Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s6.1

v1.c6.s6.1

When Nādir Shāh left India, the administration of the Mughal Empire seemed to have been dissolved by the shock of the foreign invasion. In provinces where there was no strong governor public peace disappeared as the people lost their wonted fear of a Government which was now so utterly discredited. Predatory instincts, so long kept in check by Mughal rule or imperial prestige, now asserted themselves in the very heart of the Empire. Thus, we read in the *Chahār Gulzār* (f. 373a) that in the year following Nādir's invasion a large number of Jāts and Sikhs gathered together, marched towards Sarhind and created a great disturbance there, by setting up one Darānāt Shāh as their chieftain and seizing many villages. They were subdued only after an expedition had been sent from the Court under Azim-ullah Khān. In another corner of India, when the Peshwā Bālāji Rāo's agent was conveying the money that the Nawāb of Bengal had paid to him as subsidy for armed help against Raghuji Bhonslé (1743), this agent, though escorted by some troops of the governor of Patna, was attacked and robbed of his money at Saserām, by a Persian soldier of fortune who had entered the Oudh *subahdār's* service. (Siyar, iii. 7.) In the Ganges-Jamunā Doab, Ali Muhammad Ruhela, a former retainer of the local governor, “daily increased his power during the neglect following Nādir Shāh’s invasion, when no noble of the Court gave a thought to him. He used to plunder the districts in his neighbourhood and brought the whole country up to the Kumāun hills under his control. Strong in the strength of his fort (of Bangarh), he attacked the imperial territory and dreamt of rivalling Sher Shāh and Salim Shāh.” (Ashub, ii. 423-424.)