Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c8.s3: § 8. Marathas capture Hughli fort
Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c8.s3
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§ 8. Marathas capture Hughli fort
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Hughli was the most important station of the Mughal Government on the west bank of the Ganges in Lower Bengal. Within its jurisdiction lay Calcutta, Chandarnagar and Chinsurā, the chief factories of the English, the French and the Dutch respectively, and all ocean-going trade-vessels in Bengal had to do the necessary official business with it. It was also the seat of the Mughal naval power in West Bengal and the chief centre of foreign commerce to the subjects of the Nawāb. The commandant (*faujdār*) of Hughli at this time was Muhammad Razā who used to pass his nights in drinking deep and making merry with dancing-girls and singers, to the total neglect of his duties.* Mir Habib had many old friends among the Persian merchants here, their leader being one Abul Hasan. He sent secret emissaries to them, and these traitors formed a conspiracy to deliver the fort up to the enemy. On the appointed night, Mir Habib with 2,000 Marāthas under Shesh Rāo arrived silently outside the fort. According to their plot, Abul Hasan reported to Muhammad Razā, "Your old friend Mir Habib is standing at the gate begging for a private interview with you." The drunken *faujdār* ordered the gate to be opened without making any inquiry or taking the usual precautions. As Habib passed into the gateway, a number of Marāthas suddenly rushed in with him, overpowered the guards, occupied the fort, and made the Nawāb's officers prisoners (early in July).
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§ 9. All West Bengal in Maratha occupation.
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Thus Hughli passed into Marātha possession and Shesh Rāo was installed there as the conqueror’s governor. Unlike other Marātha chiefs, he was polite, considerate to others, just, and merciful. His good administration soon won the landholders and even the European traders of these parts over to his side. Mir Habib acted as the diwān of Bengal on behalf of the Marāthas, sent bailiffs to summon the zamindārs to his presence to arrange for the payment of the land revenue to him, and in all matters acted as the supreme agent of the Rājah of Nāgpur.
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∗ The governor (*hākim*) of the port, acc. to *Siyar*, ii. 122, was Md. Yar Kh. reputed brother of Alivardi, popularly called Mirza Piaré (as we find from Pondicherry letter of 4th April, 1743 N. S.) Chandarnagar factors sent Rs. 4,000 to ransom him from the Marathas. *Riyaz* 344 calls Md. Raza *naib faujdar*. Salimullah 119b wrongly writes that Hughli was then under "Md. Raza and Mirza Piaré the *faujdar*." Maharashtra Puran wrongly speaks of Sher Kh. as *faujdar* of Hughli.
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Mir Habib also took away some pieces of artillery and a sloop mounting guns from Hughli to Katwā, and thus strengthened the invading army of light raiders with two arms which they had hitherto totally lacked and which they could not have dreamt of securing in Bengal but for him.
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The Nawāb’s rule ceased in West Bengal, but in Upper Bengal, i.e., from Murshidābād northwards and eastwards as well as in East Bengal, his authority was maintained. But even the country east of the Ganges did not always remain safe from Marātha ravage. On Bhāskar’s return in June, the main body of his troops halted at Katwā, but small parties roamed about the island of Qāsimbāzār. They once or twice penetrated as far as Palāshi and Dāudpur (seven miles north of Palāshi and 20 miles south of Murshidābād), burnt the villages around and then returned to Katwā. A bridge built by Mir Habib at Dāinhāt, with boats commandeered from far and near, enabled the raiders to cross easily from one bank to the other. After a month the Ganges became swollen with rain and the Marāthas could no longer cross over to its eastern side.
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§ 10. *Atrocities and devastation committed by the Marathas.*
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All over the country from which the Nawāb’s authority had disappeared, the Marātha hordes committed wanton destruction and unspeakable outrage on the roads and villages.
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Utter terror raged throughout Bengal in consequence of their atrocities. The state of the country is thus graphically described in the English factory letters: "The Marāthas are plundering Birbhum (July, 1742) which has put a stop to all business, the merchants and weavers flying wherever they can."
