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Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c22: Chapter XIV

Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c22

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Chapter XIV

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THE PANJAB, 1753-1759.

§ 1. Mughlani Begam as regent of the Panjab

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With the death of Muin-ul-mulk, the last imperial governor of the province, in November 1753, dissolution began in the orderly administration of the Panjab. True, even in his lifetime the peace of that frontier province had not been as extensive and unbroken as under Zakariya Khan; but Muin had succeeded in keeping his capital and a large belt of land around it intact, there had been no open defiance of the subahdar's authority by his subordinates, and he had persistently fought the Sikh brigands and pruned their growth with the edge of his sword. By his attention to the equipment and comfort of his soldiery, his liberal rewards to his captains, and above all by his personal sharing of campaigns and comraderie with the Turki soldiers (his own tribesmen) he had preserved his power and the respect of his people. His final defeat by the Abdali king and acceptance of Afghan vassalage had been, no doubt, a blow to his prestige; but this humiliation he had halved by sharing it with his master the Padishah, and the Abdali suzerainty meant in effect only the sending of the provincial tribute to Qandahar instead of to Delhi.

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During the four months' viceroyalty of his infant son Muhammad Amin Khan (January—April 1754), matters passed from bad to worse. The deputy governor, Mir Mumin Khan, though an experienced civil administrator and universally respected noble, could do nothing as all real power lay in the hands of the regent mother Mughlāni Begam. All evidence agrees that the widow lost her character along with her husband and was led by her eunuchs, the instruments of her pleasure.* Her wilfulness and caprice discredited the administration, while her profligacy roused deep resentment and shame among her military officers who came from the same Central Asian stock as her husband and her father. Rebellion against such a degraded authority became a point of honour, no less than an object of personal ambition, with her Turkish captains.

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The visible break up of the Delhi empire and its utter impotence against the Afghan invaders had stripped it of the last shred of respect or claim to loyalty. Each general of Muin now thought of carving out a principality for himself and maintaining it by calling up new recruits from the homeland of Bukhārā or hiring the swords of the Sikh myriads near at hand.

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∗ Ghulam Ali, i. 26, Miskin 98-99, 120. On 28 March 1756 her name was connected with that of the youthful page Miskin under the same circumstances as those of Aisha and Safwan ibn Muattal during the return from the Banu Mustalik expedition in year 6 of the hijera. [Miskin 122.]

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They felt that their own rule would be worthier and more conducive to the safety and happiness of their retainers and subjects than the anarchy which prevailed in Lahor from Mughlāni Begam’s follies and vices.

§ 2. Rebellions against Mughlāni Begam in the Panjab

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The earliest to rebel against her authority was Bihkāri Khan (Raushan-ud-daulah, Rustam Jang) who had been “the centre of all affairs of the province in Muin-ul-mulk’s time” and his dearest friend, and who had secured a rescript for the deputy governorship of the province from the imperial wazir, which the Begam refused to recognize. But she succeeded in seducing his followers and putting him in confinement in her palace in charge of Khwājah Mirzā Said Khan Qipchaq, about January 1754.*

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The next officer to raise his head in ambition was Qāsim Khān, an immigrant Turk, who had risen high by devoted personal attendance on Muin and had been the first to side with the Begam against Bihkāri Khan. For this service, Mughlāni had conferred upon him the faujdari of Pati in the Manjha country and lovingly called him her son. He recruited 300 foot-soldiers from the Badakhshānis newly arrived to seek their bread in the Panjab, and 100 Turki cavalry, besides a force of a few thousand foot and horse and some pieces of cannon placed under him by the Government. In his advance towards Pati, he encountered the Sikhs, gave up all his 300 Badakhshānis and many other followers to slaughter, and fell back towards Lahor in shameful retreat. But this disaster did not damp the foolish man's ambition. He planned to win over 8,000 Sikh fighters by friendly negotiation and pay, seize Lahor with their help, and then after enlisting more troops take Delhi and make himself Padishah! He was profuse in offering in anticipation high posts in his future empire to his friends, such as the chancellorship to a fugitive penniless ex-faujdar of Sarhind and the imperial Pay-master-Generalship to the page Miskin, a lad in his 15th year. Qāsim Khan distributed thousands of Rupees worth of matchlocks and other arms and material to his Sikh allies. This exhausted his treasury and his soldiers began to dun him for their arrears of pay. At last in utter despair they cut his tent ropes, seized and dragged him to the Begam, who kept him under strict guard within her palace enclosure.

