Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c11.5

v1.c11.5

The disorder and destruction following from this contest for primacy were immensely multiplied by the entrance of another factor into Rājput politics in the middle 18th century, which ended only with the total ruin and humiliation of this noble race. The imperial Government of Delhi had held together and protected all the feudatory States of India. But when the Emperor became a lifeless shadow confined within the harem, when the wazir's sole pursuit was pleasure varied only by contests with his Court rivals, this unifying bond and common controlling authority was dissolved. No superior power was left to enforce lawful rights and prevent ambitious conflicts between one vassal State and another, one prince and another of the same royal house. All the pent up personal ambitions and inter-State rivalries,—which the strong hand of the paramount Power at Delhi, from Akbar to Bahādur Shāh, had repressed for a century and a half,—now burst forth without fear or check. And Rājputāna became a zoological garden with the barriers of the cages thrown down and the keepers removed. The fiercest animal passions raged throughout the land, redeemed only now and then by individual instances of devotion and chivalry which had not yet totally disappeared from the human bosom.