Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c7.s6: § 6. Natural fortresses in Rohilkhand; Ruhela administration
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c7.s6
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§ 6. Natural fortresses in Rohilkhand; Ruhela administration
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The Afghān settlers in Rohilkhand possessed two local advantages of great value. Their strong places were surrounded by dense bamboo hedges which were impenetrable to cavalry and artillery and through which even infantry could thread its way only where paths had been cut. These bamboo pālisades lingered in that region till well after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Then, again, the skirt of the hills in their immediate north, with the thick sāl forests and pestilential swamps called Tarāi, afforded them a safe refuge after any defeat in the plains, because no enemy could pursue them across these natural obstacles or survive the climate long.
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To individuals the Ruhelas, like others of the Afghan race, were not free from cruelty* vindictiveness and treachery. But as rulers, they saw the unwisdom of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. They protected the peasants and traders in their lands from unauthorised oppression and were eager to drive away other robbers from their own preserves. In this they formed an honourable contrast to the Marāthās, who extorted their *chauth* and then went away, without recognising any moral obligation to protect the people whom they had robbed or whose regular Government they had overthrown. The Ruhela chieftains left the revenue collection in the hands of Hindu ministers (*diwāns*) and their household accounts and correspondence in charge of Hindu secretaries (*munshis*), who were generally very capable men of business and faithfully devoted to their masters' interests. The result was that both rulers and subjects prospered in their dominions when once the violent act of annexation was over.∗
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∗ At the end of the futile siege of Allahabad fort by Ahmad Khān Bangash (Jan.-April, 1751), his Afghān soldiers set fire to the defenceless and unoffending city of Allahabad, from the Khuldābād gate to the foot of the fort and plundered it, carrying away four thousand women of high and well-born families into captivity. Only the Dāira of Shaikh Afzal Allahabadi and mahalla Dariābād, whose inhabitants were all Afghāns, were spared. (Siyar, iii. 34.)
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∗ George Forster, a civil servant of Madras, who was travelling through Rohilkhand in the disguise of a Georgian merchant, wrote in February 1783 that "the Ruhelas by a salutary system of government had enriched their country and had made their names respected . . . . had made the country populous and opulent." And, again, "The whole of this chief's [Faizullah Khan's] country evinces the beneficial effects arising from the encouragement of husbandry, and the aid of an active government. Populous villages, skirted by extensive fields of corn, are seen on all sides." [*Journey*, i. 98-99.]
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§ 7. Emperor's expedition against Ali Md. Ruhela.
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Safdar Jang had been appointed Mir Atish in 1744. By virtue of this office he now became the working head of the imperial army, as its nominal Chief, the Mir Bakhshi, was Nizām-ul-mulk, who had been absent far away in the Deccan ever since 1740, leaving his son Ghāzi-ud-din I as his deputy at Court. Safdar Jang planned to win martial fame by conducting an expedition under his own leadership. He used to regard the Afghāns of Rohilkhand as "serpents in his path to Delhi", (Ashub, ii. 426,) and now induced the Emperor to sanction a war for curbing Ali Muhammad Ruhela. The wazir was not consulted, as he was publicly known to be the protector of this Ruhela rebel and even related to him by marriage; but the war once begun, the wazir could not in decency absent himself from the Emperor's side. So, Safdar Jang took the Emperor with him on this expedition as its ostensible head.
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The Ruhela campaign of Muhammad Shāh (1745) revealed the utter rottenness at the core of the imperial Government and the worthlessness of its military machine. It was a war waged not against a foreign invader like Nādir Shāh coming at the head of the veteran victors of a hundred battles, nor even against the organised and hereditary troops of a great feudal baron, but against a petty rebel who had started life as a mere private in a band of mercenaries and was now backed only by the village militia of his own clan.* Yet the full force of the Empire wielded by the Emperor, his Chancellor and Army Chief in person, for three months, achieved only the slightest and least durable result, and that, too, more by persuasion than by compulsion. The moral canker which this failure revealed in the Delhi State is more significant than a hundred defeats in the field. The campaign laid bare to public view the blind selfishness and insane jealousy animating the leaders, and the shameful love of ease and lack of any sense of duty prevailing among all ranks, which have been perpetuated for posterity in Anandrām Mukhlis's graphic diary of the expedition.