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∗ Bihkari Khan : Miskin 89-92, 107 (murdered). TALS. 59b, 66a. Murder, Ghulam Ali 26, Siyar, iii. 61. Husain Shahi 34. Qāsim Khan : Miskin 65 (enters service), 93-96. Khwājah Mirzā : Miskin, 91. 99, 102-106. TALS. 60a.

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Soon afterwards, her infant son Md. Amin Khan died (early in May 1754) and she threw caution and shame to the winds in the pursuit of pleasure. It now became eunuchs' rule at Lahor. "The diwan, bakhshi and other sardars of the Government used to go in the morning to the subahdar to offer their *salams* and then proceed to the office (*deorhi*) of the Begam’s palace and receive her orders through the eunuchs. Three eunuchs took the lead in these discussions and became her chief confidants in all affairs great and small. But the three never agreed among themselves and constantly quarrelled, so that the affairs of the State daily declined. . .The public blamed these eunuchs for everything that happened.” [Miskin, 98.]

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In the midst of this confusion and decay, the captive Bihkāri Khan took counsel with Khwājah Md. Said Khan. “As a fissure had appeared in the family honour of the late Nawab,” the only remedy that these two favourites and confidants of Muin and guardians of his memory could think of was to invite Khwājah Mirzā to come instantly, take the administration over in person, and better the state of things at Lahor before the evil and shame became irremediable.

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This Khwājah Mirzā Khan, an Uzbak captain, had been the most trusted and successful lieutenant of Muin in his campaigns and had often been sent out by him in independent command against the Sikhs. With him were 300 of his closely related clansmen. After Muin’s death he had at first sided with Bihkāri Khan but had been won over by the Begam with the faujdari of Yaminabad and had helped her to undermine Bihkāri’s power and to arrest him. At Yaminabad he had succeeded in asserting his authority, inflicted some defeats on the Sikhs, and annexed the lands near it. Now, on receiving Muhammad Said’s appeal, he came to Lahor by one night’s forced march, rode straight up to the Begam’s palace at dawn, cut down the two porters who disputed his entrance, and went inside. His Mughalia troops, in concert with the resident Turki guards (previously corrupted by Md. Said), looted the palace all day long and carried away lakhs of Rupees in cash and things. The very servants and officials of Mughlāni Begam did not escape this general spoliation. She betook herself to another house in utter helplessness (about December 1754.)

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Bihkāri Khan now pacified Khwājah Mirzā and formed a pact with him, by which Mumin Khan was to remain the nominal subahdar of the Panjab as before, but the deputy governorship of the province would be held and the entire administration conducted by Bihkāri Khan. Khwājah Mirzā called off his Mughalia soldiers from the plunder, but “not a piece of furniture or any other article was left in the palace by this time.” The Begam was brought back to her official residence and a guard of Khwājah Mirzā’s men posted at its gate. Next morning the Purbia (Oudh) artillerymen of the State, in a body seven thousand strong, marched out of their barracks to attack Khwājah Mirzā. But the Turki guards promptly shut the gates of the palace and kept the assailants back, thus gaining time for the other Mughalia troops in the city to assemble and beat the Purbias back. Mughlāni Begam was now removed to her sister's house on the city wall and confined there under guard.

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Khwājah Mirzā declared himself subahdar of Lahor, put on regal robes, gave titles of Khan (lord to his chief followers, and called upon all the leading men of the city to come and pay court to him. But he could not effectively control the administration, nor secure the necessary revenue. In a short time the other Turki generals, who regarded themselves as his equals, defied his authority, and anarchy reigned in the capital of the Panjab, while the districts were resigned to the local magistrates or rebel leaders.

