Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c10.s3.8

v1.c10.s3.8

But this did not bring peace to the Panjāb. The Emperor foolishly put off appointing a governor for that province. He rejected the wazir’s suggestion of giving Zakariyā Khān’s two provinces of Lāhor and Multān to his two sons, as likely to create a hereditary Turāni dominion there. Many emigrants from Central Asia had settled in and around Lāhor under the patronage of the last two viceroys and had built there houses, tombs and gardens, so that “the place had become a home of Mughals like Balkh and Bukhārā.” At last the wazir tried to save these fellow-tribesmen by begging the subahdāri of the province for himself. No more unwise arrangement could have been devised for the most important frontier province of India than an absentee and vicarious governorship. As the wazir’s deputy, however, Mir Mumin Khān, who had been Zakariyā Khan’s ‘man of business’, was appointed, which was an excellent selection. The wazir himself could not pay a single visit to his province.