Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s2: § 2. Wazir Imad-ul-mulk's incapacity
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s2
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§ 2. Wazir Imad-ul-mulk's incapacity
v2.c21.s2.1
The life and activity of such a State, therefore, depended on its wazir, but though Imād-ul-mulk was to all outer seeming a king-maker and his master's master, he was in effect no less impotent for good than his creature the Emperor. He could not govern the State with the power and success of earlier king-makers like the Sayyid Brothers. It was not the case that he had no army or treasure. His own Badakhshi brigade (over 12,000 in number) were the best fighting force in the empire in that age, if only they could be punctually paid and worthily led; and he had, in addition, the Maratha myriads at his beck and call. His parsimonious father's hoarded treasure was worth a *kror* or more, and by enforcing order and good government in the provinces round the capital, the new wazir could in a few years have ensured the regular and full flow of revenue from them to the central exchequer for meeting the daily expenses of the State. But Imād had neither the capacity nor the character required in the regenerator of a fallen State, and during his five-and-a-half years' dictatorship the Delhi empire drifted on to ruin beyond hope of recovery. He was personally incapable, and his pride and selfishness would not allow others to restore the monarchy.
v2.c21.s2.2
There has never been a wazir of Delhi whose rule was so barren of good result and so full of misery to himself and to the empire, to his friends and foes alike, as Imād-ul-mulk's. His nominal master Alamgir II was a mere shadow, never daring to assert his own will or express his own judgment, but leaving everything to his wazir's discretion even more absolutely than Farrukhsiyar or Muhammad Shah had done to the Sayyid Brothers. But Imād's whole reign—for that is the correct description of his chancellorship—was marked by utter futility, public misfortune and administrative breakdown. His violent seizure of the wazir's office brought him no glory, strength, or even security. He was subjected to the grossest humiliation ever borne by any wazir, having been dragged through the streets of Panipat by his own soldiers (May, 1755) and seen the women of his harem outraged and exposed to the public gaze by the brutal Ruhelas (August 1757.)
v2.c21.s2.3
The highest officer of the empire, he ever lived on a bed of thorns. After his accession to office, his first fear sprang from his deposed predecessor. Intizām-ud-daulah had been robbed of the wazirate, but had not been crushed. He continued to live in the Delhi mansion of his father and grandfather (each the premier peer of the realm in his time), defending it like a castle with a garrison of 600 soldiers within; and whenever the two wazirs, past and present, rode out into the streets in the same hour, their armed retainers scowled at each other like the Montagues and Capulets in the streets of Verona, and a clash between the two parties seemed imminent. Such an ever-present enemy might overthrow Imād any day by joining some powerful ally and securing the Emperor's blessing on his enterprise. The Maratha alliance had been bought by Imād at a ruinous price, but he could not, by reason of his frequent default of payment, count upon their support, and he was on two occasions so unwise as to embark on a futile anti-Maratha policy. The other elements of power in the State were Suraj Mal, Shujā-ud-daulah and Najib Khan. The first of these Imād had antagonized by trying to wreak vengeance on him for his support of Safdar Jang in the civil war of 1753. Shujā hankered after his late father’s wazirate with no less intensity of desire and far greater strength of resources than Intizām, and he had a hereditary friend in Suraj Mal. Najib had been Imād’s retainer since the war with Safdar Jang, but the upstart Ruhela had insulted and bullied the wazir and publicly flouted his authority even before 1757, when Abdali made this Indo-Afghan chief his supreme agent at Delhi. Najib also usurped the wazir’s jagirs and the Emperor’s Crownlands in Saharanpur and Mirat in defiance of the Delhi Government. After Abdali’s retreat in April 1757, Najib became the foremost Muslim potentate in Northern India and used to overshadow the official wazir in the Delhi Government. He subjected Imād to a humiliation which the meanest Indian would resent to the end of his days, by violating his seraglio during his absence.