§ 3. Khwajah Abdullah Khan seizes the government of Lahor

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Mughlāni Begam, finding herself really a captive of the usurper, sent out secret letters to Imād-ul-mulk the wazir of Delhi and to Ahmad Shah Abdali at Qandahar, appealing to them to liberate her. Her mother's brother, Khwājah Abdullah Khan (the younger son of the former governor Abdus Samad Khan, Saif-ud-daulah I) had gone to the Durrani Court and secured an order on Amān Khan, Ahmad Shah's agent in Peshawar, to accompany Abdullah to Lahor with a force of 10,000 men of Kabul and Peshawar (but very few Durrānis or Qizilbashes) and restore the Begam to power. Khwājah Mirzā could make no stand against this force, and was treacherously imprisoned with most of the Mughalia captains, by Amān Khan during a visit to that Afghan under a promise of safety.* Amān Khan now entered the defenceless city of Lahor and by beating all the substantial men and conducting a ruthless general plunder, collected a large sum, and then left for Peshawar, after installing Mughlāni Begam as subahdar and Khwājah Abdullah as her deputy and handing Bihkāri Khan over to her. She at once had him beaten to death by her harem servants, crying out, "The blood of the two (my husband and son) is on you. This is your due recompense for it!" This happened about April 1755.

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The Mughalia captains who had been the cause of the disorder and misrule in Lahor ever since Muin's death, were now dragged away to prison in Qandahar. But it did not bring peace back to the Panjab. "Khwājah Abdullah disliked having to obey a woman. He began to act of his own will and collected 15 to 20 thousand troops." The Begam too made preparations for a conflict and seduced many of these recruits. But her troops, "led by eunuchs, nay by eunuchs' servants," could make no stand against Abdullah and fled away after a short street encounter. Mir Mumin and the Durrāni Resident at Lahor (Hādi Khan) then mediated between niece and uncle, appeased the tumult, and safely conveyed the Begam to her mother's house, posting 50 Durrānī soldiers to protect her there. Abdullah now became the undisputed master of Lahor (July 1755.)

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∗ Khj Abdullah : Miskin 106-110, TALS. 60a: Mux. 82.

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In the meantime, the news of the death of Muhammad Amin Khan (early in May 1754) had reached Delhi, but the Emperor Ahmad Shah was then in the midst of his fatal entanglement with Imād-ul-mulk and could not attend to Panjab affairs. After the accession of Alamgir II, the death of the titular subahdar was formally communicated to the new Emperor and an imperial rescript was issued appointing Mumin Khan subahdar with the title of Mumin-ud-daulah, (probably in July 1754.) But, as we have already seen, this officer was ousted by the Begam, and she by Khwājah Mirzā, and the last-named by Khwājah Abdullah. [DC. TALS. 59b-60a.] Abdullah’s rule was tyrannical. His most pressing need was that of money, and for it he left no kind of oppression unattempted. “Closing the gates of the city, he plundered much from the inhabitants of Lahor, both Hindu and Muslim, on the plea of their having been associates of Bihkāri Khan, and slew many people. Vast numbers were ruined. Grain and other stuffs became very dear.”

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§ 4. Khwajah Abdullah expelled from Lahor and Mughlani Begam made captive by Imad, 1756.

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But his authority did not last beyond six months. Mughlāni Begam, finding her rival installed by Durrānī arms in her lawful seat, appealed to Imād-ul-mulk, who had now become the all-powerful wazir of Delhi, to rescue her and marry her daughter Umda Begam, who had been betrothed to him by her father. The wazir, too, coveted the province of the Panjab. So, at the end of the year 1755, he set out for Lahor and reached Sarhind on 7 February 1756. In the meantime Adina Beg Khan, the faujdar of the Jalandar doab under the Government of Lahor, had made himself an independent power by raising a vast army (rumoured to be one lakh of horse and foot), including many Sikhs, with a strong park of artillery and swivel-guns. After defeating Qutb Shah, the usurper of the Sarhind district, in a battle at Rupar (11 April 1755), he had occupied Sarhind and the country up to Thaneshwar. The wazir was glad to leave him in undisturbed administration of this country, as he realized that only the strong arm of Adina Beg could keep order in that tract, so full of refractory landowners, while the wazir’s own military force and resources were quite inadequate for the purpose. And now, at the beginning of 1756, while the wazir was marching on Lahor, Adina wrote to him not to advance beyond Sarhind, but to send only a small party of his followers whom Adina would strengthen with 10,000 troopers of his own under Sadiq Beg Khan and help to capture Lahor by stratagem.

