Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c16.s6.3

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.]