or quarrel with us (the English) and took any amount of kicking without being rebellious,"—the last Sultan of Golkonda refused to be hustled into a war by his enemy's ambassador. His ignoble clinging to a throne that gave him ease at the expense of honour, was redeemed only by an inborn courtesy and readiness of speech which often gave him the best of any wrangle with the Mughal envoy. One day Abul Hasan mildly protested against the habitual insolence of Mirza Muhammad's address to him, saying "I too am called Emperor in my own country." The haughty envoy retorted, "It does not become you to assume the title of Emperor. If Aurangzib hears of it, he will become more angry." Abul Hasan promptly replied, "You chide me by mistake. If we are not to be called Padishahs, how can Aurangzib be styled the Padishah of Padishahs?" And the Mughal envoy had to admit to his friends that the repartee totally silenced him. (K.K. ii. 295.)
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From the thoughts of these humiliations and the impending ruin of his house, Abul Hasan, like Wajid Ali Shah, sought distraction or oblivion by plunging into unrelieved sensuality, (Fryer, i. 85.) Resigning his royal functions to his wazir, Madanna, he shut himself up in his palace with a host of concubines and dancing-girls. Under his predecessor, Haidarabad had become the Indian Babylon, with its twenty thousand public women (who had to dance before the king in the public square every Friday) and its countless taverns, close to these women’s quarters, where 1200 large leather bottles of fermented palm-juice were consumed daily. (Tavernier, i. 157-158.) But he also promoted several fine arts contributory to luxury; he settled in his capital and supported by his bounty skilled craftsmen of various kinds whose exquisite manufactures were famous throughout India. The king’s own skill in music was of no mean order. He was rightly called Tana Shah or "the dainty king." (Chahar Gulshan, 91b-92a.)
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§ 5. Why Aurangzib wanted to annex Haidarabad.
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The enormous wealth of the country was derived from its well-watered fields which at once arrest the eye by their greenness and abundance of tropical fruits as the traveller enters the State from the arid and sterile region round Bijapur, its rich mines of diamond and iron, and its prosperous ports on the east coast from Chicacole southwards to St. Thome. The king had a secure income of 2¾ krores of Rupees, which could easily maintain all his personal luxury and at the same time pay for the inglorious defence of his country by the arms of a subsidized ally. This wealth became the cause of his ruin after Bijapur had fallen and Mughal imperialistic ambition hungered for fresh food.
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For nearly thirty years after Aurangzib's accession to the throne, the kingdom of Golkonda had enjoyed respite from Mughal attack. It had not been so openly hostile to the empire as Bijapur, and the pre-occupation of the Mughals with Shivaji and his patron Adil Shah had prevented them from turning to Golkonda. Qutb Shah had also paid tribute to the imperial Government more regularly than the Sultan of Bijapur.
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But his attitude to his suzerain had been one of covert disloyalty bursting, on three occasions, into open rebellion, though varied by the offer of presents at intervals. His faults were many. First, the war-indemnity promised in the treaty of April 1656 (ante, i. Ch. 10 § 12) and the older annual tribute of two lakhs of hun, were perpetually in arrears; but that was the normal condition of vassal States during the Mughal period.. Secondly, for a long time past he had made persistent attempts to keep in his own hands the extensive jagir,—almost equivalent to a kingdom,—which Mir Jumla had won in the Karnatak when in his service, (ante, i. Ch. 10 § 14,) and he had taken advantage of the war of succession among Shah Jahan's sons to wrest Gandikota and Sidhout from Mir Jumla's agents. But after the second anniversary of his coronation, Aurangzib had recovered these places. In more recent times, when the Mughals captured Kulbarga, in the declining days of Bijapur, the officers of Qutb Shah had seized Malkhed, Serum, and some other districts beyond their western border and politically appertaining to the new Mughal province of Bidar, after raising the false plea that these tracts had formerly belonged to Telingana and were therefore lawfully included in the kingdom of Golkonda. (K.K. ii. 293.)
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During the Mughal invasions of Bijapur under Jai Singh in 1665-6, under Dilir Khan in 1679 and under Prince Muhammad Azam in 1685, the Sultan of Golkonda had openly sent his troops to assist his brother in distress. The first two of these acts had been condoned, or atoned for by the payment of tribute. The last brought ruin on him.
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But, in the eyes of Aurangzib his worst offence was his fraternizing with infidels. He had effectively helped Shivaji with the sinews of war after his flight from Agra in 1666 and thus enabled him to recover his forts from the Mughals. Again, Qutb Shah had rapturously welcomed Shivaji on his visit to Haidarabad in 1677 and behaved like a humble vassal of the Maratha, placing a necklace of gems round his horse's neck and promising him an annual subsidy of one *lakh* of *hun* for the defence of his territory. Above all, he had made the Brahmans Madanna and Akkanna, his chief ministers, and thus allowed Hindu influence to predominate in his administration.*