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Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c14: Chapter IX. Safdar Jang's Contests with the Afghans, 1748—1752

Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c14

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Chapter IX. Safdar Jang's Contests with the Afghans, 1748—1752

§ 1. Ali Muhammad Ruhela's successors

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We have seen in Chapter II how Ali Muhammad Ruhela had swiftly recovered possession of Rohilkhand in March-April 1748. But he lived to enjoy his triumph for less than six months. He was stricken down by cancer in the back and died on the 15th September of the same year. Of his six sons, the two eldest, Faizullah and Abdullah, were held captives in Qandahar, whither Abdali had sent them after his capture of Sarhind, and the other four were still very young. "Summoning, therefore, his chiefs around him, he made his will before them . . . . His third son Sadullah, was to be his successor until, if ever, his elder sons returned. Rahmat Khān was to be regent (*hāfiz*) and Dundi Khān commander-in-chief . . . . Fatti Khan was to be steward (*khān-i-sāmān*) with the special care of his three younger sons, while Sardār Khan was appointed paymaster of the troops. These chiefs were enjoined to consult together when any common danger required their concerted action." (Bareilly Gazetteer, 661; G-i-R. 28) Thus the administration of the vast heritage of Ali Muhammad Ruhela was entrusted to an oligarchy of chiefs and the territory practically partitioned among them. The exile of some and the minority of others of the heirs made this inevitable, if the Afghāns were to save themselves from conquest and expulsion by their hostile and powerful neighbours. "Hāfiz Rahmat, Dundī Khan and others were each the father-in-law of a son of Ali Muhammad and in the names of their sons-in-law divided these conquests of Ali Muhammad among themselves and brought the lands into their own hands. Giving a few villages for sustenance to their sons-in-law, they themselves enjoyed the rest in royal pomp." (Siyar, iii. 27. The actual partition as made in 1751 is described in G-i-R. 45.) "Sadullah was of so dissipated a character that the whole charge of the revenue and the management of the troops still devolved on Hāfiz." The parganahs of Sambal, Morādābād, Thākurdwārā and Kāshipur were given to Dundi Khan for the support of himself and his contingent of 12,000 horse and foot. Pilibhit was the centre of Hāfiz's own jagir. Similar grants were made to the other Ruhela sardārs. (G-i-R. 45.)

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Hāfiz Rahmat Khan (born about 1709) was the grandson of an Afghan priest and saint, settled at Turu Shahāmatpur. His father had once been the master of Dāud, the adoptive father of Ali Muhammad Khan, and Rahmat on migrating to India had become Ali Muhammad’s right hand man by reason of his extraordinary intelligence, administrative capacity, inborn military genius and honesty of character. He had promoted his patron’s conquests, in the years following Nādir’s invasion, at the expense of the Hindu Rajahs and Mughal jāgirdārs. [G-i-R. 13-20.]

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The death of Ali Muhammad and the exile of his grown-up sons revived Shaikh Qutbuddin’s ambition. He bitterly hated the Afghan race as interlopers in his patrimony and longed to oust them and gain the faujdāri of Rohilkhand which his grandfather had once held. Now was his opportunity. He importuned Intizāmuddaulah (the eldest son of the late wazir Qamruddin), who was officially faujdār of Moradabad, to send him to that district as his deputy to take possession of it. Intizām agreed (c. 15 Nov. 1748), but could not help his infatuated agent with the necessary money and materials. However, a number of soldiers joined in the adventure, lured by Qutbuddin’s fame as a gallant fighter, and he thus got together a band of some 7,000 men. Crossing the Ganges, he pushed through the Bijnor district towards Moradabad, but at Dhāmpur, 38 miles north-west of that town, he was confronted by a vastly superior Ruhela army under Dundi Khan with abundance of artillery and munitions. Scornfully rejecting the Afghan proposal to divide the land amicably, Qutbuddin gave them battle but fell after a desperate charge at the head of a handful of devoted followers. [Siyar, iii. 28, Muz. 36-37, Bijnor Gaz. 349.]

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§ 2. Qaim Bangash attacks Ruhelas; battle of Daunri.

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This attempt to restore imperial authority in Rohilkhand failed at the beginning of 1749. But for sometime afterwards it could not be renewed, because Safdar Jang, the natural enemy of the Ruhelas, was then sulking in his tent outside Delhi in resentment at the attempt on his life made in the streets of the capital on the preceding 20th of November, which he ascribed to the Court favourites. The young Emperor had to visit him in his camp in order to placate him (7th April,) and gradually the breach between Emperor and wazir was healed. A new plan was formed by Safdar Jang to suppress the Ruhela usurpers. "He did not like Afghān rule in a district so close to his subah . . . and looked upon the Ruhelas as serpents infesting his road to Delhi" (Ashub, ii. 426.) He planned to uproot one Afghān by means of another, so that whichever side lost, he would have one enemy the less.

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Ali Muhammad was believed to have left fabulous wealth. Safdar Jang appealed to Qāim Khan’s cupidity and ambition and sent him an imperial *farmān* appointing him *faujdār* of Rohilkhand. Qāim Khan at first hesitated to accept this dangerous office but was persuaded by his favourite officer, Mahmud Khan Afridi (the *Bakhshi.*) He sent Muazzam Khan (the brother of his Bakhshi) to the Ruhela leaders asking them to vacate the imperial territory they had usurped and not to oppose him in taking charge of his office. In return he assured them the possession of *jāgīrs* sufficient to maintain 5,000 soldiers. Hāfiz Rahmat the regent replied that as the Afghāns had conquered the country when the Emperor could not, he would acknowledge no master but the Emperor, and that it would be proper for Qāim Khan to decline the office as his appointment had originated with the wazir who had taken all power out of the Emperor’s hands. When Qāim’s envoy resorted to high words, he was turned out of Aonla in disgrace. Qāim Khan had sent some flags of his own with orders to set them up in Barily and other towns as badges of his authority; the Ruhelas planted them upside down in derision. (G-i-R. 29, Imād. 44.)

