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Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c8.s7: § 27. Marathas in Bengal

Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c8.s7

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§ 27. Marathas in Bengal

v1.c8.s7.1

The Marātha Rājah, by following the jungle path, arrived near Murshidābād on 21st December, one day before Alivardi, who had marched by the regular military road. During that one day the Marāthas burnt the suburbs across the river opposite Murshidābād and many of the villages around, such as Jhapāidah and the garden of Mir Jafar. Raghuji remained in the south-west of the city for three or four days, but on Alivardi’s advancing, he fell back on Katwā. At the Rāni’s Tank, west of Katwā, a severe battle was fought, in which the Marāthas were defeated and driven back with heavy loss, their rear-guard was cut off and half their baggage plundered. Raghuji himself then went back to Nāgpur, leaving Mir Habib with 2 to 3 thousand Marāthas and 4 thousand Afghāns to continue the raid. [S. P. D., xxvii. 11; Siyar, ii. 153.] The Nawāb and his soldiers alike were worn out by their two hard campaigns in Bihār in the course of nine months, and had therefore to halt at Murshidābād to recuperate. No effective action could be taken against the Marāthas who maintained their camp at Katwā, while their detachments roamed all over West Bengal, and even threatened Murshidābād.

v1.c8.s7.2

At the beginning of March 1746, the Nawāb sent a strong force under Atāullah Khān to Bardwān, who drove the Marāthas out of the district, in consequence of which Qāsimbāzār island was freed from their menace. The Nawāb himself went to Bardwān, but the enemy having been expelled from Bengal, he returned to his capital in April. Thus Bihār and Bengal enjoyed peace for a time, but Orissā remained entirely in Marātha possession. Mir Habib continued at Medinipur the whole season, and looted Hijli at the mouth of the Ganges and its neighbourhood; and in June his troops were encamped about Faltā, where, as the French factors remark, "Alivardi appears to leave him to enjoy the Nawābship of Katak in tranquillity." In fact, the Nawāb put off the reconquest of Orissā till the next cold weather, and utilised his enforced leisure at Murshidābād during the second and third quarters of 1746 in celebrating the marriage of his grandson and chosen heir, Sirājuddaulah, with the most lavish pomp. [Siyar, ii. 154.]

v1.c8.s7.3

§ 28. Second Afghan mutiny, 1746.

v1.c8.s7.4

During the rainy season of 1746, Marātha roving bands interrupted the coming of grain to Murshidābād by the northern route. The Nawāb ascribed it to the negligence or treacherous collusion of the two Afghān generals whom he had posted to guard the roads. Their slackness in the fight with Raghuji on the Son river in November 1745 had shown how false and unreliable servants they were, and now they were said to have formed a secret alliance with Raghuji for overthrowing Alivardi and sharing the three subahs with the Marātha Rājah. So, in June 1746 the Nawāb dismissed Shamshir Khān and Sardār Khān, his highest Afghān generals after Mustafa, with their six thousand men and ordered them to return to their homes in the Dārbhangā district of North Bihār. They refused to go away before their due salaries were fully paid. When the Nawāb sent a serjeant-at-the-mace (chobdār) to tell them to wait for some time for the money, they ill treated this messenger. After some skirmishes they were forcibly ejected, but they next encamped at Sakrigali (the gateway between Bengal and Bihār), insisting on being paid. Finally they retired to Dārbhangā, but were destined to create a revolution in Patna a year and a half afterwards. [Siyar, ii. 154, 156.]

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