Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c11.s1.1

v1.c11.s1.1

The three storm-centres in Rājputāna in the second quarter of the 18th century were Bundi, Jaipur, and Mārwār. In the Hādā country there had recently sprung up a rivalry for the headship of that clan between the old senior branch with its seat at Bundi and the junior branch enjoying the appanage of Kotā, which the Emperor Jahāngir had in 1624 made independent of the former by declaring its chief a feudatory holding direct of the Crown. A quarrel was precipitated in 1707 by the then Kotā chief claiming the headship the entire Hādā clan. Their rivalry was encouraged by Aurangzib’s sons at that time and later by the Sayyid brothers and some other Delhi nobles to serve their own ends. But this quarrel was submerged by a greater threat to the honour of the clan when Sawāi Jai Singh embarked upon a campaign of ambition to make Bundi a vassal of Jaipur by ousting its legitimate ruler Budh Singh and giving his throne to Dalil Singh (a laird of the house of Karwar) in 1729. The various attempts of the dispossessed Budh Singh and his gallant son Ummed Singh to recover their own constitute the history of that part of Rājputāna during the next 19 years and ended in the complete triumph of Ummed Singh.