History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c72.s3: §5. Aurangzib realises his hopeless position, 1695.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c72.s3
- Language
- English
§5. Aurangzib realises his hopeless position, 1695.
v5.c72.s3.1
At last, by April 1695 Aurangzib came to realise that he had really gained nothing by the conquest of the Adil Shahi and Qutb Shahi capitals and the extinction of their royal lines. He had formally annexed their dominions and his officers had taken legal possession of their chief forts and administrative centres; but these gains had not been secured, they had not been made into "settled" provinces like the old subas of the empire. For Aurangzib, then, there was no going back to Delhi; his work in the Deccan was still unfinished; indeed, it was only just beginning.
v5.c72.s3.2
He now perceived that the Maratha problem was no longer what it had been in Shivaji's time, or even in Shambhuji's. They were no longer a tribe of banditti or local rebels, but the one dominating factor of Deccan politics, the only enemy left to the empire, and yet an enemy all-pervasive from Bombay to Madras across the Indian Peninsula, elusive as the wind, without any headman or stronghold whose capture would naturally result in the extinction of their power. They had now assumed the alarming character of being the ally and rallying point of all the enemies of the empire and all disturbers of public peace and regular administration throughout the Deccan and even in Malwa, the Central Provinces and Bundelkhand. A nation was now up in arms, or more correctly all the various tribes residing in Southern and Central India were up in arms with Maratha aid and concert, against the officers of the Emperor and the cause of law and order in general. Aurangzib realised that he was a frail man buffeting a raging ocean with his bare arms.
v5.c72.s3.3
His hope of returning to Delhi and ruling peacefully from that centre of the empire had at last to be given up as an empty dream. He must stay on the spot till death, if necessary.