Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s2: § 3. Character of Muhammad Shah
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s2
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§ 3. Character of Muhammad Shah
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Muhammad Shāh* had come to the throne in 1719 at the age of 17. For seven years before that event he had been kept under confinement in the palace harem and had received no education such as might fit a man to rule a kingdom or lead an army. He possessed natural intelligence and a good deal of foresight; but the fate of his predecessors, who had been set up and pulled down by their wazirs, effectually crushed any desire that he might have once had to rule for himself and to keep his nobles under control. He, therefore, totally withdrew himself from public business, leaving it to his ministers, and plunged into a life of pleasure and amusement, hardly ever going out of Delhi during his 28 years of reign, except to visit parks in the neighbourhood (usually at Loni) and occasionally to see the annual fair at Garh Mukteshwar (a hundred miles east of Delhi). His only two military movements were to follow in his wazir's train in the short and futile campaigns against Nādir Shāh and Ali Muhammad Ruhela.
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∗ Ānandrām 309, Wārid 117-118, Siyar iii. 25, Shākir 33, Chahār Gulzār 397a-398a, TAh. 2b, Ashub ii 420; Bayān, 242-244; TAh. 2.
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At his accession he was a fresh youth, extremely handsome, large and strong of limb. But his sedentary life of inactivity and sexual excess soon impaired his constitution and he became a confirmed invalid by the time he was only forty. The evil was aggravated by his taking to opium, and this drug habit made him weak and emaciated, till at last it became impossible to move him from his palace.
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His sole diversion outside the harem was witnessing animal fights on the sandy bank of the Jamunā below the window of morning salute in the Delhi palace, occasionally varied by the cares of a bird-fancier. We can understand his wish to enjoy from a safe distance the excitement of the heroic and dangerous game of elephant-combats, which his forefathers had reserved as an imperial prerogative. But when we read how Muhammad Shah spent his morning hours not in doing public justice or holding State councils, but in viewing a wrestling match between two bears, or a fight by "three pairs of bears, a goat, a ram, and a wild boar, which were wrapped in tiger skins and trained to attack an elephant" (as he is recorded to have done on 25th April 1743), we wonder whether such spectacles would be considered a worthy diversion by any one outside a nursery unless he were a vulgar country clown, and whether the lord of a hundred and fifty million souls at the ripe age of 41 had no more serious use for his time and no higher tastes. [*Akhbārāt.*]
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When the fires of youthful passions burnt themselves out, a deep melancholy settled on Muhammad Shāh, and towards the end of his life he loved to frequent the society of *faqirs* and to hold long converse with them, discussing spiritual questions like an initiate. Three such hermits became his spiritual guides, and the Court nobles and the common people followed his example.*
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Thus, throughout his long reign the administration was utterly neglected by its supreme head, the nobles divided the land and political power among themselves or fought for these things, as if no master existed over them. Muhammad Shāh would assent to every good advice of his wazir or any other minister, but could never summon up enough courage to take the necessary step; like other weak men he found supreme wisdom in putting off action from day to day, till a crisis precipitated itself and things took their own turn. Such a man was destined to go through life as a puppet moved by his favourites, who were shrewd men with the most charming manners and strength of character, and this was Muhammad Shāh's ignoble fate too.
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∗ "His Majesty gave Shāh Mubārak the title of Burhān-ul-tariqat, Shah Badda that of Burhān-ul-haqiqat, and Shāh Ramz Fasih-ul-bayān, and used often to frequent their company. All the ministers and rich lords followed suit. Other people also imitated, so much so that the bazar craftsmen in the villages of every province put on imitation [initiates'] turbans on their heads and *taqdir* tunics on their backs, till at last even the women took up the fashion." (Shākir, 33.)
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But though he was a mere cypher in respect of his public duties, there were some redeeming traits in his private character. Naturally timid and wavering, he was also free from insolent pride, caprice and love of wanton cruelty. Nor did he lack consideration for others and courage of a certain kind, as was illustrated when, instead of fleeing to Bengal as advised by his friends, he voluntarily went forth into Nādir's captivity in order to save his people and capital from the horrors of violent assault and forcible subjugation to incensed victors. "He never gave his consent to shedding blood or doing harm to God's creatures.* In his reign the people passed their lives in ease, and the empire outwardly retained its dignity and prestige. The foundations of the Delhi monarchy were really rotten, but Muhammad Shāh by his cleverness kept them standing. He may be called the last of the rulers of Bābur’s line, as after him the kingship had nothing but the name left to it." [Siyar, iii. 25.]
