Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s3: § 5. Factions at Court
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s3
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§ 5. Factions at Court
v1.c6.s3.1
With a foolish, idle, and fickle master on the throne, the nobles began to give free play to the worst forms of selfishness. They found it necessary to form parties of their own for their support and advancement, and even for their very existence. The controlling and unifying centre of the government having ceased to function, disintegration became inevitable in the Court itself. The instinct of self-preservation drove the nobles to group themselves in factions according to race, to divide the administration among themselves, and to gird themselves around with a body of clients from among the vassal princes and the provincial governors. The Court was divided into two armed camps of Turānis and Irānis, each with its hand ever on the hilt of its dagger, and this civil dissension spread throughout the realm.
v1.c6.s3.2
Itimād-ud-daulah II, as became an emigrant from Samarqand, was the patron of the Turānis, while his rivals and enemies perforce joined the opposite party, composed of the Persians, whose leadership after the death of Sādat Khan (March 1739), was taken by Abul Manṣur Khan Safdar Jang, the *subahdār* of Oudh. And the history of the later Mughals, from 1736 onwards is only the history of the duel between these parties. After 1765, when Oudh became a dependency of the English and the Nizām entirely dissociated himself from Northern India, the imperial Court continued to be the same scene of struggle, though the competitors for power now were mostly Afghāns or individual adventurers of other races, rather than parties knit together by tribal connection.
v1.c6.s3.3
§ 6. Cause of empire's ruin.
v1.c6.s3.4
Where the king has no inborn capacity to rule a realm, government by a responsible prime minister is the only alternative, unless administration is to disappear from the country and the State to break up. But no *fainéant* Mughal Emperor would give his wazir the same chance of working that George II gave to Walpole or Pitt with the happiest results for both king and people. Muhammad Shāh, like Farrukh-siyar, was too imbecile and inconstant to inaugurate any statesmanlike policy, conduct operations in the field, or control his officers; but he had cunning enough to countenance and even initiate conspiracies among his personal favourites against the publicly responsible wazir and secretly to lend the prestige of his name to the rebellions of the wazir's rivals. Therefore, an honest and capable wazir, under such a sovereign, would soon discover that if he insisted on administrative vigour and purity or tried to force honesty and consistency of policy on the Emperor, he would be only courting his own death, and that if he wished to escape the fate of the Sayyid brothers he must give up all noble ambitions and statesmanly projects and swim with the current, leaving the realm to drift. He would probably console himself with the belief that if the State escaped a catastrophe in his own time, he had done enough for one man.
v1.c6.s3.5
In the Court of Delhi as it stood after Nādir Shāh’s departure, Qamr-ud-din Khan Itimād-ud-daulah was the wazir or Chancellor as before. The office next in importance, namely, that of the Army Chief (*Mir Bakhshi*) with the title of Amir-ul-umarā, had been recently bestowed upon Asaf Jāh Nizām-ul-mulk, a cousin of the wazir.
v1.c6.s3.6
Both of them continued at these posts during the remainder of the reign. The head of the imperial household, called the *Khān-i-sāmān* (Lord High Steward) was Lutfullah Khan; but he died at this time and was succeeded (on 21 May) by Dānishmand Khān, who lived for only twenty days more and then gave place to Saduddin Khān (12th June). This last-named noble also held the office of *Mir Atish* or Chief of Artillery, which gave him control over the imperial palace within the fort and consequently charge of the Emperor’s person and treasures. But his influence was less on the administration of the Government than on the Emperor's mind by reason of the constant personal association with the Emperor which his office ensured. The same was the position of the Diwān of Crownlands.
v1.c6.s3.7
§ 7. Muhammad Shāh governed by favourites.
v1.c6.s3.8
But with a timid and unwise sovereign like Muhammad Shāh and an ease-loving negligent wazir like Qamr-ud-din, it was not the high ministers of State that counted so much in shaping the policy of the empire and the fate of the people as the household officers about the Emperor's person and his favourite companions, whose influence was constantly exerted and supreme over his mind.
v1.c6.s3.9
Throughout life Muhammad Shāh had never thought out any problem or made a decision for himself. He had always been led by his favourites. In early youth he had emerged from the bondage of the Sayyid brothers only to fall completely under the tutelage of a vulgar woman named Koki-ji and her associates, Raushan-ud-daulah of Pānipat and Shāh Abdul Ghaffur.
v1.c6.s3.10
These three fell from favour and were sent into disgrace in 1732. Thereafter, for seven years the Emperor's feeble mind was dominated over by Samsām-ud-daulah Khān-i-Daurān and Samsām’s brother Muzaffar Khān without a rival. When Samsām and Muzaffar died (1739), they were succeeded as the Emperor’s guiding angels by Amir Khān and three other men brought to the Emperor’s notice by Amir Khān, namely, Muhammad Ishaq, Asad Yār, and (four years later) Safdar Jang. The life and character of these men therefore deserve study with some fulness.