Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c15.s8: § 5. Safdar Jang's domineering conduct after the murder of Jāvid
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c15.s8
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§ 5. Safdar Jang's domineering conduct after the murder of Jāvid
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Safdar Jang's grasping spirit knew neither shame nor moderation and soon set everybody except his personal retainers against him. Though the aggrieved officers and dispossessed nobles durst not say anything against him at the noontide of his power, they at once rallied in open hostility to him as soon as a centre of opposition was opened by a great noble with the Emperor's support, and his fall was swift. We shall now trace the steps by which this result was brought about.
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Safdar Jang, in addition to snatching away the wazir-ship which the Turānis regarded as their hereditary property, had done them an unfriendly turn at the beginning of his office. He had secured to himself the transfer of the Sarhind district from the hands of Intizām-ud-daulah who had hitherto held it as second *bakhshi* in assignment for the salary of the 5,000 Turkish soldiers of the Emperor. The entire Turāni race murmured at this loss, the soldiers of their blood starved, and though there was no open breach at that time, the seed of discord was sown so early. [*TAh.* 15*b*.] In June 1752 he had bullied the Emperor into transferring to him all the *jāgir* lands throughout the provinces of Oudh and Allahabad, with the result that the numerous petty officers to whom the rents of these estates had been hitherto assigned were now deprived of their livelihood by one stroke of the pen. [37*b*.] Next, he caused the *faujdari* of Saharanpur, worth Rs. 6,000 a month, to be taken away from the Emperor’s maternal uncle’s son and given to his follower Rājendra-giri. Similarly, the Emperor was forced to yield to the wazir all the Crownlands in Etawa and Kora as well as in Safdar’s two *subahs*. [38a.]
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Jāvid Khan was killed in the evening of 27th August, 1752. Safdar Jang, after removing his sole rival, took prompt measures to establish his domination. Jāvid Khān’s property was escheated and his estate-manager and personal valet were confined to make them disgorge his treasures. [TAh. 41b.] On the fourth day after the murder, the wazir nominated his retainer Abu Turāb Khān *qiladār* and police-superintendent of the palace-fort in order to gain a strangle-hold on the Emperor in the inmost recess of his abode, and poor Ahmad Shah durst not object to it but gave the man his investiture of office. But even so Safdar Jang’s mind was not composed; he suspected that the Queen-mother would secretly correspond with his enemies. He therefore kept his own watch at the entrance and exit of the imperial harem and sent eight women agents to stay in the ladies’ quarter of the palace and read all letters that were sent out of it. But this was more than the Queen-mother, who ruled the palace, could bear; she angrily turned these spies out and Safdar Jang shrank from a contest with her. He sulked in his mansion in the city, refusing to attend Court unless his mind was reassured. The Emperor had to yield; on 23rd September he paid a visit with his mother to the wazir’s house and brought him back to the palace,—for the first time after Jāvid Khan’s death. The unhappy king of kings had to stoop still lower. On 28th September he pledged his word to Safdar Jang not to make any appointment without his consent. A wholesale transfer of posts now took place; Safdar Jang’s creatures displaced the old incumbents in numerous minor offices. On that day the wazir’s youthful son Shuja-ud-daulah was given charge of four important departments around the Emperor’s person, namely, the āhadis, confirmation of appointments and grants, mace-bearers, and personal riding establishment; and finally on 1st January 1753 he was made superintendent of Private Audience, with full control over the entree to the Emperor’s Court such as Jāvid Khan had exercised in his time. [TAh. 41a—43a, D. C.]
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§ 6. Safdar Jang offends Emperor and the nobility.
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With a creature of his own in military command of the palace, Safdar Jang began to restrict admissions to the Emperor’s presence as he pleased. "The new *qiladār* used to stand at the gate of the fort and Kishan Narayan (the son of the wazir’s agent Rajah Lachhmi Narayan) at the gate of the Private Audience Hall and control the business of entree, so that no *mansabdār* whose duty it was to mount guard inside the fort, —except the horse and foot of the artillery department then under the wazir’s son and the necessary eunuchs footmen and office-clerks of the palace, could come within the fort. Further, the wazir issued an order that no soldier should enter the fort on horseback or with arms on, and this rule struck at the escort of the nobles. They therefore, feeling insulted and alarmed, gave up their visits to the Emperor. On Friday, 14th September, Ahmad Shah rode out to offer his public prayers in the wooden mosque within the fort (enshrining the Prophet’s relies removed from the *Jam‘a masjid*), but no grandee joined his cortege and even the officers marked for guard duty that day were absent. He asked, ‘Is it that the *qiladār* does not admit them, or that the wazir has forbidden their entrance?’ The *qiladār* gave the evasive reply, ‘I admit every one who comes. If none will come what can I do?’ [*TAh.* 41*b*-42*a*.] *Darbārs* were announced for 16th and 17th September, but no noble other than Safdar Jang’s partisans attended, and when the Emperor sent for the chief absentees they begged to be excused on the plea of illness; Intizām was said to have been taking China wood for three months, and held back from the Court even after the other absentees had been induced to attend. [42b, 43a.]
