Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c13.s1.10

v1.c13.s1.10

She had not the sense to choose capable instruments and govern through them, but thought of rivalling Nur Jahan by transacting State business in person. "Daily the high officers used to go and sit down at her porch (deorhi) and she used to hold discussions with them from behind a screen (through the medium of eunuchs); all petitions (mutālib) of the realm and closed envelopes that were sent into the harem were read out to her and she passed orders on them, which were final." The result can be inferred from the Court historian's pious lament, "O God! that the affairs of Hindustan should be conducted by a woman so foolish as this!" [TAh. 45b.] But what outraged public sentiment and lowered the imperial prestige most was her intimacy with the eunuch Jāvid Khān, who even went so far as to pass his nights in the imperial harem, in defiance of the long-standing palace rules. The scandal became so notorious that the royal guards who were starving from their salaries remaining unpaid for more than a year and could get no relief from the Emperor or the Emperor's controllers, at last staged a scene. They tied up a young ass and a bitch at the palace gate and when the nobles and other courtiers came to attend the darbār, they audaciously urged them, saying, "First make your bow to these. This one (pointing to the ass) is the Nawab Bahadur, and that (the bitch) is Hazrat Qudsia, the Queen-mother."!*