Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c16.s6: § 6. Conflict between Emperor and Imād
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c16.s6
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§ 6. Conflict between Emperor and Imād
v1.c16.s6.1
In the meantime a complete estrangement had taken place between the Emperor and his Bakhshi and an open conflict between the two was shortly to be precipitated which ended in the ruin of Ahmad. In the months following Safdar Jang’s departure, the star of Imād was steadily in the ascendant. He was the organiser of the imperial victory, he was the vanquisher of Safdar Jang, he had thereafter subjugated the turbulent Jāt population of the district south of the capital, and Malhar Holkar was his constant ally. There was no noble in the empire who could stand against him. His one difficulty was from lack of money. He had exhausted all his ancestral hoards and had saddled himself with debt during the six months’ life and death struggle with the ex-wazir. But the public treasury was empty, revenue had ceased to come in from the provinces. The only course open to Imād was to seize the rents of the Crownlands and the other nobles’ jāgirs in the districts within easy distance of the capital. This fact separated the Emperor from him more quickly than his sovereign’s alarm and jealousy, fomented by Intizām, at his growing power.
v1.c16.s6.2
When the war with Safdar Jang broke out, it was agreed in the presence of the Emperor and his ministers that all the wealth of the realm should be first devoted to the work of crushing the rebel, and that on his downfall the revenue of the Deccan should be paid by Imād (as Nizam-ul-mulk) into the imperial treasury after deducting the dues of the soldiers, old and newly recruited; the wazir (Intizām) agreed to do the same in respect of the revenue of his provinces of the Panjab and Kashmir; the *subahs* under Safdar Jang would be taken away from him and given, Oudh half and half to the new wazir and Bakhshi, and Allahabad for paying the salary of the *Sindāgh* troops. [*TAh.* 96*a*.] But this scheme did not work as it was based upon many calculations which proved futile in practice, and the trouble about money continued to grow worse. On 20th December 1753, Aqibat went to the Emperor to reassure him and counteract the efforts of his master's enemies at Court. Two days later Imād himself waited on the Emperor, who promised him the *subahdāri* of Allahabad if he remained true to his king and paid him the surplus revenue regularly. [97*b*.] At this time Imād used to make troublesome requests in almost every affair out of enmity to the wazir and thus increased the Emperor's difficulty, though Ahmad Shah very tactfully smoothed these conflicts or overlooked Imād's perversity. But Imad gradually grew disloyal and in the pride of power even dreamt of seizing the throne by setting aside such a cowardly imbecile and false sovereign as Ahmad. [102a & b.]
v1.c16.s6.3
On the question of clearing the soldiers' arrears, there was a sharp conflict of opinion between the Emperor and the Paymaster. Imād pressed him to go with him, chastise the rebels in the districts near the capital, collect the rents, or else sell the Jāt kingdom to Muhakam Singh (the son of Churaman) dispossessed by Churaman's nephew Badan Singh. But the Emperor would not leave these affairs in Imād's hands; he listened to the wazir's counsels and often negatived Imād's proposals, holding that the Bakhshi could easily meet his army charges from the estates placed under him. Even when the Emperor entrusted 15 lakhs to Imād for paying the soldiers, the Bakhshi kept the money for himself and provoked daily riots by the starving soldiery against the Emperor, his household officers, and his wazir. [103a—104b.] Early in February 1754, Imād sent a detachment to take possession of Koil and Sikandrabad, which were estates of the Emperor's privy purse, while Aqibat Mahmud squeezed the peasants of Rewāri, another Crownland district. This usurpation dried up the royal income and brought the inmates of the palace to the brink of starvation. At the same time the row of the soldiers in arrears continued for two months in the city of Delhi. The Emperor could do nothing to remedy it; he wrote to the Bakhshi to keep his promise and pay these men, but Imād merely put off a settlement from day to day. [TAh. 109 b, 111b, 113b.]