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The Emperor keenly resented being reduced to the condition of a captive cut off from free intercourse with society by Safdar Jang’s partisans. Such high handedness on the part of the prime minister could have been borne if his administration had been a success, the revenue secured, and the enemy kept out. But a dictator under whom the capital was insulted by a permanent camp of Marathas at its gates, the provinces passed out of the Central Government’s control and the royal household officials and troops all starved, was sure to provoke a universal revolt against his unwholesome domination.
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On 22nd October 1752 a Maratha force, some 3500 in number, encamped at Talkatora, four miles south-west of Delhi, and another body of 4,000 horse came to the Kālka hillock on 6th February 1753. The lawful faujdār of Sarhind was driven out by another man, but the Delhi Government took no action against the usurper. The salary of the Emperor’s household servants was nearly two years in arrears, but after a month spent in discussion the Treasury could pay their dues for four months only, as the coming of revenue from the Crownlands had been stopped by usurpation and disorder. The Court annalist laments, "From this the condition of the troops and of the nobility can be guessed. None save the wazir had a sufficiency of soldiers. How then could enemies be defeated and the country brought under control? The empire was totally ruined . . . The wazir took away what he liked from the Crownlands, so that not a pice reached the Emperor's treasury. This wazir was an impoverisher of his master." [*TAh.* 43*b*-44*b*, 47*a*.]
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In November came reports of Abdali's preparations for a fresh invasion of the Panjab and all people from Lahor to Delhi were alarmed. The wazir proposed that the Emperor should march in person to defend the frontier. The Emperor very properly replied that there was no soldier or war-equipment under him, but he was prepared to go *alone* if the wazir thought it any good! He continued, "You are the sole centre of the Government now; all the realm and its income are in your hands. Try to collect money for paying the troops and making preparations for my march." The wazir was silenced by this speech. But a month later the anxiety from this quarter was deepened. On 8th December the wazir reported that news had repeatedly come of Abdali’s marching towards Lāhor and that it was necessary for the Emperor to set out to oppose him, the 16th of the month being an auspicious day for starting. The Emperor, on hearing this, grew thoughtful and in the evening after taking counsel with his mother answered, “The condition of the troops and the country is evident to you. Try to find money anywhere you can.” To this the wazir could give no reply. [TAh. 45.]
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The danger came still nearer. On 5th February 1753, an envoy from the Afghan king arrived at Delhi with a letter from his master and escorted by 2,000 horse. Abdāli was halting on the frontier at Attock and demanded 50 *lakhs* of Rupees as tribute for the present year, otherwise he would advance in force upon Delhi. The envoy was received in audience on the 13th. The Emperor asked him to wait eight days for a reply and held a council. All his nobles told him, “The Marathas have undertaken to fight Abdāli. You have given them the two provinces of Agra and Ajmir, and the *chauth* of all the 24 *subahs*. You have paid them money and placed all authority in their hands. Ask them what should be done now.” The wazir assured his master that the Maratha force at Delhi would be augmented to 10,000 in a fortnight and with his own contingent of 30,000 men, would constitute an army 40,000 strong for fighting the Pathan king. While thus preparing for hostilities, the wazir detained the envoy under various pretexts, and then (22nd March) sent him away when the internal quarrel of the Delhi Court was about to burst into a civil war. [S. P. D., xxi. 53, 54, 55; D. C.; TAh. 46b, 49a.]
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§ 7. Court conspiracy against Safdar Jang.
