Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c16.s1: § 1. Difficulties of imperial Government after Safdar Jang's departure
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c16.s1
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§ 1. Difficulties of imperial Government after Safdar Jang's departure
v1.c16.s1.1
The Emperor Ahmad Shah reigned for six months only after the end of Safdar Jang's rebellion, and these were months of unceasing disorder in and outside the capital and increasing misery and degradation of the Crown. The retreat of the vanquished ex-wazir from the contest with his sovereign did not bring peace and prosperity back to the Delhi Government, nor could this single cause effect such a miracle. This hectic struggle had exhausted the wealth of the Emperor, dried up the sources of revenue, and left his Government overwhelmed with debt. In the course of it, he and his advisers had to concentrate all their thought and resources on the one task of defeating the enemy at the gate and had to neglect everything else. When this danger had at last rolled away, it was found that the work before them was nothing less than the building up of a new empire out of chaos. For such a task neither Ahmad Shah nor his Chancellor or army Chief was gifted. To the utter bankruptcy of the Treasury was added the deadly jealousy between the two highest ministers of State which was unmasked in all its shamelessness by the exit of their common foe. As early as a month before Safdar Jang's breach with the Emperor, the shrewd Marātha agent at Delhi had noted that the Turāni party was internally divided and formed four factions none of which would obey or work with any other. [S. P. D. xxi. 55.] During the war with Safdar Jang, Imād had openly taunted the new wazir with cowardice for preferring to remain with the Emperor within shelter of Delhi's walls while throwing the brunt of the actual fighting upon him and his personal contingent. He had later suffered from the wazir's duplicity and mischief-making in secretly negotiating a peace with Safdar Jang, while the Emperor's publicly declared policy was that of war to the death with that rebel. The timid powerless sovereign, placed between these two strong rivals, tried to save himself by lying to Imād, while he secretly followed Intizam's counsel. After Safdar Jang's departure, an open clash between the wazir and the Bakhshi was inevitable, and when Ahmad Shah chose to side with Intizām he was bound to be involved in his wazir's fate.
v1.c16.s1.2
This civil war had left a legacy of debt which it was beyond any man’s power to liquidate. The new imperial levies and allies, numbering 80,000 fighting men, cost* at the lowest estimate 24 lakhs of Rupees a month and they had been embodied for seven months, so that the total charge under this head amounted to one kror and 68 lakhs. In addition to this, the existing old army had been in arrears of salary for over two years at the outbreak of the civil war. And this happened at a time when the Emperor could hardly raise two lakhs by selling his plate and jewellery, the bankers were refusing to advance money on the strength of an order on the revenue of any province, and even the Delhi agent of the chief banker of Bengal (called Nagar-seth in TAh. but better known as Jagat-seth) had been drained dry in the lean years before the war. Therefore, the last six months of Ahmad Shah’s reign were continually disturbed by the tumults of the starving unpaid soldiery in an even more aggravated form than during Jāvid Khan’s regime. The officials and menials of the palace were unpaid for 32 months (1753.) The Court accused Imād and his right hand man Aqibat Mahmud of putting the soldiers up to make these demonstrations against the Government, in order to increase its helplessness. The Emperor gave the blank reply that he had placed all his treasure and territory in charge of Imād and had nothing with him now to give to anybody. As he told Imād on 28th December, 1753, "Pay the musketeers of the Top-khānah from the 15 lakhs I have entrusted to you. Pay the salaries of the other regiments, especially the Sin-dāgh risāla out of the revenue of Ballamgarh and the subah of Allahabad which I have conferred upon you. I leave you full power, but do not practise oppression." [TAh. 103b.]
v1.c16.s1.3
∗ The Marātha agent in Delhi reported that a trooper cost one Rupee a day in Delhi (S.P.D. xxi. 55, Aiti Patr. ii. 89.) Ghaziuddin reduced the pay of his troopers to Rs. 30 a month in 1751. The pay of the Ruhela soldiers was, as a matter of grace to a bankrupt State and a temporary concession, fixed at 12 annas per trooper and 4 annas per infantryman in Sep. 1753. [TAh. 67 a.] The normal monthly salary of the cavalry was Rs. 50 each.
v1.c16.s1.4
The most pressing creditors of State were the Ruhela and Maratha auxiliaries and the Badakhshi brigade lured away from Safdar Jang's side, for whose monthly salary Imād as Bakhshi was directly responsible. Imād, therefore, first set himself to reconquer the district south of Delhi where Jāt usurpers predominated in the villages, and he planned to attack thereafter the great Jāt kingdom of Bharatpur and levy a large tribute. At the same time the Ruhela leader Najib Khan* tried to recover his dues by violence. Aqibat Mahmud reported to the Emperor that the Ruhelas were dunning Imād for their arrears and had practically kept him in confinement on 16th and 17th November. Soon afterwards a settlement was made: "The dues of Najib Khan Ruhela and Bahādur Khan Baluch, amounting to 15 lakhs, were assigned on the revenue of the Ganges-Jamunā doāb and certain villages east of the Ganges, which had formerly been in the possession of the Ruhelas. So the Ruhelas left Delhi for their homes (26th Nov.) But immediately after crossing the Jamunā they invested Patparganj and seizing the headman of the place demanded lakhs of Rupees from that mart and beat him; they did the same thing at Shāhdara, and after forcibly occupying the toll-offices (nāka) on the river bank robbed the wayfarers. They left Patparganj only after taking Rs. 35,000." In March next, Najib Khan dispossessed the official collector of Sarhind, and in April occupied Saharanpur and the wazir's jagirs in that region, but restored them in May 1754. [TAh. 87a-88b, 121a, 125a.]
v1.c16.s1.5
∗ As early as 13th Sept. 1753 the Emperor owed 25 lakhs to the Ruhela soldiery and could pay only 4 lakhs on the 16th [TAh. 67 a].
Linked texts (1)
- Selections from the Peshwa Daftar — Marathi