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An eye-witness, the Bengali poet Gangārām, thus describes the sufferings of the people: "The *Bargis* began to loot the villages. Every class of men took to flight with their property, . . . when suddenly the *Bargis* came up and encircled them in the plain. They snatched away gold and silver, rejecting everything else. Of some people they cut off the hand, of some the nose and ears;
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some they killed outright. They dragged away the beautiful women, tying their fingers to their necks with ropes. When one *Bargi* had done with a woman, another seized her;* the women shrieked in the agony of ravishment. The *Bargis* after thus committing all sinful acts, set these women free. Then, after looting in the open, the *Bargis* entered the villages. They set fire to the houses, large and small, temples and dwelling-places. After burning the villages they roamed about on all sides plundering. Some victims they tied up with their arms twisted behind them. Some they
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* *Bargi* is a corruption of *Bārgir* (a Persian loan-word in Marāthi), meaning a horseman supplied with his mount and arms by Government, as opposed to a *silāhdār* who was equipped and mounted at his own expense.
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The Marātha soldiers were notorious for their practice of gang-rape in invaded territories from a very early time. In 1683 when they invaded the Goa districts under the eyes of their king Shambhuji, they committed this kind of outrage. A contemporary Portuguese account of that war states: "These enemies were so barbarous that when a woman appeared very beautiful (lit., best) to them, five or six of them violated her by lying with that woman alone. Up to now nowhere else in India has such barbarity been seen, nor even among the Kafris (Negroes). For this reason, many women of Margaon . . . threw themselves into pools, where they died of drowning. Others who bravely resisted the lewd intentions of some of the enemy soldiers, were killed with strokes of the broadsword, and of some others the breasts were cut off." (Tr. from Pissurlencar's *Portugueses e Maratas*, ii. 49. There is another Eng. tr. in I. O. L. *Portuguese Records*, *Noticias da India*, vol. i. part. 2.) *Mis. du Madure*, iii. 270.
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flung down and kicked with their shoes. They constantly shouted, ‘Give us Rupees, give us Rupees, give us Rupees.’ Where they got no Rupee, they filled their victims’ nostrils with water or drowned them in tanks. Some were put to death by suffocation. Those who had money, gave it to the *Bargis*; those who had none had to give up their lives. It was only after crossing the Bhāgirathi that people found safety.”
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Another contemporary, Vāneshwar Vidyālaṅkār, the Court Pandit of the Mahārājah of Bardwān, wrote in November, 1744: “Shāhu Rājah’s troops are niggard of pity, slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brāhmans and the poor, fierce of spirit, expert in robbing the property of every one and in committing every sinful act. They created a local cataclysm and caused the extirpation of the people of the Bengal villages like an (ominous) comet. . . . In one day they can cross a hundred *yojans*. They slay the unarmed, the poor, women and children. They rob all property and abduct chaste wives. If it comes to a battle, they secretly flee away to some other country. Their main strength lies in their marvellously swift horses. Such was the tumultuous ocean of *Bargi* troops.”
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The Muslim historians Salimullah and Ghulām Husain Salim confirm this account.
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They write, "The *Bargis* cut off the ears, noses and hands of multitudes of people, or killed them with many kinds of torture and suffering,—by gagging their mouths with bags of dust or drowning them. They destroyed the honour of the people" (*i.e.* outraged the women.) The letters from the French factory at Chandarnagar and the English settlement of Calcutta tell the same tale of oppression.
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§11. *The Nawāb surprises the Marātha camp at Katwā on 27th September.*
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While all this was happening to his subjects, Alivardi at first confined himself to defending his capital by forming a camp outside it, at Amāniganj and Tārakpur, and decided to put off the campaign against the enemy till the coming winter, when the reinforcements called up by him from his deputies in Purniā and Patna would reach him, and the Emperor also, who had been urgently appealed to for help, was expected to cause a diversion from the direction of Upper India. Alivardi distributed ten *lakhs* of Rupees to his troops and replenished their equipment. From Purniā and Patna his deputies reached him accompanied by 5,000 and 12,000 men respectively, before the rainy season was over.
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Pressed by Zainuddin Ahmad (the *nāib* nāzim of Patna), Alivardi wisely changed his plan, and decided to attack the Marāthas before the drying of the roads and the fall of the river-level would restore to the light Deccani horse its natural advantage. Meantime, Bhāskar, secure in the possession of West Bengal, was celebrating* the Durgā pujā, the greatest festival among the Hindus of Bengal, in the most gorgeous style with forced contributions from all the zamindārs. Here the Nawāb surprised him early in the morning of the third day of the ceremony, the Navami, 27th September, 1742.