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The general discontent with Safdar Jang's rule favoured the Queen-mother's plan for overthrowing him. This plot was secretly matured and at last carried out in March 1753. She had hitherto been the motive force of the Government on the side of the Emperor. "Every business was transacted by her. Causing Khwājah Tamkin, Rajah Lachhmi Narayan, Rajah Nāgar Mal (the diwān of Crownlands) and other high officers to sit down before her audience chamber, she used to discuss affairs with them from behind a screen. All petitions of demand (mutālib) from every part of the empire and closed envelopes that were sent to the harem were read out to her and her orders were issued on them, which had to be carried out." [TAh. 45b.] This position of supreme authority made her the centre and spring of the coalition against the wazir. Intizām was the avowed enemy of Safdar Jang and openly kept away from the Court in fear of the wazir, while Safdar Jang always avoided passing by Intizām’s mansion lest he should be shot at from within. “The friction between the two daily increased. The Emperor outwardly sided with Safdar Jang and humoured him, but secretly won Intizām over.” Imād, though a lad of 15 only, was the deepest of the plotters and averted all suspicion by professing to follow Safdar Jang while his heart was set on overthrowing him.
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For liberating the Emperor from Safdar Jang’s bondage, the first necessary step was to clear the palace of the wazir’s officers and to surround the sovereign’s person with loyal troops and nobles antagonistic to the wazir. Events quite naturally worked to this end. The treacherous murder of Jāvid Khan had given to the nobles whose high rank and independence might raise them to rivalry with the wazir, a reasonable ground for refusing to attend Court unless they could enter the fort with strong body guards,—which Safdar Jang had forbidden. All lesser nobles outside the wazir’s party had been impoverished by dismissal from their posts and loss of income from their jāgirs and therefore could not appear in public in becoming equipment. Thus, the Courts now held by Ahmad Shah were attended only by the agents and underlings of Safdar Jang. The grandeur and concourse of the Delhi darbār was gone. The Emperor keenly resented this falling off in splendour, and the higher society of Delhi and the general public were behind him in his desire to end Safdar Jang's usurped control over the Crown. All things being ready, the Emperor secretly looked out for a partisan of his own to replace Shujā-ud-daulah as Chief of Artillery and ex-officio commander of the palace defences. Noble after noble shrank from accepting a post which would be a challenge to the all-powerful wazir, but in the end a willing instrument was found. Then the blow was struck, and in the following way.
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§ 8. Safdar Jang's men expelled from Delhi fort.
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From the beginning of March 1753 Delhi was shaken by frequent rumours of an impending clash between the wazir and Intizām, the Emperor discreetly pretending to be a peace-maker between the two and an open supporter of Safdar Jang. Great confusion and alarm reigned in the city almost every day. On the 13th of that month, the wazir sent his eunuch Tamkin at midnight to the Emperor to say, "I have heard that Intizām wants to make a night attack upon me. I too have got my troops ready." The Emperor sent two slaves of his own to Intizām, who denied having made any hostile preparations or even wishing for such a thing, but the reply did not pacify Safdar Jang. Next morning, when the news of the incident became public, the bazars were filled with tumult and clamour, the traders removed their goods from their shops to places of greater safety; every one collected in his house what armed guards he could hire; the Marathas assembled before the mansion of Intizām. In the belief that the riot might overflow into the palace, the men of the artillery and the mansabdars of the imperial body guard and retinue (khās-chauki and jilau-i-khās) flocked into the fort for its defence, and thus there was a large gathering of soldiers around the Emperor. In the course of the next three days, the two rivals, in obedience to the Emperor's repeated orders, withdrew their troops from the city, and that particular tumult ceased.
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The Emperor now felt himself not so helpless as before. On 17th March he called Shuja-ud-daulah's deputy as Chief of Artillery and censured him, "The qiladār prevents my servants from coming within. It has even been reported to me that the wazir's men enter the fort, sit down in the ante-room (of the Hall of Select Audience) and pass whomsoever they like. What do you call this?" The deputy Mir Atish could only offer excuses and became filled with despair. The officers of the artillery department, taking their cue, gave up goiug to him for their orders.
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That very night, about 9 p.m., a clamour rose in the fort that the wazir was coming to enter it with a large force. At this rumour all the mansabdars and imperial servants took up arms and stood in defence of their ruler. The Emperor ordered the artillery captains to go outside the fort and take post before it. Abu Turāb Khan, the qiladar, fled from the fort in great agitation to the wazir. The alarm was entirely false, but it had done its work; Safdar Jang's agent had been peacefully expelled from the palace. A great tumult raged in the city throughout that night, and of king, wazir, soldiers, citizens and palace servants not one man could sleep. The guns on the fort walls were loaded and trained on Safdar Jang's house (the former mansion of Dara Shukoh) which they commanded.
