Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c13.s5.28

v1.c13.s5.28

Balaji resisted Salābat’s agents wherever his forces could reach and a war broke out between them. In this Salābat Jang found an unexpected ally. Shāhu had died on 15 December 1749 and Rāmrājā had succeeded him on the Maratha throne. This imbecile youth was soon overpowered and placed in confinement by the imperious ex-queen Tara Bai, who formed a league of the chiefs of the warrior-caste (Marathas), against the usurped domination of the priestly Peshwās. In the civil war that followed, while Balaji was fighting Dāmāji Gaikwād and his Gujrat army and Raghuji Bhonsle was menacing him from the Berar side, Salābat Jang invaded Maharashtra with his French contingent and forced his way to Punā (Nov. 1751—March 1752.) The Peshwā had to patch up a truce and induce the invader to return to Haidarabad.* While Balaji was being thus hard pressed and his partisans scattered, his devoted follower Malhar Holkar tried to secure relief for him from the side of Delhi. He agreed that if Ghāzi-ud-din himself went to the Deccan as subahdar, the Marāthas would totally absolve the imperial Government from its obligation to pay those 50 lakhs and would march away from Delhi with Ghaziuddin. Nay more, they would be satisfied with 30 lakhs only, which would be payable by the new Nizām.