Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s7: § 16. Imad mobbed by his Turki soldiers at Panipat
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s7
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§ 16. Imad mobbed by his Turki soldiers at Panipat
v2.c21.s7.1
In this last-named city the worst mutiny of the unpaid soldiery took place. The Badakhshi captains had been severely censured for their cowardly flight before Qutb's handful of men and they had been sent to Delhi in disgrace. They were now recalled from Delhi to Pānipat and ordered to bring their troops to the muster and receive payment according to the actual number of the men under arms. To this they had a rooted aversion as it would stop their dishonest gains. On 3rd May some two hundred and fifty of these Turki soldiers* gathered before Imād's residence (the family mansion of the late Nawab Lutfullah Khan Sādiq), made a row, and seized the gate. When the wazir on hearing the noise came out of his harem to inquire, they suddenly made a rush, mobbed him, and dragged him on foot, half-dressed as he then was with only a waistcoat on, amidst every kind of insult and abuse, through the bazar and streets, exposed to the gaze of high and low. When they reached the tent of their captain Hasan Beg Khan, two miles away, further insult was heaped upon the chancellor. Thousands of Badakhshis crowded round him, tore his garment to pieces, and even dealt some blows to his person. They forced him to sit down and shouted to him to call for their due salary from his house and pay it then and there. The infuriated soldiery would not listen to the messengers repeatedly sent by the Emperor entreating them to desist. After he had undergone this torment for two hours, the wazir was taken out of their hands by Hasan Beg Khan, who seated him on an elephant and conveyed him back to his mansion.
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∗ Sindagh mutiny at Panipat : *TALS.* 48b-51a. *DC.* Shakir 79 (present); *Muz.* 109-110. *Siyar,* iii. 52. *Chahar Gulzar* 437 ('their disbandment a fit retribution for their faithless desertion of Safdar Jang in his war with Imad.')
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Arrived there, Imād changed into a decent suit and promptly riding out with all his household troops and the contingents of Najib and Bahādur Khan Baluch, attacked the Badakhshis, proclaiming that his followers would be allowed to retain whatever plunder they took in the mutineers' camp. The Badakhshis fled away before the Ruhelas, abandoning all their property to plunder. Next day a force was sent to Delhi to arrest slay or expel every Badakhshi found anywhere and to seize their houses. The same confiscation was decreed against the Badakhshi officers posted in the jagirs assigned to this regiment. Thus, the Sindāgh, the best troops of the empire, were broken up and the wazir was left utterly without the means of making a stand against Najib Khan or any other enemy in future.
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§ 17. Imād's doings in 1755 and 1756.
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The humbled wazir made a prompt return to Delhi. Here he smelt out a plot for removing him from his high office and giving it to Shujā-ud-daulah with the connivance of the captive Emperor, who was sick of the impotence and poverty to which Imād’s domination had reduced him. The intermediary of the secret negotiations was Ali Quli Khan Dāghestāni, and the instruments of the change were to be Suraj Mal and Ahmad Bangash. The wazir at once struck at the alleged conspirators found in Delhi and expelled even the suspected eunuchs from the palace. Next, in the Emperor’s name he ordered Najib to expel Suraj Mal from his recent acquisitions in the Doāb. Negotiations begun by Nāgar Mal for a peaceful settlement delayed Najib’s departure; but they naturally failed through Suraj Mal’s insistence on retaining all that he had usurped, and at last Najib was given formal leave to march on 17 June. Peace was, however, made through Nāgar Mal’s efforts, about 10 July, on terms which are described in chapter 22. [TALS. 54b-58b].
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In December 1755, Imād marched up the Doāb from Luni to Shamli, Kairana, and Rāmra-ghat. From the last place he sent to demand tribute from Nejābat Khan, the zamindar of Kunjpurā. At the end of this month, the wazir, taking Prince Ali Gauhar with him, crossed the Jamunā and marched towards the Panjab by way of Pānipat and Ambāla, arriving at Sarhind on 7 Feb. 1756. Here he halted, while his ally Adina Beg Khan took possession of Lahor by driving away the Abdali agent. His betrothed Umda Begam, the daughter of Muin, was brought to his camp from Lahor on 4 March, and her mother Mughlāni Begam on 28 March, as we shall see in chapter 14. [TALS. 64, 66a, DC.] Completely successful in his Panjab enterprise, the wazir turned back from Machiwārā on the Satlaj on 1 May and reached Delhi at the end of June.
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A fortnight later, he moved to Luni with the Emperor to force the Ruhelas of the Trans-Ganges country to pay their long withheld tribute; but nothing came of the plan, as the wazir's artillerymen made a row for their arrears of pay and closed the ferry from Delhi to Luni, while the musketeers of the Delhi palace garrison seized the fort and completely stopped all ingress and egress. This trouble raged throughout the month of August and the first half of September, detaining the wazir and the whole Court at Luni. Afterwards the expedition was abandoned and the Emperor and his wazir had to sneak back to Delhi. [TALS. 75a-79a.]
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Imad's plan was to detach Ahmad Khan Bangash from Shujā-ud-daulah by transferring to the former Shuja's province of Allahabad by an imperial letter-patent. Shujā, on hearing of it, strengthened the defences of Allahabad fort and took post on his frontier with a vast force and a large park of artillery, to oppose his enemy's crossing. At this Ahmad Bangash "did not venture to issue from his own city of Farrukhabad and gave up the idea of going out to assume the subahdari of Allahabad.” [TALS. 79b, 83a.] Nāgar Mal and Najib Khan now intervened, the former keeping Suraj Mal back from going to Shujā’s assistance and the latter inducing Ahmad Bangash to publicly disavow all desire for the Allahabad province. So, peace was made, c. 11 November 1756, when Abdali was already thundering at the western gate of India. These internal dissensions ceased, but no attempt was made by the chiefs of the empire to unite and oppose the alien invader.