Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s2.3

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.