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We do not know whether to weep or to laugh when we hear the pathetic groaning of this high-placed gourmand at the ordinary privations of a march of 120 miles from Delhi into the Doab, in the midst of the entire armed strength of an empire, with no fighting except an occasional distant cannonade,—which spoilt his sleep! Other nobles were equally soft and imbecile. Such an empire had already forfeited its right to exist.
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∗ "The Emperor was humiliated by reason of his nobles failing to subdue this tāluqdār of a few villages." Anandrām, p. 255.
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This war was under the special charge of Safdar Jang and had been undertaken at his instance and in opposition to the wazir’s policy; therefore, from the outset the wazir sulked in isolation in his tents, or enjoyed his rival’s troubles and discomfiture. On the second day of the march, Safdar Jang had to “visit the wazir in his camp and crave his pardon, as there had been unpleasantness between the two before.” (Anandrām, 206) Later on, when Qāim Khān, the loyal Bangash chief of Farrukhabad, joined the army, the Mir Atish quarrelled with him and the two had to be reconciled in the Emperor’s presence. (5th May. Anandrām, 247.)
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Muhammad Shah issued from Delhi on 15th February 1745, but immediately afterwards wasted 18 days in its environs, at the garden of Farhat-āfzā at Loni (east of Delhi, across the river.) The terrible summer of the Upper Doab, with its sand-storms, blistering winds, and dried water-sources was approaching, and yet no attempt was made to reach the objective and end the campaign promptly. The actual start was not made till 5th March, and then this army, or rather this moving city of tents, made its slow and ponderous march, with long and frequent halts, from Loni by way of the Hindan river, Dāsna parganah, Dahāna village (in Hāpur, some 36 miles east of Delhi), Bagsar, Garh Mukteshwar, Sahāranpur and Sambhal, till at last on 14th May, or fully three months after he had left Delhi, the Emperor arrived about eight miles from Bangarh, the enemy’s stronghold, which was only 110 miles from Delhi in a straight line over a level plain, with no difficult river between.
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The qualities displayed by the army in the face of the enemy were exactly in keeping with this lordly style of marching, as is frequently illustrated by Anandrām’s diary:
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“3rd May. A violent wind blows all day. Many men of the camp stole away to Delhi under different pretexts.” (P. 245.)
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“16th May. Qāim Jang rides forth to assault Bangarh, but halts in a grove after passing three miles of the way, returns to the camp four gharis before sunset, his armour-clad troopers blistered by the heat and want of water.”* (P. 253.)
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“18th May. The generals of the imperial army march out a short distance (towards Bangarh) to a plain, halt there, dig wells, raise
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∗ Cf. “The troops in the trenches were so covered with dust as to look like parties of sannyāsis. 19 May.” P. 256.
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batteries, and fire upon Bangarh. But nothing was effected; evidently the nobles did not mean business." (P. 255.)
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"20th May. Entrenchments were made about two miles in front (of the imperial camp). There was an exchange of fire with Bangarh. At dusk the nobles fell back on their tents near the trenches." (P. 257.)
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§ 8. Peace made with the Ruhela chief.
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A night attack attempted by the enemy on 20th May was repulsed by the imperial artillery. But the rainy season was expected to begin in a month's time, when the swollen rivers would cut off the food supply of the imperial camp while Bangarh was still untouched. The wazir therefore induced the Emperor to patch up a peace with Ali Muhammad in order to be able to hurry back to his capital. He himself settled the terms as intermediary, presented Ali Muhammad to the Emperor (23rd May), and secured pardon for him. The Ruhela chieftain agreed to surrender his usurped fiefs to a new imperial officer (Farid-ud-din Khān, the son of Shaikh Azmatullah Khān of Murādābād) and to dismantle the fortifications of Bangarh. After a short time he was given a 4-hazāri mansab and sent to Sarhind as the imperial faujdar of the place, but two of his sons were detained at Court as hostages for his fidelity. Anandrām, who saw him at the time of his surrender, describes him as a man of medium height, with a fair complexion, blooming face and open forehead, about forty years old, but looking youthful and dauntlessly brave. (P. 261.)
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From this inglorious campaign the Emperor and his army immediately afterwards began a hurried return to Delhi, suffering even worse hardships than in their outward march, from the stormy winds, heavy rain, muddy roads, and swollen rivers. Muhammad Shāh re-entered his capital on 19th June, the return journey having taken 25 days.