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When his insulted messenger returned to Qāim Khan, that noble in anger issued forth to battle. Leaving Farrukhabad on 2nd Nov. 1749, he crossed the Ganges at Qādirganj and marched towards Aonla. Meantime the Ruhela army had left Aonla and formed an entrenched camp near the village of Daunri, four miles south-east of Budāun city. Here Qāim Khan* arrived on the 11th, and rejecting a friendly message of dissuasion which Hafiz Rahmat had sent by three holy Sayyids, he engaged the enemy the next day.

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The battle began in the morning. Two divisions under Qāim and Muazzam Khan attacked the southern and northern corners of the grove in which the Ruhelas were posted under Dundi Khan and Sadullah Khan respectively. At first the assaulting columns, headed by numerous elephants, seemed to carry everything before them. Dundi Khan’s guns were captured, and that chief had to dismount and lead his men in a hand to hand fight. Sadullah was in imminent danger when reinforcements arrived and turned the scale against the invaders; Muazzam Khan and his brother as well as several sons of Muhammad Khan Bangash were shot down. Then Qāim Khan himself headed a charge with his lieutenants and Hindu allies, and the Ruhelas gave way, running into a long and deep ravine behind the battlefield, hotly pursued by Qāim Khan and his division. It soon became a death-trap for him, for the quick eye of Hāfiz Rahmat had already taken in the situation and planted an ambush there. The steep crests of the ravine were covered with thick tall crops of bajra (spiked millet) in which 8,000 Afghans were placed, completely concealed from view, their matchlocks loaded and resisting on the ground.

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∗ Qaim's army is reported as 60,000 horse and foot, 400 elephants, and a large train of artillery, while the Ruhela force is given as 25,000 strong. (G-i-R. 30.) The numbers appear to be inflated, but at all events Qaim Khan had a decided superiority of numbers and in heavy artillery. The place of battle is called Dumri and also "between the villages of Daunri and Rasulpur."

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The fugitives from the field rushing along the ravine were on foot; the ground was wellknown to them. They quickly clambered up the left bank of it like monkeys and disappeared in the plantation on the top. The exultant pursuers poured down the narrow pass on their heels and had crossed nearly half of it, when suddenly two broad sheets of flame burst forth from the dense bushes above them, as eight thousand musket balls were poured down into their tumultuous and crowded ranks from almost point blank range.

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The leaders, who were riding on elephants and in front, were too conspicuous targets to escape; they were shot down in a few minutes. Seizing the confusion, the Afghāns charged down the two banks sword in hand, yelling in triumph. The rest was butchery; only the hindmost could escape from that valley of death. The other divisions of the invading army fled away on hearing of this disaster to their vanguard.

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Qāim Khan, shot through the forehead, lay dead in his hāuda. His driver was leading the elephant out of the field when two Ruhela troopers overtook it, robbed the dead chief of his rich clothes and jewels, and cut off his head. The Afghān victory was complete; Qāim Khan himself, with several of his brothers and nearly all his captains, had fallen on the field. A vast amount of booty with all his guns and elephants fell into the victors' hands. The chivalrous Hāfiz Rahmat had the head of Qaim Khan sewn on to his trunk, covered the corpse with shals, placed it in a palki, and sent it with due honour to Farrukhabad for burial. He also showed wise moderation in the hour of victory. All the possessions of the Bangash house on the left or eastern bank of the Ganges (except three parganahs) were annexed by the Ruhela regent no doubt, but he dissuaded his victory-flushed clansmen from crossing the river and invading Qāim Khan’s territories on its western bank, saying that the Afghāns should not destroy one another by intestine war.*

§ 3. Safdar Jang seizes the Bangash possessions

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Imām Khan, the eleventh son of Muhammad Khan Bangash, was raised to the lordship of Farrukhabad by his mother Bībi Sāhiba, but he had little ability or power. The tough old lady also planned to enlist Marātha support by offering a subsidy of 20 lakhs of Rupees to their sardārs in Northern India. (*Bayan*, 251.) What followed Qāim Khan’s death throws a lurid light on the morality of the Delhi Government in that age and explains its downfall as an act of divine justice. The wazir, instead of reasserting his master’s authority and avenging the fall of his agent, seized this opportunity of enriching himself at the expense of his helpless dupe. He revived the obsolete Mughal practice of escheating the property of dead nobles, and induced the Emperor to order the attachment of Qāim Khan’s lands and property, as there was none left to defend them. Taking the Emperor with him, Safdar Jang marched out of Delhi (29th November 1749) only 17 days after Qāim’s death. In a few marches Koil (Aligarh) was reached, where he left the Emperor, and then pushed on with his own army to Dariyāganj (in the Eta district), 45 miles n.w. of Farrukhabad. By his order, his deputy in Oudh, Rajah Naval Rāi, advanced and occupied Khudaganj, 16 miles s.e. of Farrukhabad.

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∗ *Imād*, 45, *Muz.* 11, *Bayān* 251-255, *Siyar* iii. 29, *G-i-R.* 28-31, *Farrukhabad Gaz.* 158-171; *Budaun Gaz.* 235; *TAh.* 22a.

