History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c80.s3: § 4. Famine and chronic scarcity of grain.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c80.s3
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§ 4. Famine and chronic scarcity of grain.
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The effect of the enemy's robbery and stoppage of rent from the Mughal officers' jagirs was aggravated by a long-continued famine. "Nowhere south of the Narmada could grain be found cheaper than six seers a Rupee,"—while in certain periods it sold in the imperial camp for two seers or even less. Hence, "the condition of the Mughal army grew worse from the high price of grain and the devastation of jagirs, while the resources of the Marathas increased through robbery. They even attacked walled cities like Haidarabad, Bijapur, Aurangabad, and Burhanpur. When the Emperor was marching from Khed to Wagingera (Nov. 1704), the Marathas plundered his baggage near Bahadur-garh and set fire to much that they could not carry off. This year their audacity was even greater than in the past. Out of the capital cities of the eight chief subahs of the empire, population has decreased in the three Deccan towns of Bijapur, Haidarabad and Burhanpur, while the villages round them have been totally ruined. From the Narmada southwards, throughout the entire Deccan, in every pargana and village, the Marathas have spread like ants and locusts." [Dil. ii. 146a, 149, 138b.]
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The break-down of the administration and of public peace created a vicious circle aggravating the evil, as Bhimsen has clearly pointed out: "The mansabdars, on account of the small forces under them, cannot gain control over the territories granted to them in jagir. The local zamindars, growing stronger, have joined the Marathas, levied troops, and stretched the hand of oppression over the realm... As the imperial dominions have been given out in tankha (fief) to the jagirdars, so too the Marathas have made a distribution of the whole empire among their generals, and thus one kingdom has to maintain two sets of jagirdars! ...The peasants subjected to this double exaction have collected arms and horses and joined the Marathas," [Dil. ii. 139a—140a.]
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Many of the Mughal mansabdars, goaded by poverty, began to plunder the innocent and loyal peasants to support themselves, and some went into shares with the Maratha raiders. Thoughtful people of Northern India serving in the Deccan now became so seriously alarmed about the future that they began to send away their wives and children for safety to their ancestral homes in Hindustan. [Dil. ii. 149b.]
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§ 5. Maratha system of spoliation described.
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The Marathas had reduced spoliation to a system. "As the Emperor and his troops were engaged in the inaccessible hills far in the south, the Marathas began to show greater audacity and raid the old provinces of the empire. Wherever they arrived they engaged in a regular revenue collection of the place and passed months and years there with wife and children in peace of mind. They divided the parganas among themselves, and in imitation of the imperial Government they appointed their own subahdars, kamavish-dars (revenue collectors) and rahdars (road-guards). Their subahdar was a leader of troops: whenever he heard of a large caravan coming, he overtook it at the head of [some] seven thousand cavalry and looted it. Everywhere kamavish-dars were posted for collecting the chauth. When a kamavish-dar was opposed by a strong zamindar or imperial faujdar and could not levy the blackmail, the Maratha subahdar came to his aid, besieged and desolated the habitations there. The duty of the Maratha rahdar was this,—when traders wanted to travel unmolested by these people, the rahdar took a sum of money from each cart or bullock (three or fourfold the imperial faujdar's transit duty), and left the road open to them. In each subah the Marathas built one or two small forts (garhis), which they made their place of refuge and from which they issued to raid the country around.
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"The powerful headmen of certain villages, in concert with the Maratha *subahdars*, built small forts and refused to pay revenue to the imperial Government, the Maratha troops supporting them. Up to the boundary of Gujrat and Malwa they have raided and reduced the country to dust. They looted caravans within 10 or 12 *koses* of the imperial army, and have even plundered the grain-market of the Emperor's own camp!" [K. K. ii. 517—518].
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§ 6. Changes in Maratha equipment and tactics.
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After 1703 the Marathas were masters of the situation all over the Deccan and even in parts of Northern India. The Mughal officers were helpless and reduced to the defensive; they only sought to escape from the enemy by flight or by the payment of blackmail, without venturing to resist them. A change now came over the Maratha tactics with this growth of their power: they were no longer, as in Shivaji's and Shambhuji's times, light forayers who "cut and ran" or merely looted defenceless traders and villages, and dispersed at the first report of the Mughal army's approach,—moving like the wind and keeping themselves in hiding as far as possible. On the contrary, as Manucci noticed in 1704, "These [Maratha] leaders and their troops move in these days with much confidence, because they have cowed the Mughal commanders and inspired them with fear. At the present time they possess artillery, musketry, bows and arrows, with elephants and camels for all their baggage and tents. They carry these last to secure some repose from time to time...In short, they are equipped and move about just like the armies of the Mughal... Only a few years ago they did not march in this fashion. In those days their arms were only lances and long swords two inches wide. Armed thus, they [used to] prowl about on the frontiers, picking up here and there what they could; then they made off home again. But at the present time they move like conquerors, showing no fear of any Mughal troops." [Storia, iii. 505]
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In the internal administration the break-down of Aurangzib's Government was equally conspicuous. On account of his absorption in the Deccan wars, the exhaustion of his resources and best men there, and, according to Khafi Khan, his senile softness in not punishing wrongdoers sternly,—all administration ceased, the officials became incorrigibly corrupt and inefficient, all the forbidden exactions (abwabs) were revived by the local governors in violation of his orders, and even the sergeants sent from the Court to punish the wrongdoers took bribes and let the evils continue. [K. K. ii. 550-551.] As Manucci observed [iv. 100], the Emperor in his old age was disobeyed by his distant officials and the administration lost its efficiency.
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§ 7. Aurangzib encamps at Devapur, 1705.
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Immediately after the capture of Wagingera (27th April, 1705), the Emperor removed his camp to Devapur, a quiet green village near the Krishna, eight miles south of the fort. Here his soldiers and followers gained unwonted comfort and repose. [M.A. 507.] The district, so long ravaged by war, was settled again; lawless oppressors were put down by a strong roving column under Chin Qalich Khan; the peasantry were reassured and induced to return to their homes and engage in tilling again. The walls of Wagingera were repaired and strengthened, and a new gate* and mosque added to it by the Emperor's eunuch Khwajah Masaud. The tributes collected from the refractory chiefs of the surrounding country reached the Treasury.
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During the rainy season the Marathas recovered Kondana, thanks to the cowardice and negligence of the Mughal qiladar. Hamid-ud-din Khan was immediately afterwards detached to recover it, but he returned after merely riding round it. So, at the end of January 1706, Nusrat Jang was ordered to capture it. This he succeeded in doing in a month's time, by cutting off the grain supply of the garrison and forcing them to evacuate the fort with their bare lives. [M.A. 508-'12; Dil. ii. 155b.]