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This force reached Lahor by rapid marches, rode through the city in full military pomp to the Begam’s residence (her mother's house), and next paid a visit of courtesy to Abdullah, who however guessed out their object and at nightfall fled away to the Jamu hills, abandoniug the city (middle of January 1756.) Next morning Mughlāni Begam, beating her kettle-drums, rode in triumph through the city, reoccupied her official residence, and took up the government of the province once more. After a month, on completing her preparations she sent her daughter with an escort of 3,000 troopers and dowry and presents worthy of her high rank, to Imād's camp near Sarhind, where she arrived on 4th March.*

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Mughlāni Begam's triumph, however, was short-lived. Imād could not tolerate her doings. She was, after all, a Muslim woman, but used to do the work of a provincial governor in the manner of males, before the public gaze. This part of a virago that she played, quite apart from the stories about her loss of character, was felt as a personal disgrace by Imād, because she was his mother's brother's wife and also his prospective mother-in-law. His family honour demanded that she should be removed from Lahor, where she was enjoying unbridled liberty of action. A more sordid motive is said by some writers to have mingled with this feeling, namely greed for the hoarded wealth of her late husband.

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∗ TALS. 47a-48, 66a, 69a ; Miskin 114-119. DC.

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So, Imād sent Sayyid Jamil-ud-din Khan with 10,000 horsemen and ten eunuchs to kidnap her. This Jamil-ud-din had been a favourite lieutenant of Muin-ul-mulk, and had commanded the contingent sent by that governor to Delhi to assist the Emperor in his war with Safdar Jang in 1753. He had won the good opinion of Imād by devoted service under his eyes. And now, by a continuous rapid march, Jamil-ud-din reached Lahor before any one could know of his approach, encircled the Begam’s mansion, forced her upon an elephant, and sent her off to the wazir’s camp at Machhiwara, where she arrived on 28th March. All her property was seized. Mir Mumin, ‘the leading nobleman of Lahor’, was again appointed subahdar of the Panjab, with Sayyid Jamil-ud-din as his deputy and actual governor. The Sayyid was an honest God-fearing and experienced man; he administered the province justly, in strict accordance with the Islamic Canon Law, punished offenders without fear or favour, and tried to maintain peace as far as he could with the actual muster out of the 5,000 Mughal soldiers assigned to the province on paper. He sought to lower the unfairly enhanced price of grain by publicly flogging the headman of the markets, and led some expeditions against the Sikhs, whom he defeated after severe fighting.*

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∗ TALS. 69b. Miskin 120-124. Mux. 106. Shakir 79-80.

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§ 5. *Abdali conquest of the Panjab, Oct. 1756.*

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His rule too did not last more than six months. Khwājah Abdullah, who had fled away before Adina’s troops, went to Qandahar and brought away a strong Afghan force under Abdali’s general Jangbāz Khān, by promising to recover the Panjab from the hands of the Delhi Government’s agents and restore it to the Abdali. With him came Khwājah Mirzā and other Turki captains of Muin who had so long been held captives in Qandahar.

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Strengthened by a force of Afghans of Peshawar under Abdus Samad Khan, the detachment arrived near Lahor. Sayyid Jamil-ud-din appealed to Adina Beg for reinforcements, but in vain. Adina durst not provoke the Durrāni power by standing up against it, and so the governor retreated from Lahor to join Adina. A wild terror seized that city; the inhabitants remembered the atrocities of the former Afghan occupation. Every one who had anything to lose fled away, abandoning his property, as transport animals and porters were very scarce. The fugitive population swelled the train of their governor till they reached Adina Beg’s camp in the Jalandar doab, because a rumour had spread that Ahmad Shah himself was coming to wreak vengeance on the Delhi wazir for having carried off Mughlāni Begam, whom the Durrāni king used to call his daughter and whom he had posted as his agent in Lahor. The invaders entered the city on 4 October 1756. Many of the Lahor fugitives deemed it unsafe to stay anywhere nearer than Delhi. |Miskin 125-128. *TALS.* 80a.|

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Thus Khwājah Abdullah was again installed in authority at Lahor by Durrāni arms, with Khwājah Mirzā Khan as his lieutenant. His Afghan allies roamed through the city, plundering whatever they could lay hands on, without any check. While an envoy of the Durrāni Shāh named Qalandar Beg Khan visited Delhi (end of October) to demand satisfaction for Imād’s attack upon his master’s authority at Lahor, the main Afghan army set out to invade India once more. In the middle of November Ahmad Shah himself reached Peshawar,* his vanguard led by Timur Shah arrived at Hasan Abdal and pushed a detachment on to the city of Gujrat to collect provisions for the main army about to follow. Delhi itself was known to be Abdali’s objective this time.