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Qāim’s mother opened negotiations with the wazir for saving the Bangash heritage for a price, and herself came to Safdar Jang’s camp on 24th December. After long discussions, it was finally agreed that on payment of 60 lakhs of Rupees, as escheat to the imperial exchequer on account of Qāim Khan’s property, all that chieftain’s territory would be confirmed to Imām Khan, who would be recognised as the new Nawāb. Three-fourths of this succession-fee was paid in cash and kind, and for the balance the Dowager Begam threw the responsibility on Sadullah Khan Ruhela who had seized Qāim’s elephants and camp property at Daunri and from whom the wazir must collect the amount as the price of these spoils.

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Then Safdar Jang threw off the mask. He caused Bibi Sāhiba (Qāim’s mother) to be kept in surveillance in his camp, while Naval Rāi advanced and occupied Farrukhabad itself. Bibi Sāhiba was left to enjoy the revenue of Farrukhabad city and twelve villages,—a gift to the family from the Emperor Farrukhsiyar,—but the rest of Muhammad Khan Bangash’s extensive domains was annexed to the wazir’s territory and placed in charge of Naval Rāi, who made Qanauj his headquarters. Five of Qāim Khan’s brothers were seized and sent to the wazir’s fort of Allahabad as prisoners. His work done, Safdar Jang returned to Delhi (on 25th May 1750), bringing away under arrest five of the principal slaves and men of business of Qāim Khan.

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§ 4. Afghan popular rising against Safdar Jang; battle of Khudaganj.

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All Farrukhabad now lay prostrate at the wazir’s feet. But his agents abused their power, and by their greed and insolence galled the spirit of the proud and martial Afghān race, so that in six months Safdar Jang’s rule was swept off the country. Qāim’s mother was kept in detention at Qanauj for realising the balance of the promised money. She escaped through the devotion of a hereditary clerk (munshi) of her husband’s house, named Sāhib Rāi. This man gained a place in Naval Rāi’s society and got his signature, when deep in his cups, on an order for her release. The time was midnight, but the order was immediately presented and the lady was conveyed by fast travel to her own people at Mau Rashidabad. Here she set herself to rouse the Afghāns by sending her veil to the headmen of different villages and appealing to their sense of honour and love of liberty.

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To the mass of the people, the wazir's rule was already intolerable, and the more so because its agents were the despised Hindus. A police underling of the new governor had an altercation with a woman vendor in the market of Mau, and after the usual exchange of abuse slapped her with his shoes. The aggrieved woman was the widow of an Afridi soldier; she appealed to Ahmad Bangash (a younger brother of Qāim), telling him that it would have been better if he had been born a woman as he was not fit to wear a man's turban when he could not protect his father's subjects from dishonour.*

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The population of Farrukhabad was ready for an explosion; it only required a leader to supply the spark. Bibi Sāhiba wisely formed an alliance with her step-son Ahmad and he was accepted as the leader of the Afghān rising, though without money, arms or men. Rustam Khan Afridi raised Rs. 5,000 by selling his household goods and lent the money to Ahmad. With part of this sum four hundred men were secretly enlisted and armed. Then they committed a night robbery on a rich Hindu banker in a village 32 miles from Mau, killed him and his servants, and carried off his wealth, which enabled more Afghāns to be enlisted and fed. Eight days after this feat, Ahmad at the head of 6,000 men recovered Farrukhabad and set off southwards to expel Safdar Jang's men from the rest of his father's jāgir.

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∗ It is added by the gossipy Sayyid Ghulām Ali that Ahmad Khan after hearing this reproach, in deep mortification at his own powerlessness, spent the next two nights in grieving and the days in fasting, and then girt up his loins for redressing the wrongs of his people. (Imād, 46.) Fall of Naval Rai.—TAh. 23b, 25b-26a, Siyar iii, 30-31, D.C. for dates. G-i-R. 35-37; Chahār Gul. 402b-403a (meagre), Imād. 45-48, Bayān 256-259. Muz. 44-45; Far. Gaz. 160-163; S.P.D. xxi. 32 (brief.)

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Naval Rai promptly advanced from Qanauj to meet the oncoming enemy and crush the rising before it could grow to full strength. He halted at Khudāganj, just north of the Kālī Nadi and 16 miles south of Farrukhabad, the Afghān camp being some two miles north of him. Naval Rai, a Sāksena Kāyastha, had risen by his ability in civil administration and management of men from a humble rank to the deputy governorship of Oudh and a position at the right hand of the wazir. He was fitted by his character and experience to be a revenue collector rather than the military governor of a district. Though not wanting in personal courage, he had no genius for soldiering nor training in the handling of armies. At Khudā- ganj he received a letter from Safdar Jang telling him to avoid an engagement pending the arrival of reinforcements then on the way from Delhi. So he took due precautions, posted guards round his camp and his artillery in front, facing the enemy position, and warned his men to remain within their lines and not to fight unless attacked.

