Shivaji and His Times c8.s6: §6. Shivaji's night-attack on Shaista Khan
Shivaji and His Times c8.s6
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§6. Shivaji's night-attack on Shaista Khan
c8.s6.1
Shaista Khan had, as we have seen, occupied Puna in May 1660 and retired there after the capture of Chakan in the following August. He took up his residence in what was then the best house of the future Maratha capital, the unpretentious home of Shivaji's childhood. His harem was with him, and around his mansion lay the quarters of his guards and attendants, the band-room and offices. Further off, across the road leading southwards to Singh-garh lay the camp of his lieutenant, Maharajah Jaswant Singh and his contingent of 10,000 men.
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The enterprise required no less agility and cunning than bravery and dash. Shivaji picked out a thousand of his bravest and most expert soldiers and took them with him, while two supporting divisions of one thousand each (including cavalry and Mavles) under Netaji Palkar and Moro Pant the *Peshwa*, were directed to take post on the two flanks of the vast Mughal encampment, at a mile's distance from its outer side. Babaji Bapuji and Chimnaji Bapuji, of Khed, accompanied Shiva as his body-guards and right-hand men in this enterprise.
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The Maratha force, lightly equipped, set out from Singh-garh, covered the intervening eleven miles rapidly in the course of the day, and arrived at Puna after night-fall. With 400 picked men Shivaji entered the limits of the camp, replying to the challenge of the Mughal guards that they were Deccani soldiers of the imperial army going to take up their appointed posts. After resting for a few hours in some obscure corner of the camp, the party arrived near the Khan's quarters at midnight. Shiva knew the ins and outs of the city and every nook and corner of the house where he had passed his boyhood and youth.
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It was the 6th day of Ramzan, the month of fasting for Muslims. The servants of the Nawab's household had mostly fallen asleep after their day's abstinence followed by the heavy meal at night. Some cooks who had risen from their beds to make a fire and prepare the meal which is taken a little before dawn in the month of Ramzan, were despatched by the Marathas without any noise. The wall dividing this outer kitchen from the body-servants' room within the harem once had a small door in it, but the opening had been closed with brick and mud to complete the seclusion of the harem. The Marathas began to take out the bricks and make an opening there. The noise of their pick-axes and the groans of the dying awoke some of the servants, who reported the suspicious noise to the Khan, but that general only rebuked them for disturbing his sleep for a trifle.
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Soon the breach in the wall was large enough for a man to creep through. Shivaji, with his trusty lieutenant Chimnaji Bapuji, was the first to enter the harem, and was followed by 200 of his men. The place was a maze of canvas, screen-wall after screen-wall and enclosure within enclosure. Hacking a way through them with his sword, Shivaji reached the very bed-room of the Khan. The frightened women roused the Nawab, but before he could use his weapons Shivaji was upon him and severed his thumb with one stroke of his sword. It was evidently at this time that the lamps in the room were put out by some wise woman. In the darkness two of the Marathas tumbled into a cistern of water; and the confusion that followed was used by Shaista Khan's slave-girls to carry him away to a place of safety. The Marathas continued their work of slaughter in the darkness for some time, killing and wounding many of the Khan's women, without knowing their sex.
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Meantime the other half of Shivaji's force, the 200 men, evidently under Babaji Bapuji, who had been left outside the harem, had rushed the main guard, slaying the sleepers and the awake and crying in derision, "Is it thus that you keep watch?" They next entered the band-room and ordered the bandsmen, as if from the Khan, to play. The loud noise of the kettle-drums drowned all voices, and the yells of the enemy swelled the confusion. The tumult in the harem, too, now grew so great that the Mughal troops became aware that their general was being attacked. Shouting "The enemy have come," they began to take up their arms.
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Abul Fath, a son of Shaista Khan, had been the first to hasten to his father's rescue without waiting for others; but the brave youth was slain after he had struck down two or three Marathas. Another Mughal captain who lodged just behind the harem enclosure, finding its gate closed from within by the wily Marathas, let himself down inside by means of a rope-ladder; but he was at once attacked and killed.
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Shivaji, finding his enemies fully awakened and arming, delayed no longer, but promptly left the harem, called his men together, and withdrew from the camp by the direct route, while the Mughals, not knowing where their enemies were, fruitlessly searched all their camp.
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This night-attack was a complete success. The retreat from the camp was unmolested and no pursuit was made. During the surprise the Marathas lost only six men killed and forty wounded, while they slew a son and a captain of Shaista Khan's, forty of his attendants and six of his wives and slave-girls, besides wounding two other sons, eight other women and Shaista Khan himself.*
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∗ Gyffard at Rajapur wrote to Surat on 12th April 1663: "Yesterday arrived a letter from the Rajah written himself to Ravji [Pandit], giving him an account how that he himself with 400 choice men went to Shaista Khan's camp. There, upon some pretence, . . . he got into his tent to salam, and presently slew all the watch, . . . wounded Shaista Khan with his own hand, [one son was killed outright, two wounded, six women killed, eight more wounded, and 40 persons attending their general left dead in the place.] After all this Shivaji returns, losing but six men [killed] and forty wounded, 10,000 horse under Rajah Jaswant Singh standing still and never offered to pursue him; so it is generally believed it was done with his consent, though Shivaji tells his men his Permisera (*Parameshwar*, the great God) bid him do it." The figures for the loss suffered by Shaista Khan given in this letter have been replaced, within square brackets above, by the corrections made in Gyffard's letter of 24th May.
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The daring and cunning of the Maratha hero were rewarded by an immense increase of his prestige. He was taken to be an incarnation of Satan; no place was believed to be proof against his entrance and no feat impossible for him. The whole country talked with astonishment and terror of the almost superhuman deed done by him; and there was bitter humiliation and sorrow in the Emperor's Court and family circle at this disaster to his maternal uncle and the "premier peer" (*amir-ul-umara*) of his empire.
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This attack took place on 5th April, 1663. The morning following it, all the imperial officers came to Shaista Khan to condole with him in his loss. Among them was Maharajah Jaswant Singh, who had not raised a finger to defend his chief or to oppose the retreat of his assailant, though he had 10,000 horse under him and lay encamped across the road taken by Shivaji. Shaista Khan, with the polished sneer of a high-bred Mughal courtier, turned to Jaswant and merely remarked, "When the enemy fell upon me, I imagined that you had already died fighting against them!" Indeed, the public, both in the Mughal camp and throughout the Deccan, ascribed Shivaji's exploit to the connivance of Jaswant. Shivaji, however, asserted that this astonishing feat was performed by him under the inspiration of his God and not of any human counsellor. Immediately after his return from it, he wrote to Raoji Rao, his agent at Rajapur, boasting how he had been the chief actor in this business and had himself wounded Shaista Khan.
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The Mughal viceroy, covered with shame and grief, retired to Aurangabad for greater safety. The Emperor heard of the disaster early in May, when on his way to Kashmir, and ascribed it to the viceroy's negligence and incapacity. As a mark of his displeasure, he transferred Shaista Khan to the government of Bengal (1 Dec. 1663), which was then regarded as a penal province, or in Aurangzib's own words, "a hell well stocked with bread," without permitting him even to visit the Emperor on his way to his new charge. The Khan left the Deccan about the middle of January 1664, on being relieved by Prince Muazzam.