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The Afghan invaders, passing through and plundering Yaminabad and Batala, advanced upon Adina Beg’s camp at Jalalabad (25 m. s. c. e. of Amritsar.) The Beg fled away with his family and Jamil-ud-din and Sadiq Beg, abandoning his camp and baggage to plunder; by way of Nurmahal, Sodra and Thara he reached Hansi, while the Afghan commander-in-chief Sardār Jahān Khan occupied the Jalandar doab up to the bank of the Satlaj without a blow (early in December.) "From Lahor to Sarhind not a village was left tenanted, all men, high and low, having fled away." Towards the end of this month, an Afghan detachment under Hasan Khan crossed the Satlaj and occupied Sarhind, which had been vacated by its inhabitants. Jahān Khan, with the vanguard, arrived near that city about 5 January 1757 and then pushed on towards Delhi by way of Panipat. From Lahor Ahmad Shah sent threatening letters to the Rajah of Jamu, who made peace by paying a large sum. The Afghan king then crossed the Satlaj, about 10 January, and, marching two stages behind his van, arrived before Delhi on 23rd January, 1757.* His doings there will be narrated in chapter 15.

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∗ Abdali crosses the Indus at Attock (26 Nov.), plunders Batala and Adinanagar (13 Dec.), and enters Lahor (20 Dec.) *DC.* Raj, vi. 365, *TALS.* 85a.

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§ 6. Timur Shah appointed as Abdali's governor of the Panjab, 1757.

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Gorged with the plunder of Delhi, Mathura and Agra, Ahmad Shah set out from Delhi at the beginning of April, on his return homewards. During his stay in India Mughlāni Begam had risen to his highest favour. She had been chosen by the Delhi Emperor and his wazir as their mediator with the Abdali ; she had divulged to the invaders the secrets of all the nobles of Delhi, guiding the Afghans to the hiding place of every noble's treasure and giving information as to the exact amount of wealth that could be squeezed out of each; and she had been Ahmad Shah's agent in procuring the virgin tribute that was exacted for him from the imperial family. She had presented him with costly jewels on her own behalf. There was nothing that the Afghan king could refuse to her. In high delight he had cried out, "Hitherto I had styled you my daughter; but from today I shall call you my son and give you the title of Sultan Mirzā." He presented to her the very cap, aigrette, coat and other vestments that he was then wearing; there could be no more exalted *khilat* than these.

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∗ Abdali's conquest of the Panjab (1756): *TALS.* 85a-88b. Miskin 125-129.

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At the same time, the Afghan king promised to Mughlāni Begam the Jalandar doab, Jamu and Kashmir as her fiefs. She sent agents to these places to establish her own government, and invited Adina Beg to come out of his retreat and administer the Jalandar doab as her deputy. But she was soon undeceived. Ahmad Shah had annexed the Sarhind district as the dowry of Alamgir's daughter Muhammadi Begam, who had been married to his son Timur Shah, and at the time of withdrawing from India he decided to leave this prince as his viceroy in the Panjab.* An independent authority like Mughlāni could not be allowed to hold the Jalandar doab and thus interpose a break between Lahor and Sarhind, nor could the Panjab province be shorn of its northern hill territories, Kashmir and Jamu. He, therefore, revoked his gift and told Mughlāni to take instead jāgirs worth Rs. 30,000 a year elsewhere from Timur Shah. This she refused to do, but followed Ahmad Shah to the bank of the Chenāb, vainly imploring him to give her the territories first promised. Thence, by way of Siālkot she returned to Lahor, where this unreasonable woman passed some time, dunning Timur and exasperating his wazir Jahān Khan by the violence of her wrangling. Her obstinacy only humiliated her and brought down upon her head poverty and scorn in a city which she had once ruled with sovereign power. A beggar cannot dictate the nature of her alms.

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∗ Timur Shah's first viceroyalty of Lahor: Miskin, 145-170. As Adina Beg defaulted in paying the tribute of Jalandar doab, Timur Shah's wazir threw Dilārām (the agent of Adina at the Lahor subahdar's Court) into prison. Mughlāni Begam stood

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The young prince Timur Shah was left in Lahor as viceroy with his father's ablest general Sardār Jahān Khan as his guardian and wazir. The backbone of his armed force consisted of 10,000 Persian troops of his

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security for the payment of the six lakhs due from Adina and thus effected Dilārām's release. Then she advised Dilārām to flee from Lahor at night, go to Adina and procure the money, as his life at Lahor was made intolerable by the Afghans constantly beating him for payment. But Adina did not pay the money, and then the Afghan wazir beat the Begam with sticks with his own hand severely! For 2 days she was kept confined in a small room and unspeakable oppression was done to her. [Miskin, 170.]