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The news of reinforcements having started from Delhi for the Oudh army reached Ahmad Bangash through a friendly Rajah, and he lost not a day in striking his blow before the enemy's strength was doubled. In the dark and rainy night of 1st August, nine thousand Afghān infantry and 2,000 horse stole out of their camp, made a wide detour and attacked Naval Rai's camp from the rear* which was unprotected by artillery. The Sayyids of Barha, in charge of the defence here, at first repulsed the attack. "But by threatening suicide Ahmad Khan succeeded in rallying the fugitives, and led them to a second and more successful attempt. They made their way into the camp and threw it into the utmost confusion. The night was dark and rainy; and the artillerymen, not knowing where the enemy was, fired off their pieces without doing any execution. Meanwhile Naval Rai, who was deep in his devotions, was forced with some difficulty to mount his elephant. The fighting went on in the confusion and darkness till the day broke. Naval Rai was shot dead soon after sunrise, and his elephant driver made off with his body across the river to Qanauj. The retreat then became general, and many of the fugitives were drowned in attempting to follow their chief's corpse. Qanauj was evacuated by the wazir's troops, and occupied by Ahmad Khan. An immense booty fell into the hands of the Pathāns." (Far. Gaz. 163.) The result was that "the beggarly and starving Afghans became very rich and owners of property and treasure." (Bayān, 259.) They crossed the Ganges and looted or occupied many places on its eastern bank or the Oudh side (Imād, 48.)

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∗ The exact spot is said to have been the boundary of Kaitha and Gangui villages, about a mile west of Khudāganj (Far. Gaz. 162 n.)

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§ 5. Safdar Jang's advance against the Afghans.

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While the Bangash leader showed such rapidity of decision and promptitude of execution, the wazir had been taking things in a lordly and leisurely fashion. He underrated the gravity of the danger and despised his enemies, particularly in the absence of any leader of repute on their side. As early as 6th July he had taken public leave of the Emperor at Delhi to go to Farrukhabad, but had thereafter halted for three weeks in a garden outside the capital. The first division of his army, under Ismail Beg Khan and Rajah Devidat, began its march on 22nd July, while the wazir himself started on the 25th and moved slowly, doing two days' march in three or four days.

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Arrived at Mārhara (in the Eta district, 13 miles north-west of Eta city), at the beginning of August, he heard of the disaster at Khudāganj. So a halt of one month was made here in order to call up more troops. The state of indiscipline in his army and the cleavage between the population and the soldiery who were to defend them are painfully illustrated by the sack of this loyal village in the wazir's presence. "A camel-driver in the service of a Mughal captain (i.e., a Persian-Turk soldier of Safdar Jang) cut down a tree growing before the gate of Ināyet Khan, an officer of the wazir and an inhabitant of this place, who chastised him severely for it. That captain sent a party of men to seize Ināyet Khan. The other Mughalia troops, imagining that the wazir had ordered a general looting of the village, armed themselves, plundered the village in the evening, and levelled it to the dust. Ināyet and his young son were killed besides 58 other people of the village. The women of many Sayyids, Shaikhs, and Kambuh and other respectable men, as well as of the common people, were dragged away into slavery.” (Siyar, iii. 32; Khazin-Am. 81.)

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∗ D.C. records an intestine fight between Ismail Khan (the slave and most trusted counsellor of Safdar Jang) and Muhammad Ali Khan (a cavalry leader and high general of the wazir) in his camp on 18th December 1749. The English factors of Patna wrote in Dec. 1742, "The subah(dār) of Oudh is advancing this way with 40,000 horse . . . His people commit outrages, and are under no command."

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At last his musters fully made up, Safdar Jang resumed his march on 10th September, amidst the hardly suppressed curses of the people of Mārhara, and sighted the enemy, three days afterwards, near Rām Chatāuni, some 22 miles east of Mārhara and 18 miles north of Eta.* With him was a vast host of 70 to 80 thousand men, of the most miscellaneous description, mostly raw levies and under no sort of discipline. Nor were the different divisions of this army closely knit together by the watchful activity of one supreme master and the ready co-operation of the sub-commanders. Safdar Jang had not the royal gift of choosing able agents nor of knowing sound advice when given to him. He merely tried to bind his soldiery to himself by lavish gifts of money at his caprice and winking at their plunder of the population, and not by sharing their toils like a comrade and frequently exercising them under his eyes, as Aurangzib used to do. Arrived now at the height of power, his overweening pride and excessive devotion to pleasure repelled honest and capable counsellors, and he became a mere puppet moved by one or two favourites, especially Ismail Khan, a former slave and now in effect his prime minister and chief manager of affairs. A few high-born nobles followed him loyally out of personal affection or because he was the supreme man of their faith (Shia-ism) in the imperial Government; but they had no effective forces under them and were not allowed to organise his military movements or regulate his administration. This disorderly rabble,—without any concerted plan of action, without any real head to control the tide of battle as it changed from hour to hour,—now flung itself on the smaller but more compact Afghan tribal levy, rightly self-confident from an unbroken series of victories and seasoned in manoeuvre and ambuscade in that terrain.

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∗ Seven miles east of Sahāwar and five miles west of Patiāli [Irvine in Far. Gaz. 163.] Patiāli, which has given its name to the battle in some old histories, is 22m. n.e. of Eta, 27m. due east of Marehra, and 42m. n.w. of Farrukhabad. [Ind. At. 68.] I cannot find Ram Chatauni here, but two villages Rampurah and Chaundahi.

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§ 6. Safdar Jang defeated at Ram Chatauni.