v2.c21.s2.4
The tragedy of Imād’s wazirship in the midst of hostile forces beyond his control, was deepened by his want of political foresight and absence of a wise diplomatic policy. He had originally (i.e., since June, 1754) clung like a helpless infant to the breast of the Marathas, but Deccani armed aid was a very costly thing, 13 lakhs a year being payable for every 5,000 soldiers posted in Delhi,—while Imād’s administrative incapacity and military impotence prevented the regular payment of the cash nexus on which alone Maratha friendship depended. His changes of alliance were equally ill-judged and ill-timed, and in their result left him weaker than before. Through weakness of will or error of judgment he agreed to Abdali's project of ousting the Marathas from the Doab and Shujā from his two subahs (April-June, 1757.) This drew Shujā, Suraj Mal and the Marathas together, and left Imād utterly friendless during the absence of Abdali from India. Worst of all, he offended the dread master of the Durrāni legions more than once.
v2.c21.s2.5
§ 3. Imad's policy and movements till 1758.
v2.c21.s2.6
We shall here trace in outline the devious course of Imād's policy during the reign of Alamgir II. For the first seven months after that monarch's accession, Imād's preoccupation was to raise the fabulous subsidy so heedlessly promised to the Marathas when hiring their arms to place him on the wazirate. An agreement was at last patched up and by February 1755 the Maratha hordes marched away from the Delhi region to their southern homes. The next few months of 1755 saw the wazir making an effort to reconquer the country north of Delhi from rebel usurpers, but the attempt was nipped in the bud by his cowardice and the mutiny and consequent disbandment of his Turki soldiery (May 1755.) On his return to Delhi from this inglorious and barren expedition, Imād was harassed by suspected palace-intrigues for overthrowing him and making Shujā wazir (June), the repeated open defiances of his authority by Najib, and the eternal bankruptcy of the State. His military and financial helplessness kept him quiescent throughout the second half of this year.
v2.c21.s2.7
In March 1756 he undertook the ill-judged Panjab adventure which ultimately drew down upon his head the wrath of Abdali in January next. In the second half of the year (July-September 1756), the wazir planned an attack upon the trans-Ganges Afghans of Rohilkhand and Shujā-ud-daulah, but his utter lack of money and the mutiny of his starving soldiery foredoomed the attempt to failure from the outset. In October 1756 came the Durrani conquest of the Panjab and in January 1757 the invader's occupation of Delhi which subjected Imād to dismissal, spoliation and public humiliation at the hands of the Afghan king. But he bought the patronage of the Durrani wazir Shah Wali Khan and was restored to his office. He was, however, too weak to disobey Abdali's order to accompany two Shahzadas of Delhi and march for the conquest of the Maratha possessions in the Doab and the refractory Shujā-ud-daulah's provinces, and if successful in this expedition to conquer Bengal and Bihar afterwards. Vain delusion! This ambitious programme was to be carried out with the aid of Ahmad Khan Bangash of Farrukhabad, a lame invalid who could move about only in a litter and who had not money and clansmen enough to oppose even 5,000 Maratha light horse. When in the middle of June 1757 fresh Maratha hordes poured into the Doab, the wazir’s expedition at once collapsed; his Bangash and trans-Ganges Afghan allies hastened back to their homes, his escort of mercenaries under Jangbāz Khan left him to exact the promised peace contribution from the Oudh ruler, and Imād with his two Shahzada puppets had to beat a hurried retreat towards Delhi (July.)
v2.c21.s2.8
There was no help for him but to make it up with the Marathas; he sent *diwan* Nāgar Mal to the Maratha camp to buy their pardon and alliance at any price, and some days later personally visited Raghunath Rao near Delhi (11 August) to cement an alliance for ousting Najib from power. This open reversal of the policy laid down by Abdali and accepted by Imād made the breach between him and Najib complete. The Ruhela at once took ferocious vengeance on Imād’s unoffending wives and daughters who were within his reach in their Delhi mansion, and after this outrage there could never be friendship between Imād and Najib. In September 1757 the Marathas enforced the evacuation of Delhi by Najib and appointed Ahmad Bangash imperial Paymaster General *vice* Najib, but that Ruhela chief retired to his own jagirs in the upper Doab with all his troops and property and remained a potent source of danger ever after. Imād’s new ally, Ahmad Bangash, was more dead than alive, and the empire and the imperial family passed helplessly under Maratha control. From August 1757 to May 1758 large Maratha armies halted in Hindustan and established their nominee at Lahor, but in the middle of June they withdrew from Northern India.