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Katwā stands at the junction of two rivers, the Ganges running from north to south, and a smaller stream called the Ajāy flowing into it from the west. The Nawāb, coming from Murshidābād, would have to cross the Ganges only if he attacked Katwā from the south, and both the rivers if he tried to reach the place from the north and the west. The presence of an armed sloop of the enemy in the Ganges alongside Katwā and the alertness of the Marātha troops on that river-face made it impossible for him to cross the Ganges at that place. He had entrenched the eastern bank of the river facing Katwā and fired for eight days upon the Marātha position across with no result. So, he decided on a wide detour by the north and west in order to reach the enemy in secrecy and attack their unprotected western flank by surprise. Some miles above Katwā both banks of the Ganges were in the Nawāb’s possession, with no Marātha band in sight. Here the Nawāb built a bridge of large boats across the Ganges at Uddharanpur and transferred his “storm troops,” ten thousand picked men, to the north bank of the Ajay.
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∗ At Dāinhāt, according to Gangārām.
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About a mile above the western or left wing of the Marātha camp the Nawāb had gradually collected a number of smaller boats unsuspected and unopposed by the enemy, by following the cunning device of sending them to creep from the Ganges up the Ajay river one at a time. With these boats a bridge was swiftly and silently completed at midnight by the strenuous exertions of his engineers, and then the Nawāb’s troops began to cross over to the Marātha side of the Ajay. A boat in the middle of the structure broke down and sank under the weight of the passing men and beasts, and before the moving troops could be halted 1500 of the Bengal soldiers were drowned. The Nawāb immediately extinguished all his lights and prevented any alarm from reaching the Marātha camp. The damage was repaired in a few hours and the crossing was resumed. By the earliest streak of dawn some 2,500 of his men had reached the south bank of the Ajay. They waited no longer for the rest of the army to cross over, lest the growing light should reveal their small number to the Marāthas and defeat their attempt. Quickly crossing the intervening mile of ground, the Bengal army charged the Marātha camp with loud shouts. The surprise was complete. The Marāthas fled without waiting to ascertain the strength of the attacking force or strike a blow. "There was little loss on either side", as the English factory letter reports; but the Nawāb's victory was complete, the Marāthas had to leave all their tents, equipment and property behind. In the course of the morning the Nawāb pushed up reinforcements from the other side of the Ajay in boats, and himself arriving on the scene took up the pursuit of the enemy for some distance, and then came back to their deserted camp. [Siyar, ii. 124—126; Maharashtra Puran; Salimullah 121a—122a.]
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§ 12. Province cleared of Marathas up to Chilka lake, December, 1742.
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Bhāskar fled by way of Pachet; his scattered detachments also vacated Bardwān, Hughli, Hijli and other places. But the jungle hindered the Bengal troops in pursuing him. Bhāskar then turned south and moving by way of Chandrakonā raised his head in the Medinipur district, where he looted and burnt Rādhānagar and other large places, making Nārāyangarh his base. Thence he sent a detachment to Katak, which captured that town after defeating and slaying its governor, Shaikh Masum, at Jājpur. On hearing of this development, Alivardi turned aside from Pachet towards Medinipur. The Marāthas immediately retreated towards Balesar. They turned back and attacked the Nawāb when he was four miles from Medinipur, but were routed by him. Thereafter they never again stood up to a fight, but were incessantly pursued and driven back beyond the Chilkā lake into the Deccan (December, 1742.) Bengal and Orissā were thus at last totally freed from the raiders. Then the Nawāb halted at Katak for a few weeks to restore its government, and returned to Murshidābād in triumph about 9th February, 1743.
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§ 13. Oudh army comes to Patna, December, 1742.
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The first Marātha incursion into these provinces was beaten back by the end of December, 1742, but in the meantime an unexpected danger had threatened Bihār, which revealed the utter rottenness of the State of Delhi.
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At the first coming of Bhāskar, Alivardi Khan had appealed to the Emperor for help and the Emperor had ordered Safdar Jang, the *subahdār* of Oudh, to go and guard the province of Bihār, and then, if necessary, advance into Bengal. Safdar Jang had left his headquarters at Faizābād with 6,000 Persian cavalry (formerly of Nādir Shāh’s army) and 10,000 good Indian soldiers and a powerful artillery. The greatest terror was felt by the people of Bihār from the ferocity and greed of their pretended defenders, as Safdar Jang’s troops were quite unruly and committed all sorts of outrages.
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After visiting Patna city and viewing its fort (*c.* 7th December, 1742), Safdar Jang encamped at Bānkipur, five miles west of it, and began to act as if he were already the lawful master of the province. On receiving the news of Alivardi’s return from Orissā and the report that the Peshwā Bālāji Rāo, was rapidly coming to Bihār to aid Alivardi, Safdar Jang beat a hurried retreat from Patna. Crossing the Ganges at Munir by a bridge of boats (*c.* 15 January, 1743), he re-entered his own province. [*Siyar*, ii. 127-129.]