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At three hours after sunrise, on the 13th of September 1750, the wazir's army advanced upon the enemy in the usual formation. The four miles of ground separating the two camps were covered in about two hours and then followed an exchange of gunfire, in which Safdar Jang had a marked superiority of weight of metal. Next his right wing under Suraj Mal Jat and his left under Ismail Beg Khan attacked the Afghāns opposite them with vigour. The fighting here was long and obstinate; the Afghāns resisted to the utmost, and it was only after six thousand of them had fallen, including their commander Rustam Khan Afridi, that the two divisions gave way and were pursued for miles by Ismail Beg and Suraj Mal. Safdar Jang, ignorant or scornful of Afghān war tactics, very unwisely sent up cannon, swivels and rockets with more troops from his side to strengthen the pursuers, as if the entire enemy army had been defeated and it only remained to follow up the victory to the utmost.* The result was that his army became broken up into two parts, separated beyond call, while he the commander-in-chief stood in the field with only a small escort and no artillery around him, and half the Afghan army still unbroken and facing him. The battle had to be fought and won yet.

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∗ Safdar Jang's defeat.—Siyar iii. 31-34, TAh. 26 b, Bayān 260-262, Muz. 46-49, Chahār Gul, 403b-406b, Imād. 49; Shākir 64, Farrukhabad Gaz. 163-164, G-i-R. 37-39, Sujān Charitra, iv Jang. (pp. 59-99). S.P.D. ii. 20 and 23 (very useful), xxi. 36. Khazinah-i-Amira, 81-83.

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Ahmad Bangash, on the other hand, had coolly kept himself on the defensive, and was directing his followers' movements from the centre. When he learnt of the rout of his two wings and the fall of Rustam Khan, he concealed the fatal news and shouted out to his own division that Rustam had gained the victory and that the Bangashes must now exert themselves if they were not to be outdone by the Afridis. Thus heartened, his men renewed the battle.

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The sun had now begun to decline from the meridian. It is the habit of India-born soldiers to slacken their efforts about one o'clock in the afternoon and seek refreshments and drink, especially if they have been under arms since the morning. A lassitude now fell on the wazir's army. The opportunity was not lost by the Afghans. They at once renewed the attack. Ahmad himself at the head of 6,000 fresh troops, mostly on foot, advancing under cover of a field of vetch, suddenly fell upon the wazir's vanguard. In the fight that followed Nasiruddin Haidar (son of the wazir's maternal uncle and one of his leading generals) fell. Kāmgār Khan Baluch, another high officer, who commanded a division close to the vanguard, fled away, probably in collusion with the Bangashes.

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Then the Persian contingent, which was the backbone of the wazir’s army, lost heart, “their feet shook and they thought defeat certain.” (*Siyar*, iii. 33.) The van fell into utter confusion and broke up into a disorderly mass of soldiers elephants and driverless carts, which obstructed the ground between the centre and the vanguard. The wazir ordered up reinforcements from the rear, but only three hundred horse, under Muhammad Ali Khan and Sayyid Nurul Hasan Bilgrami could force their way through the crowd to the fighting line. This handful of men could not restore confidence to their vanguard. A high wind with dust storm then arose and aggravated the confusion. (*G-i-R*, 38.) Numbers of the wazir’s men began to leave the field.

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The Oudh vanguard having been thus paralysed or dispersed, Ahmad Khan fought his way steadily towards the wazir in the centre. Then followed a period of confused struggle with the initiative entirely in the hands of the Afghāns and heavy odds against the wazir’s remaining troops, who had now entirely denuded themselves of artillery. A compact body of Afghans, consisting of some 3000 infantry in front with a few horsemen behind them, advanced in a wedge-shaped formation ("conical", *Siyar*, iii. 33) from the wazir's left side. When checked by Muhammad Ali Khan and his musketeers, they wheeled a little and turned towards the centre. Here the wazir was sitting on his elephant, with only a few staunch followers around him, while the field was covered with scattered groups of his fugitive soldiery. The Afghans fired a volley at the elephant-riders and then rushed upon the wazir's force sword in hand. Safdar Jang's *mahut* was shot dead, and he himself received a bullet in the neck and sank down into his brass-plated *hāuda* in a swoon. The driverless elephant wandered unrecognised by the Afghāns and thus the wazir's life was saved.

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The Afghān victory was complete; the Oudh army was dissolved in utter rout. The victors gave chase for a short distance, and at this time Najmūddaulah Ishaq Khan II, the imperial *diwān* of Crownlands and an intimate kinsman and friend of the wazir, was killed fighting to the last. When surrounded by the enemy he had diverted their attention from the wazir by shouting out that he was Safdar Jang! The wazir's elephant was mounted by Jagat Nārāyan (the younger brother of Rajah Lachhmi Nārāyan) and led out of the field into safety.

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With less than two hundred troopers, the wazir and Muhammad Ali Khan, both wounded, fell back on Marhara, 22 miles west of the field of battle, and next morning set out for Delhi with some appearance of order and formation among his followers. Much of his property was plundered by his own Mughal troops and the rest by the villagers around. When the victorious right wing of the Oudh army returned from their distant chase of Rustam Khan Afridi's division, they found the battle lost beyond hope of retrieval and their master nowhere to be seen. So, they retreated westwards.

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To the Afghāns the victory had come just in time to give them breathing space at the end of a day of long uncertainty and strenuous exertion. One division of their force had been crushed with the loss of some 6000 men and the second-in-command of their entire army. The struggle had been so confused that the fulness of the wazir's defeat became manifest only after the sun had set, so that the victors could not at once reap the full fruits of their success. There was, therefore, no pursuit, but the wazir's standing camp was captured by the Afghāns after much of its contents had been looted by his own soldiers and the villagers in the course of that might.