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father’s army. But Jahān Khan enlisted India-born soldiers on the lower scale of pay prevailing in this country. This military strength and the terror of the Abdali king who stood behind his son, imposed peace and order on that unhappy province after the late chaos. “Justice was done in the capital and the districts, and the roads became safe for traffic once more.” Timur had the wisdom to lease out the government of the Jalandar doab to Adina Beg for 32 lakhs of Rupees a year, conceding to him the privilege that he would not be required to attend the viceregal Court at Lahor but would be represented there by his former *wakil* Dilārām. In fact, Adina Beg had administered that doab for such a long time,—ever since Abdus Samad Saif-ud-daulah’s regime,—and established such local influence there, especially by his understanding with the Sikhs, that it was recognized on all hands that he was the only man who could keep that territory in order and extract any revenue from it. [Miskin, 167.]

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After thus settling the new administration, Jahān Khan planned to cut off a large body of Sikh rebels who had assembled at Amritsar for a religious bath, and, as was their usual practice, had taken to plunder and violence. Two divisions, under Hāji Atāi Khan and the wazir, were ordered to converge upon the city and attack the Sikhs simultaneously. But Atāi Khan delayed his march, so that when Jahān Khan approached Amritsar with 2,000 horsemen, he was unsupported and had to meet the full force of the Sikh attack. "Many of our men turned to flee, but the Sikhs had left them no path to escape by, and they had to return to our group. We fought in desperation. Then Hāji Atāi arrived and put the Sikhs to flight. The victors gave chase, occupied Amritsar, and slew five Sikh infantrymen who were standing on guard before a screened door"—evidently the shrine of their Holy Book. [Miskin, 162.]

§ 7. Timur Shah's administration breaks down. Its causes

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Timur governed the Panjab for one year, from May 1757 to April 1758. But this fair prospect of the reign of law and order in the Panjab was soon overcast. Two Afghan troopers when coming from Sarhind to Lahor, were killed in the territory of the fort of Budha Rāmdās. Jahān Khan at once sent some bailiffs to compel the headman of the place to produce the culprits. These men, following the Persian practice, beat him so hard that he was brought to death's door, and saved his life only by escaping at night to some unknown village. The entire Sikh community felt insulted by this outrage on the headman, who was a notable religious guide (Bābā) and a rich revenue farmer too. "From that day the peace and orderly rule which had been recently established in the country disappeared and the Sikhs rose in rebellion on all four sides."

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The mischief was only aggravated by the attempt to allay it. Adina Beg had accepted the governorship of the Jalandar doab on the express condition of not being required to present himself before Timur Shah. But now the viceroy, in despair, pressed him to come to Lahor and devise means for subduing the Sikhs. Adina flatly refused, and when threatened for his contumacy, fled away to the Balwān (? Balsan) hills. "In consequence of it, utter disorder spread throughout the Panjab. The wazir Jahān Khan sent Sarāfrāz Afghan of Attock and Ghufrān Khan as governors to Jalandar and Kashmir respectively, but both of them returned defeated in the course of a month. Utter lawlessness prevailed. Every force that was sent out by Timur was defeated. Even the environs of his capital were not safe. Every night thousands of Sikhs used to assemble and plunder the suburbs lying outside the walls of Lahor ; but no force was sent to repel them, and the city gates were kept closed by way of precaution!"* This was the sad state of things from November 1757 to February 1758. "The Sikhs gathering together, by our [i. e., Maratha] advice, began to upset Abdali's rule ; from some place they expelled his outposts. They defeated Sadat Khan Afridi, plundered all the Jalandar doab, and forced him to flee to the hills. By order of the subahdar, Khwājah Ubaid Khan came from Lahor with 20,000 horse and foot to fight the Sikhs. In the end he was defeated, many of his captains were slain, all his camp and baggage were plundered; all the artillery left behind by Abdali was captured." [*SPD.* ii. 83.]

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∗ Miskin, 165-170. Adina antagonized, — Ghulam Ali, i. 54.

