Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c11.s3.6

v1.c11.s3.6

Throughout the year 1737 a severe famine due to failure of rain and the exhaustion of last year’s harvest, raged in Bundelkhand and the north-eastern parts of Malwa, up to the Jamuna river. The water-sources on the way dried up and no food for man or horse could be had anywhere before the new crop ripened. (*S. P. D.*, xiv. 52, xv. 8.) Next year, 1738, the famine desolated the Aurangabad and Ahmadnagar region in the Deccan (xv. 63.) No real settlement could be effected through the peace-negotiations conducted by Jai Singh as mediator. He induced the Emperor to appoint Bāji Rāo as deputy governor of Malwa, with Jai Singh himself as the nominal *subahdār*. "This was, in effect, though not in form, a cession of the province. As to the other concessions the only one agreed to was the hereditary appointment (of Rājah Shāhu) as *sardesh-pāndya* in the six provinces of Mughal Deccan; . . . the rate of payment was five per cent. of the revenue." (*Lat. Mugh.*, ii. 284-285.) This did not satisfy the Marathas, and responding to Jai Singh's secret invitation Bāji Rāo issued from Punā on 12th November, 1736, to carry the war to the gates of Delhi. (*Vam. Bh.*, 240; *S. P. D.*, xxii. 341.)