§ 7. Safdar Jang in disgrace at the imperial Court

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But the cup of Safdar Jang’s humiliation was full. For the first time in the history of the Mughal empire the grand wazir had been defeated in a pitched battle by an upstart jāgirdār’s son and his rustic levies. His wound rapidly healed after being cauterized in the night following the battle; but he pursued his way to Delhi sunk in the deepest mortification.* At the first news of his defeat, which rumour had magnified into his death, his enemies at Court, headed by Jāvid Khan, the Queen-mother and Intizām-ud-daulah (the late wazir’s son), raised their heads, and planned to attach his mansion and property. But they waited for a few days to verify the news. In the meantime their evil designs leaked out, and Safdar Jang’s wife, a clever and high spirited lady, put her son and household on the guard, gathered troops within her mansion, shut the gates and stood ready to defy a siege. Then Safdar Jang arrived opposite Delhi (20th September) and was found to be neither dead nor without an army. He sent a warning to Jāvid Khan saying, "though dead, I am still stronger than any other living man." His enemies quailed before him and offered excuses for their past conduct.

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∗ "The mahut took his elephant out of the battlefield and in one day arrived near Koil, about 40 kos away. Everything had been looted. That night the wazir slept on the ground, spreading the housing of his elephant as a bed and eating whatever could be had. Next day the fugitives assembled round him . . . On 22 Shawwal [should be 29th Sh. = 20 Sep.] he entered his own mansion [in Delhi] without visiting the Emperor. For nearly two months he did not come to Court. Then, one day the Emperor, on a visit to a park, passed by the wazir’s mansion and the wazir came out and interviewed him. The Emperor asked about his health and examined his wound, consoling him. When the wound was healed, the wazir came to Court, in shame and alarm." *TAh.* 26b-27a.

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But how was the vanquished wazir to show his face to his master? Tutored by Intizām-ud-daulah, the Emperor sent a message to Safdar Jang, forbidding him the Court on the ground that it was the rule of his dynasty that if a wazir fled from a battle field he must be dismissed for it and sent into retirement. To counteract this move, Safdar Jang promised a bribe of seventy *lakhs* of Rupees to Jāvid Khan, and that all-powerful eunuch turned the Emperor's wrath away and introduced the wazir again to the Court. [*Muz.* 49; *Siyar* iii. 36, *Bayān* 263, *Imād* 50.]

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Safdar Jang now set himself to devise means of avenging his defeat on the Afghāns. For this purpose he could find no better instrument than the Marāthas and Jāts, and negotiations were opened for buying their aid in a new campaign in Rohilkhand.

§ 8. Bangash invasion of the Lower Doāb; siege of Allahabad

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In the meantime, the battle of Rām Chatāuni had shaken the wazir’s dominions to their foundations, as all the Doāb east of Delhi and the province of Oudh including the fort of Allahabad now lay defenceless. Ahmad Bangash followed up his victory by taking possession of the country from Aligarh to Akbarpur-Shāhpur in the Cawnpur district, and then returned to Farrukhabad, while he sent one army under his son Mahmud to invade Oudh and another under Shādil Khan to conquer the Doāb southwards to Allahabad. His governors occupied Phāphund, Shamsābād and Chhibrāmau. Shādil Khan’s progress having been stopped by his defeat at the hands of the wazir’s local agent Baqāullah Khan near Korā (Fathpur district), Ahmad himself marched with a vast army and laid siege to Allahabad. [Far. Gaz. 164-165.]

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This redoubtable fort offered a long and gallant defence under Baqāullah Khan, who was joined by a strange ally, the Hindu warrior-abbot Rājendra-giri Gosāin with his ferocious followers called Nāgās,—utterly naked savages with ash-smeared bodies and long matted locks. This man refused to remove to the safety of the fort-walls, but continued to live in his hut below the fort, close to the temple standing at the junction of the two rivers (Prayāg.) Twice or three times everyday, whenever he noticed any negligence or weak point among the besiegers, he would make a lightning raid into their camp at the head of his sixty followers sword in hand and mounted on swift ponies, madly slash at the Afghāns right and left, and as quickly return to his place. Baqāullah threw a bridge of boats across the Jamunā under shelter of the fort-guns and thus secured his supplies and communication with the country south of that river. From his headquarters at Jhusi (opposite Allahabad), on the left or Oudh side of the Ganges, Ahmad Khan sent detachments eastwards towards Jaunpur, Azamgarh, and Benares. Rajah Prithipat Somvanshi of Partābgarh presented himself and joined the invader with his contingent. The chief bankers of Benāres waited on the Afghān general on the way and averted his visit to Benares by paying a large contribution (Imād, 50.) No part of the Benāres district was occupied by the invaders.

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The Afghān force had neither the capacity nor the material necessary for taking such a fort as Allahabad. The siege dragged on for four months of desultory fighting, after which the Marātha threat to Farrukhabad led to its hasty abandonment (early in April 1751.) But before leaving the place, Ahmad’s soldiers, “all fearless and bloodthirsty Afghāns, looted the entire city of Allahabad, from the gate of Khuldābād to the foot of the fort, burnt it down, and dragged away 4,000 women of respectable families into slavery. They only spared the quarter (dāira) of Shaikh Afzal Allahabadi and the Dariyābād ward, whose inhabitants were all Afghāns”. [Siyar, iii. 34; Muz. 53, Imād. 64, S. P. D. ii. 29.]

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§ 9. Bangash invasion of Oudh fails, 1751.

