History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c75.s3: § 3. Qasim Khan flees to Dodderi fort.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c75.s3
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§ 3. Qasim Khan flees to Dodderi fort.
v5.c75.s3.1
Then the chiefs decided to save their own lives by sneaking into the fort, and a disgraceful scene ensued which is thus described by Khafi Khan (ii. 331):—
v5.c75.s3.2
* This is the contemporary record compiled from State papers like despatches and news-letters, (M. A. 375—377). But more than 30 years later, Khafi Khan (ii. 429), gave the following different and seemingly inaccurate account:—"A party of the enemy fell upon Qasim Khan's tents...and 10 to 12 thousand horsemen attacked the baggage of Khanazad ...7 or 8 thousand more appeared between the two Khans, so that neither could reinforce the other...The battle raged till sunset...All night the chiefs remained on their elephants and the soldiers holding the bridles of their horses, to repel night-attacks. At dawn the Marathas renewed their attack... in this way the imperialists were attacked for 3 days, at last [on the fourth day] they marched fighting all the way and took refuge under the *garhi* of Dodderi. For these three days they had no food. In the same way 3 or 4 more days were passed, the imperialists entrenching and repelling charges under shelter of the walls of the *garhi* day and night, while their camels, horses and oxen were carried off by the Marathas. As the gates of the *garhi*...had been closed upon them, the grocers of the *garhi* threw down to them grain from the top of the wall, charging one or two rupees per *seer*. On the 4th or 5th day [i.e., the 7th or 8th day after the first battle] the two Khans decided to enter the *garhi*."
v5.c75.s3.3
"In this extremity of distress, Qasim, Khanazad and Saf Shikan, who had dismounted close to one another, planned to enter into the *garhi* secretly without informing Muhammad Murad and other comrades who were at a distance. They began to send within such stores as were left after the enemy's plunder, pretending to lighten themselves for fighting. The first night Qasim Khan, on the pretext of patrolling, left his post and entered the fort by scaling the wall with ropes, as it was found inadvisable to enter by the gate owing to the crowd assembled before it. Then Khanazad and Saf Shikan entered through the gate by charging the crowd of common soldiers round it. Lastly Muhammad Murad and other officers, learning of it, came in with the greatest difficulty. Saf Shikan, turning to Muhammad Murad, cried out—'How gallantly have we brought ourselves here!' Murad's nephew retorted—'Shame on the type of gallantry that you have shown in coming here, of which you are bragging!'"
v5.c75.s3.4
The Marathas besieged the fort on all sides, being confident that hunger would destroy its defenders. On the day of entering the fort, the soldiers, high and low, were all given bread of millet (*jawari* and *bajra*) from the local stores, while the transport cattle fed on the old and new straw-thatching pulled down from the roofs of houses. On the second day no food was left for either man or beast. Many of the cattle of the army had been carried away by the Marathas, many others had perished from hunger,—"They chewed each other's tails, mistaking them for straw," as the graphic exaggeration of a Persian writer well describes it;—and the remaining oxen 'lean like the ass's tail,' were now eaten up by the Muslim soldiery. Then they faced utter starvation. Qasim Khan was a great eater of opium; his life depended on the drug, and the lack of it caused his death on the third day. [M. A., 378; but many suspected that he committed suicide to escape disgrace at the hands of the enemy and censure by the Emperor.] Of the common soldiers, many in the agony of hunger leaped down from the fort walls and sought refuge in the enemy's camp, who took away the money they had concealed in their belts, and turned them adrift. The traders of Santa's camp-bazar used to come below the wall of the fort and sell fruits and sweets at fancy prices to the starving Mughals on the top, who threw down money tied in rags and drew the food up by means of ropes. [K. K.].