Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s5.34

v2.c21.s5.34

The main prop of the empire’s centre was the newly recruited body of Central Asian mercenaries, called Badakhshis or popularly Sindagh. They were 12,000 strong, large-limbed, well-fed, well-accoutred men, mounted on powerful high-priced horses of Khurasan breed, and cost much more than double the salary of a similar number of Indian soldiers, their pay-bill amounting to eight lakhs of Rupees a month. When their pay fell into arrears they took to plundering houses and holding rich men to ransom in Delhi, with the wazir’s permission, as is asserted by the Court chronicler of Alamgir II. They constantly demanded their pay and refused to bring their troops to the muster or to render accounts of the revenue they had already collected from the landlords in Mewat and other parganahs where they had been sent for rent-collection. In the very presence of the wazir they abused his finance manager, while their commander Zāhid Beg Khan drew his dagger and wounded one of Imād’s generals. Zahid Beg was put in prison and the tumult ceased for the time, (2 Oct. 1754). The wazir, in order to stop this constant clamour, made some of the privy purse mahals over to the Badakhshis. [*TALS.* 41b, 22b, 29a.]