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The invasion of Oudh had been equally a failure. Mahmud Bangash (a son of Ahmad) with a vast force reached the western side of Bilgrām (32 miles s.-e. of Farrukhabad) on 1st February 1751. Here he encamped, while his men began to plunder that famous town. The inhabitants, many of them highly connected and soldiers by profession, offered fight; and a few people were wounded on both sides and about two hundred animals of the invading army were carried off. In anger Mahmud got his troops ready for assaulting the city, but was pacified by the holy men of the place, (evidently for a money consideration.) Thence he marched south-east towards Phāphāmau (opposite Allahabad and on the north bank of the Ganges), while one of his generals with 20,000 horse and foot was detached towards Lucknow.

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The latter halted on the way and sent a body of 5,000 men onwards to occupy Lucknow (56m. s. e. of Bilgram), from which Safdar Jang’s agents had fled away. The Afghān commander occupied the defenceless city and appointed his own police prefect to administer it. This man’s oppression drove the citizens to desperation; they rose under the leadership of some Shaikh-zādas, expelled him and restored Safdar Jang’s authority. The Afghān advanced guard tried to enter the city and sack it in revenge, but it was opposed near the Ismailganj suburb (on the east side of Lucknow) and defeated. At the news of this unexpected reverse, both detachments of the invading army fled away to their chieftain. Their despair infected Mahmud and he beat a hurried retreat from Phāphāmau. All the magistrates and tax-collectors of the Bangash usurper were now expelled from Oudh. [Siyar iii. 35, Imād 50-51, Muz. 53-54.]

§ 10. Safdar Jang with Marathas and Jats invades Rohilkhand

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It only remained to punish him in his homeland. Some months after the disaster at Rām Chatāuni (13th Sep. 1750), Safdar Jang had re-established his position at the Delhi Court and completed his alliance with the Marātha generals, who were the only power in India capable of crushing the Afghāns. He promised to pay Jayāppā Sindhia and Malhar Rao Holkar Rs. 25,000 (or 35,000) a day for their contingents and Surajmal Rs. 15,000 for his Jāt force for help in the projected invasion of Rohilkhand. Ammunition and rockets were collected and some guns received from the imperial arsenal through the good offices of Jāvid Khan. [G.-i-R. 40, Siyar, iii. 36.]

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Winter is the natural time for campaigning in India, but the arrival of the Marātha allies was delayed till spring. They had first to fulfil their undertaking in Rajputana by seating Mādho Singh on the Jaipur throne and levy the promised subsidy from that State, and secondly they had to write to the Peshwā and get his consent to taking the Ruhela business in hand instead of immediately going to the South, as commanded by him, for a projected attempt to oust the Nizām from that part of India. (S. P. D. xxi. 40 and ii. 31.) It was only in the second week of February 1751 that the Marāthas could start from Jaipur. At last all his arrangements having been completed, Safdar Jang took formal leave of the Emperor on 11th February and entered his marching tents on the sandbank of Mahābat Khan. Thence he marched to Kishandās's Tank on the 18th, and was joined two days later by his ally Malhar Rao. Surajmal also arrived with his Jāt force, and the plan of campaign was now formed.

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The wazir remained some twenty miles in the rear of the fighting line and at a later stage of the war came back to his residence in Delhi. The brunt of the fighting was borne by his allies. First the Marātha light horse, 20,000 strong, made a dash and fell "like a sudden calamity" upon Shādil Khan, the Bangash governor of Koil (Aligarh) and Jālesar, who had only 4,000 horse and the same number of unreliable foot under him. Unable to oppose such odds, he fled away across the Kālī Nadī and the Ganges towards Farrukhabad. Many of his Afghāns were slain* or taken prisoner and much property seized by the victors (c. 20 March), and the whole of this large tract was cleared of the Bangash agents at one push. At the news of this disaster, Ahmad Khan at once raised the siege of Allahabad and returned to Farrukhabad with only a small remnant of his army, the mercenaries having disappeared during his retreat.*

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∗ Far Gaz. 166; S.P.D. ii. 32. S.P.D. xxvi. 176: "Ahmad Bangash sent his vanguard to oppose Malhar and the Jāt who had entered the Doāb, but it was defeated, giving up 7 or 8 elephants and 4 to 5 thousand horses to plunder. Many Pathāns were slain,

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He decided to abandon his capital and make a stand at a small fort, now called Fatehgarh, three miles east of Farrukhabad and overlooking the Ganges, near the ferry of Husainpur. Across the river was the Ruhela country, the only place from which armed aid and provisions could come to him. Here entrenchments were thrown up and the deep ravines on the land side supplied very strong natural defences.

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The Marāthas had advanced rapidly down the Doāb, meeting with little or no opposition. They invested the Afghān position at Fatehgarh, "placing their headquarters at Qāsim Bāgh, half a mile west of the fort, while the wazir proceeded to Singirāmpur, a village and ferry some eleven miles further down the Ganges. As attempt made by him to throw a bridge across the river here was defeated by an officer of Mahmud Khan, who was encamped on the other side of the Ganges, opposite Fatehgarh. Meantime, at Fatehgarh the Marāthas daily besieged the fort. On the other side, the Pathāns made repeated sorties. Little impression was effected by either side. After the investment had lasted more than a month, Sadullah

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their camp was looted. Two or three posts have been captured. Great terror of the Marāthas has spread through that part." *S.P.D.* xxi. 41 and 43; ii. 14, 14a; xxvii. 66, xxvi. 175. *Khaz. Am.* 83-84.

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Khan (son of Ali Muhammad Khan) approached with his Ruhela reinforcements of 12,000 men.

