Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c15.s9.1

v1.c15.s9.1

In the first stage of inaction and waiting on events, every day that passed told against Safdar Jang and in favour of his enemies. At the outset, the force under him was over-whelming, his enemies unorganised divided and friendless. But that disadvantage was rapidly remedied by Imād’s tireless industry, power of knitting men together, and genius for grasping at every opportunity as it came up; and this six weeks’ respite enabled his hired Maratha and Ruhela allies to reach Delhi, while it ate up Safdar Jang’s treasures in inaction. Safdar Jang did not at first realise the value of the advantage which the possession of the Emperor and the capital gave his enemies. After the dismissal of Safdar Jang from the wazir-ship (13th May), no order in the Emperor's name could be issued by him; he was manifestly a rebel and a traitor to his master. The fountain of honour and the source of legality had been left behind him in Delhi, in the hands of Intizām, the new wazir. So, every Rājput chief who hankered for a high title or elevation above his peers, every captain of mercenaries who wished to be promoted to the rank of a landed baron, every Marātha general eager to secure the legal surrender of imperial territory or the grant of *chauth* in return for his sword, looked up solely to the Emperor cooped up within the walls of Delhi. And within those walls were also the hostages unwittingly given by Safdar Jang to his rivals. For, thanks to the Jāt depredations and Marātha raids of the last few years, no man of wealth, no man who valued the honour of his women, ventured to live in the country; they all lodged within the city of Delhi. And most of Safdar Jang's chief partisans and officers naturally took houses in the capital when he was wazir. In addition even the common soldiers of the Turkish race (popularly called *Mughlia*) who were the backbone of Safdar's army, had left their families and household goods in the quarter of Delhi called Mughal-pura, which had been colonised by their race ever since the days of the Khilji Sultans at the end of the 13th century. After Safdar Jang had once gone into open rebellion, he could not protect them from pillage and outrage by the Emperor's party unless he made himself master of the capital, which was an impossible feat for him. This fact made his ultimate defeat so complete and so ruinous to his partisans.