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∗ The following anecdote given in *Chahār-Gulzār* (397 *a*) is characteristic :—One night a Baksari foot-soldier placed as guard over the imperial jewel-house dug a hole in its roof, entered it, and stole a jewelled necklet (*kanthi*). When trying to creep out of the hole, he fell down on the floor, broke his leg, and lay there helpless. Next day he was discovered there and taken before the Emperor. Muhammad Shah asked him, "O shameless wretch! You committed theft where you were appointed a watchman. Could you not find any other place more appropriate for stealing in?" The Baksari replied, "My salary for 12 months is
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Such was the head of the State in India in the second quarter of the Eighteenth century. We shall now examine the character of his highest instruments.
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§ 4. Character of Wazir Qamr-ud-din Khan.
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Ever since the death of Aurangzib, the Pādishāh had been a non-entity,—Bahādur Shāh I by reason of his age and softness of nature, and his successors because they were mere puppets set up and moved by their prime ministers. Therefore, the destiny of India’s millions lay in the hands of the wazirs, and the wazir’s character and strength of position alone determined the nature of the administration in an empire of continental vastness.
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The first wazir of Muhammad Shāh after the
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due from Government. It is not fair that my salary should remain in this room and I should commit theft elsewhere. I also thought that there could be no better place than the Emperor's palace for stealing." The Emperor smiled at the reply, paid the man his arrears of salary and retained him in service as a watchman!
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overthrow of the Sayyid brothers was Muhammad Amin Khān (surnamed Itimād-ud-daulah I), the son of the Nizām’s grandfather’s brother. He was installed in office in November 1720, but died only two months later (16th January 1721), men said as a divine chastisement for his having helped to shed the blood of the Prophet’s kith and kin (the Sayyids of Barha). Nizām-ul-mulk succeeded him, but being thwarted by the false and fickle Emperor and his unscrupulous confidants, he at last resigned in disgust, in 1724. The next wazir was Qamr-ud-din (entitled Itimād-ud-daulah II),* the son of Muhammad Amin Khan. He was a great drunkard, but, happily for the people, an extremely indolent man. For the quarter century (1724-1748) that he held the supreme office in the realm, the administration merely drifted along, under this harmless kind old man, who always foresaw the trend of affairs and the effect of every measure, but never had the courage to tell the honest truth to his master or dissuade him from any wrong course on which his heart was set. In fact, he considered it supreme wisdom merely to keep his post and do as little work as possible.
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And yet the condition of the empire, even before Nādir Shāh gave it the death stab, was such that only a wise, strong and active wazir, exercising dictatorial power, could have saved it. On the contrary, king and minister alike were now more dead than alive. As the historian Wārid, whose youth had been nurtured in the dignified and strenuous reign of Aurangzib, wrote in the bitterness of his heart about the times of Muhammad Shāh, "For some years past it has been the practice of the imperial Court that whenever the officers of the Deccan or Gujrāt and Mālwa reported any Marāthā incursion to the Emperor, His Majesty, in order to soothe his heart afflicted by such sad news, either visited the gardens—to look at the newly planted and leafless trees,—or rode out to hunt in the plains, while the grand wazir Itimād-ud-daulah Qamr-ud-din Khān went to assuage his feelings by gazing at the lotuses in some pools situated four leagues from Delhi, where he would spend a month or more in tents, enjoying pleasure or hunting fish in the rivers and deer in the plains. At such times Emperor and wazir alike lived in total forgetfulness of the business of the administration, the collection of the revenue, and the needs of the army. No chief, no man, thinks of guarding the realm and protecting the people, while these disturbances daily grow greater." [Mirāt-i-Wāridāt, 117-118.]
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∗ Ashub ii. 422, Siyar iii. 13 and 24-25, Chahār Gulzār 398b.