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With the morning the truth became known and the tumult and alarm ceased. Safdar Jang had been cleverly outmanœuvred; without a blow being struck he had been deprived of the command of the palace, and soon his miscalculation was to make him lose control of the capital too. On the 18th, the Emperor tried to console the wazir by presenting him with his own turban (a mark of full brotherhood.) Safdar Jang believed that he could still coerce his master. In reply he wrote to say, "As your Majesty's heart has been turned away from me, order me to go away to any place you like. Out of my cash and effects, pay the dues of my soldiers and escheat the remainder. Confer my wazir-ship and other posts on such other men as your Majesty may please." The Emperor took him at his word, and immediately wrote to him in his own hand, permitting him to retire to his subah of Oudh, but leaving his offices and property untouched. On the 23rd, the customary robes and presents of the ceremony of giving conge were sent to Safdar Jang by the Emperor and his mother, and he sent his advance-tents out of the city to the first halting place, Nurābād, but delayed starting on the plea of lack of porters.
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At last, finding his position no way improved, Safdar Jang set out from his mansion within the city of Delhi on 26th March. As he came opposite the palace, he dismounted from his elephant, turned his face to the imperial abode, and made a low salām to his invisible master. There was a drizzle at the time, and as he looked up drops of rain fell into his eyes and mingled with his tears. It was really the end of his wazir-ship, though he knew it not. The Emperor was now restored to the nobility of the empire and his subjects regained their access to him free from restriction. The old imperial darbar was now revived after six months' eclipse during Safdar Jang's usurped dictatorship, and every noble and officer in Delhi flocked to it.*
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§ 9. Stages in the war between Emperor and Safdar Jang, 1753.
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The civil war between Safdar Jang, which may well be said to have commenced on 26th March 1753, and ended with Safdar Jang's return defeated towards Oudh on the 7th November following, falls into three clearly marked stages: The first six weeks (26th March—8 May) passed without any hostile action, as both sides were equally unwilling to precipitate a clash of arms, Safdar Jang roving aimlessly round the city, unable to make up his mind whether he should peacefully depart or rise against his king and master, and his rivals at Court setting about to enlist troops and buy Marātha and Afghān allies. This stage was terminated by the arrival of Suraj Mal and Salābat Khan in the wazir's camp (on 1st and 4th May respectively) and their inducing him to take up an openly aggressive policy, of which the first outcome was the plunder of Old Delhi by the Jāts (9th May.) In the second stage (9th May—4 June), there was declared war between the two sides, and Safdar Jang seemed to be on the point of triumphing, while his opponents were cooped up helplessly within the walled city. But with the arrival of the Ruhelas under Najib Khan to the Emperor's aid (2nd June) the tide turned, the first evidence of which was the failure of Safdar Jang's grand assault on Delhi on 5th June. The third stage (5th June—7th November) went steadily but decisively against Safdar Jang, and was heralded by the Court party's advance out of the walled city and their occupation of Old Delhi. Gradually, in spite of almost daily skirmishes and internal troubles with mutinous soldiery, the imperialists pushed the rebels further and further back, till at last the country for 22 miles south of Delhi, as far as Ballamgarh, was wrested by the Emperor’s men, and finally on 7th November Safdar Jang accepted defeat and set his face towards his own subah, leaving all his political ambitions behind.
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∗ TAh. 47b-49a; Siyar iii. 46; Muz., 69; Ch. Gul. 408b; Shākir 72. I have followed TAh. only. The following account is given in a letter written to the Peshwa from Delhi on 28 March 1753 by Antaji Mankeshwar :—"The Kh-kh, the Mir Bakhshi, and [the late] Kh. Duran's son (i.e., Samsām) have conspired for a month to bring the wazir to the fort for a private consultation and there despatch him and then give the wazir-ship to Kh-Kh. Bāpu Rāo Hingané showed me the Emperor's letter ordering 5,000 Maratha horse to be mustered and counted in his presence. So, I got ready and went [to the fort.] Kh. Kh. and the other two also came there armed and ready. The Emperor sent a letter to the wazir asking him to come quickly for an urgent business. But his step-mother Malika-uz-zamāni secretly sent out of the palace a letter to the wazir informing him of the treachery and bidding him not to come. Then the wazir got 25,000 of his troops and artillery ready and came [to the fort gate] saying that he would settle accounts with the man who had played this trick, imprison Ahmad Shah, and set up another Emperor. A great tumult raged in the city. The Emperor repeatedly sent messages to the Maratha envoy, saying, "All my hope is in you. I am Bālaji Rao's man. Save my life.'" [Aiti. Patr. ii. 86.] This is supported by TAh. and generally by Bayān 275.
Linked texts (2)
- Bayān-i wāqiʿ — Khwāja ʿAbd al-Karīm Kashmīrī 1780, Persian
- Selections from the Peshwa Daftar — Marathi