Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s1: § 1. Character of Emperor Alamgir II
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s1
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§ 1. Character of Emperor Alamgir II
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The successor of Ahmad Shah on the throne of Delhi was an old man of fifty-five. He was the youngest son of the Emperor Muiz-ud-din Jahandar Shah, and therefore a grandson of Shah Alam I. Born at Multan on June 6, 1699, he had lost his father at the age of fourteen, in the civil war which gave the crown to Farrukhsiyar. Since then he had passed his days in poverty and neglect, mewed up in the rooms of the "Emperors' grandsons" (*deorhi-i-salatin*) within the Delhi fort. He had been denied any opportunity for learning war or administration, or acquiring practical experience of the open outer world, but had wisely guarded himself from vice by devoting his time to study and meditation. He had chosen for his ideal the Emperor Aurangzib (Alamgir I), whose title he adopted on ascending the throne. Like Aurangzib he loved to read books on history and shunned the usual diversions of royalty, such as dance and song. Like Aurangzib, too, he made it a point to say his five daily prayers in the outer palace mosque and the Friday afternoon prayer in full congregation in the Jāma‘ Masjid of the capital. He knew by rote the administrative rules and practice of the great Aurangzib, and his aim was to follow these to the letter. Condemning the slack and undignified conduct of his two immediate predecessors,—who used to sit in an open sedan chair held up on men’s shoulders when granting audiences,—Alamgir II laid it down that he would hold only regular *darbars* seated on the imperial throne in the Hall of Audience. Imitating the strenuous life of Aurangzib, he used to read all petitions, and even passports, and sign the orders on them. [*TALS.* 4b-5a, *Mux.* 98.]
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A renewal of the first Alamgir’s policy of temple destruction and levy of poll-tax on ‘the infidels’ was rendered impossible by the Maratha grip* on the throat of his namesake, but the Islamic ‘heretics’ did not escape so easily. The Shias form a very small minority among the Indian Muhammadans and they had now no protector at Court. Their former leader Safdar Jang had been the mortal enemy of the all-powerful new wazir Imād-ul-mulk. It was by beating the big drum of Sunni orthodoxy that Imād had been able to rally the Ruhelas and Badakhshis to his standard and overthrow the Shia influence which had dominated the imperial Court since 1743. He now took his revenge on the defeated sect by reviving Aurangzib’s regulation against Shia processions in Muharram. The news of Safdar Jang’s death reached Delhi on 11th October, 1754, and nine days later (on the 3rd of Muharram) this decree of prohibition was issued. “Since the reign of Farrukhsiyar, by reason of the rise of Shia *umara*, the practice of making tombs of the Imāms, which had been forbidden by the former Sunni Emperors, was revived, till it reached the extreme point of display. In every lane and market-place countless stages were built and kettle-drums beaten. The Emperor Alamgir II forbade the making of the tombs of the Imāms and stages. But the practice had been going on for 40 years and could not be stopped.” [*TALS. 25b-26a.*]
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∗ On 25 Oct. 1754, the Emperor issued orders abolishing the taxes on Hindu pilgrims at Gaya and Kurukshetra. [*DC.*] He transferred them to the Peshwa, who appointed his Delhi agent Dāmodar M. Hingané as his tax-collector there, 9 Feb. 1755. [*Rajwade*, vi. 328.] But Benares and Allahabad were under the control of the subahdar of Oudh, who clung to his levy at these holy places.
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But unlike Aurangzib, his great-grandson had no contact with the soldiery, no love for outdoor exercises, such as marching, reviewing troops, or even hunting. His age and the sedentary habits of 55 years made it impossible for him to take to a strenuous life of activity all of a sudden, and he remained a bookworm immured in his closet or harem. The second Alamgir fell short of his illustrious namesake in another signal respect. Alamgir I had been very abstemious in the matter of women and had never indulged himself even to the extent of the Prophet's allowance of four consorts at a time. The second Alamgir, in spite of his being a grandfather and an invalid old man at the time of his accession, turned his belated elevation to sovereignty into an opportunity for making rapid and numerous additions to his harem.
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In February 1756, when Hazrat Begam, the daughter of Muhammad Shah, reached her 16th year, she excited the passion of Alamgir II. The old goat, now verging on sixty, shamelessly demanded her hand for himself and threatened her guardian, the ex-Empress Malika-i-zamani, saying, "Either consent to give her to me in marriage, or I shall take her by force." The girl replied, "I prefer death to [such a] marriage... I regard you as my father, and you too should look upon me in the same light as your three daughters. If you use force, I shall kill myself." The baffled suitor wreaked his vengeance by ordering the gates of the princess's quarters to be closed, so as to force her into isolation from the rest of the palace. Still later, on 1 September 1758, he married Zinat-afroz Begam, when his own health was so broken that he had fainting fits and was unable to move in the midst of a march with his wazir. [TALS. 67, 185-186.]
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The new Emperor was intelligent, sober and decorous in life, but utterly wanting in strength of character and capacity for leadership. He used openly to declare himself a puppet in the hands of his wazir, without any power to guide the government. The crown could give him in the winter of his life only the wealth and pleasure which fate had so long denied to him. He was encumbered with a large family,—five sons and one daughter of his own and six sons of his late brother whom he loved like his own offspring, one grandson and one grand-nephew, fourteen princes in all, who had hitherto shared his palace-prison of poverty and seclusion. These had now to be provided for in a style worthy of Emperor’s children, out of the treasury. But the treasury was empty and the mansab of 30,000 horse or so which was conferred on each of them remained mere orders on paper, without any chance of their being assigned lands yielding the pay of these grades. His queens eagerly snatched at the only sure source of revenue still left in the empire, namely, the salt-marts and grain-markets near the capital, which yielded a regular income from their tolls and import duties. [DC.]