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"On 17th April, a boat bridge was thrown over the Ganges by the wazir at Singirāmpur, and the Marathas and Jats crossed over to the left or eastern bank of it. Next day Sadullah arrived on that bank, opposite Fatehgarh and joined his forces to those of Mahmud Khan. Led away by youthful rashness, Sadullah attacked the Marāthas before Aḥmad could cross over from the west bank and unite with him. After a great battle defeat fell in the end on the Afghāns. Sadullah and Maḥmud fled away with their bare lives, the first to Aonla and the second to Fatehgarh, over ten thousand of their men were slain or wounded, and all their property, elephants, horses, carpets, clothing, was captured by the Marāthas.

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"After nightfall the camp of the Ruhelas on the opposite bank was fired, and the sight of the flames struck terror into Aḥmad Khan's garrison (in Fatehgarh.) . . . During the night the Nawāb (i.e., Ahmad Khan) with his kinsmen and chiefs left the fort, and made off to the ferry of Kāmraul, 15 miles above Fatehgarh, where he crossed the river and then took refuge in Aonla. The Marāthas overtook many of the fugitives at Shikārpur ghāt, four miles above Fatehgarh, and many were slain. In the morning (19th April), the Marāthas occupied Fatehgarh, after having killed many of the remaining defenders and made a number of prisoners. The Ruhelas of Aonla . . . identified themselves completely with Ahmad Bangash’s cause. They all marched as rapidly as possible towards the Lower Himalayas,” evacuating their homes of their women and leading persons.

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The rainy season was about to begin, and the wazir, suspending the campaign till it should be over, went away to Lucknow. The Marathas cantoned in the Bangash territory, plundering the entire country to their heart’s content. The value of the booty secured by them baffled the calculation of the historian Ghulām Husain,—“one single article being worth 16 lakhs of Rupees.” Another historian, Sayyid Ghulām Ali writes, “In the invasion of the Ruhela country Malhar gained two krores of Rupees in cash, besides what he had plundered (in kind) in the cities.” [Siyar. iii. 36, Imād. 57-59, Far. Gaz. 166-167, TAh. 27b-28a, Muz. 54-56, G-i-R. 40-41, Sujān Charitra, Jang iv.]

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At the end of the rains, the Pathāns advanced towards Farrukhabad; the Marāthas retreated before them and crossed over to the western side of the Ganges. The wazir hurried back from Lucknow, crossed the Ganges, joined the Marāthas and resumed the offensive. The Pathāns were repulsed and marched up the left bank of the Ganges, retreating to Aonla. After collecting the most valuable part of their property, the Ruhela and Bangash chiefs abandoned Aonla and sought shelter at the foot of the hills near Chilkiyā.

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Here they formed an entrenchment in the forest, and fed with supplies furnished by the Rajah of Almorah they succeeded in holding their own for many months. All efforts to dislodge them from this inaccessible refuge failed. But the malignant jungle fever of this Tarāi region carried off thousands of Afghāns and Marāthas alike. (Siyar, iii. 37, G-i-R. 43.) Four months dragged on in this kind of desultory fighting till March 1752 came to an end, "The Marāthas were weary of a contest in which no plunder could be gained, and suffering from disease in a climate peculiarly unhealthy," they were eager to go back.*

§ 11. Safdar Jang makes peace with the Ruhelas and Bangashes

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At the news of Abdāli's invasion of the Panjāb (early in 1752), the Emperor pressed his wazir to make peace with the Afghāns of Rohilkhand and hasten back to the capital. So a peace was concluded at the beginning of April 1752, on the following terms:

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∗ Malhar Rao Holkar himself was deeply grateful to Ahmad Khan for his kind treatment and release of his beloved son Khande Rao, who had been captured in the jungle fighting one day. He plainly told the wazir that he would not fight Ahmad Khan to the bitter end. (Bayān, 265.)

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"The debt due by Safdar Jang to the Marāthas for the expenses of the campaign was transferred to Ahmad Khan Bangash, who alienated to them half of his territory till the debt should be extinguished . . . The management of the Marātha parganas seems, however, to have been left in the hands of Ahmad, who, after paying the expenses of their administration, handed over the balance to two Deccani bankers stationed at Qanauj and Aliganj." (Far. Gazetteer, 167.) The author of Siyar-ul-mutakhkharin (iii. 37) gives further details, which are supported by Bayān-i-waqāi (266) :—Farrukhabad and some other mahals worth 16 lakhs (or 22 lakhs, according to Bayan) of Rupees a year were left to Ahmad and other sons of Muhammad Khan Bangash, while the sons of Ali Muhammad Ruhela were confirmed in the possession of Mirābād and some other mahals which they had seized after the death of Qāim Khan, but they were subjected to the payment of revenue for these. Qanauj, Akbarpur Shāh and other possessions of the Bangash family were put in the possession of Govind Pant Bundelé the Marātha agent. Safdar Jang kept a few of the places for himself. The Bangashes and Ruhelas thus emerged from this overwhelming invasion with surprisingly little permanent loss.

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"Matters remained in this position till after the battle of Pānipat in January 1761." In that battle the Ruhelas and Bangashes rendered good service to the victor and rose to prominence in the Delhi Government in the chain of the new arrangements made by the Afghan king. "After their defeat at Pānipat the Marāthas withdrew from Northern India for some years. Ahmad Khan Bangash seized the opportunity to recover nearly all the territory of which he had been deprived" by the treaty of 1752. [Far. Gaz. 168, Siyar. iii. 37, Bayān. 265-266, Imād. 59, Chahār Gul. 407, G-i-R. 44-43 (terms not given.)]

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