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§ 14. Second Maratha invasion, 1743.
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In 1743, at Bhāskar’s call, Raghuji Bhonslé himself marched with a large army by way of Rāmgarh towards Katwā (where he arrived at the beginning of March), bent upon exacting the *chauth* of these three provinces which had been promised to Shāhu by the Mughal Emperor and assigned by that Rājah to Raghuji. To counteract it, the Emperor had appealed to the Peshwā Bālāji Rāo, who was the rival and personal enemy of Raghuji, and the Peshwā had agreed (as early as November 1742) to lead an army into Bengal for the purpose of opposing Raghuji.
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§ 15. *Peshwa Balaji Rao enters Bihar, February, 1743.*
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Early in February 1743, the Peshwā entered Bihār from the south with a strong force, which rumour put at half a *lakh* of men. The news of his coming, though in the guise of an ally, caused the greatest consternation throughout the province. And with good reason. His army was irresistible, and "along his route those who gave him blackmail or costly presents saved their life and property, while those who attempted defence were killed and their houses were given up to plunder." (*Siyar*, ii. 129.) Patna city trembled for its life; the one anxiety of the citizens was to save their families from outrage by sending their women elsewhere across the river. "Not a family of note left in the town," as the English factory reported. Happily, the Peshwā did not come to Patna. From Benāres Bālāji hastened to Bengal by way of Saseram, Dāudnagar, Tikāri, Gayā, Mānpur, Bihār and Mungir,—causing great loss and disturbance to the towns on the way. Issuing from the hills and jungles on the plain of Birbhum, he took the road to Murshidābād, while Raghuji occupied the Bardwān district with his camp at Katwā.* Thus, two vast Marātha forces, each under a first grade chief, were assembled close to each other in Bengal and a collision between them seemed imminent. [Siyar, ii. 129-130.]
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∗ The Peshwa's route through Bihar and Bengal is thus given in his Diary, [Vad, ii. pp. 242-243, corrected] :—1743, January 26-30, Allahabad south bank—Feb. 4, Vindhyāchal near Mirzāpur—8-10, Rāmpurā near Benares, (Rāmnagar)—13-14, River Durgāvati (near Jahanabad)—15, Saserām—16-17, River Son (crossed near Dāudnagar)—18, River Punpun—23, Gayā—March 8-9, River Ganges (? near Mungir)—14, Jamdā in Khargpur hills (22 m. n. e. of Baidyanāth-Deoghar)—15, Gokulā in pargana Lakshmipur—16, Dhanvā in parg. Handuā (25 m. n. of Dumka)—17-18, Sārangpāni (? tappa Sarath or Dumka sub-division)—19, Fathpur (9 m. s. of Dumka)—20, Bhādu (Baharu, 10 m. n. of Nagar and 15 m. n. w. of Suri, on n. bank of Mor river)—21, Rangāon Pathrā in Birbhum (prob. Pathardang, 7 m. w. of Suri)—22, Purānā in parg. Loni, Birbhum (prob. Parangāon, 10 m. n. e. of Suri)—23-25, Kālpipurā in Kot Mamaleshwar, Birbhum (Kālkāpur, 2 m. s. of Mayureshwar, wh. is 15 m. n. e. of Suri; Rennell reads Kot Mowlishwar here)—26, Duhalia in parg. Fathsingh (2 m. s. of Kandi Gopinathpur)—27-30, Chauriāgāchā (4 m. s. of Rāngāmāti, on w. bank of Ganges.) On 30th March Peshwā visited Alivardi Khan.—April, 1-2, Basurā (3 m. w. of Palāshi, on w. bank of Ganges, and 13 m. s. of Chauriagacha)—3, Barod in parg. Mokad ?—4, Barhānpur in Bardwan (prob. Udhanpur ferry, 3 m. n. of Katwā)—5-7, Paltiyā, (13 m. w. of Katwā.) On 7th April Alivardi visited Peshwa in camp.—9, Dignagar (18 m. n. w. of Bardwan.) Hence Peshwā marched rapidly alone.—10-13, Kakshā (15 m. w. of Dignagar)—15, Bāmhani in parg. Vishnupur ?—16, Mājgāon in parg. Pachet
Linked texts (2)
- Selections from the Peshwa Daftar — Marathi
- Mahārāṣṭrapurāṇ — Gaṅgārām, Bengali