Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c14.s1: § 1. Ali Muhammad Ruhela's successors
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c14.s1
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§ 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.*