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§ 8. *First Maratha invasion of the Panjab, 1758.*

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Adina Beg had no doubt succeeded in repelling Timur Shah’s general Sarāfrāz Khan in his invasion of the Jalandar doab. But his armed force was only 10,000 men, and he doubted if he would be able to defeat fresh attacks by superior forces of Durrāni troops, or save his people from the atrocities of these ruthless foreign soldiery. So, in helplessness, he opened negotiations with Raghunāth Rao, the Peshwā’s brother, then posted near Delhi at the head of a vast army, and called the Marathas to his defence, promising to pay them one lakh of Rupees for every day of marching and half that amount for each day of halt during their presence in his faujdari.*

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In August 1757 a large Maratha army under Raghunāth Rao with Malhar Holkar and some other generals had arrived near Delhi as the ally and master of the wazir Imād-ul-mulk. They fought and drove Najib-ud-daulah out of Delhi (6 Sep.), and for the next four months roved through the country round Delhi plundering the markets and exacting contributions from the landowners. Their success in taking away Najib’s jagir of Saharanpur emboldened them to talk of advancing to Lahor and wresting that province from Abdali’s son. On hearing of it, Abdus Samad Khan Mohmand, a native of the Peshawar district and Abdali’s faujdar of Sarhind, collected a large force and advanced to Thāneshwar, where he was joined by Najib’s son; but the Deccanis shrank from advancing into the Panjab or even fighting him where he was (Oct. 1757.) Then, after raiding many places in the Gangetic doab, Malhar recrossed the Jamunā (end of December) and laid siege to Kunjpurā (75 miles north of Delhi), plundering the country from Delhi up to Thāneshwar.

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∗ Raghunath Rao's invasion of the Panjab : Miskin, 171-182. Ghulam Ali, i. 55-57. TALS. 151b, 164b-165, 178a (return.) SPD. ii. 41, 78. xxi. 111, 116, 150. xxvii. 148, 220, 218. Mux. 128. Husain Shahi, 44-45.

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This close approach of the Marathas to Sarhind greatly alarmed Abdus Samad Khan. He was at that time absent from his headquarters on a punitive expedition against Alā Singh. At the end of March 1757, when the front division of Abdali’s army under Prince Timur was transporting the plundered wealth of Delhi to Lahor, this Alā Singh in concert with other Sikh robbers had barred his path at Sanāwar (between Ambala and Patiala) and robbed him of half his treasures, and again attacked and plundered him at Māler Kot. So great had been the success of these brigands that rumour had magnified it into the prince’s captivity and even death at their hands. When, next month, Abdali himself with his main army retreated by this route, Alā Singh had shrunk from provoking him. In December Abdus Samad invaded Sunām (40 m. s. w. of Patiala) in the territory of Alā Singh, and imposed a fine on him. Hearing of Malhar’s approach the faujdar quickly settled that business, hastened back to Sarhind (12 January 1758), and set himself to repairing its fort walls and digging defensive trenches round the city. But Malhar turned back from Kunjpurā after exacting five lakhs, and Sarhind was saved. Just at this time, when Malhar’s women were on a visit to Thaneshwar and Kurukshetra for a religious bath, a local force of Abdus Samad besieged them in Shāhābād, but the Maratha escort fought well, slew many of the Afghans, and captured their horses (middle of January.)*

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A month later the Maratha invasion of the Panjab began. Their main army under Raghunāth and Malhar,—whose strength rumour swelled to two lakhs of men,—reached Sarhind and laid siege to it, while their raiding bands spread all over the district, plundering the villages around. Adina Beg with his own troops and a hired force of professional Sikh freebooters from the west of the Satlaj, crossed that river and joined the Marathas before Sarhind. After a few days’ exchange of gunfire, Abdus Samad found his position untenable. In trying to escape he was wounded and captured, along with Jangbāz Khan and other Afghan captains, but well treated by Raghunāth (21 March. DC.) “The Marathas and Sikhs so thoroughly looted Sarhind city that none of its inhabitants, high or low, male or female, had a cloth left on his person. Pulling the houses down, they carried off the timber and dug the floors up for buried money.” [TALS. 164b. Miskin, 173.]

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∗ Rajwade, i. page 85. TALS. 150b-151a.

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Flushed with this easy victory, the allies advanced towards Lahor. In the meantime, at the first news of the defection of Adina Beg and the movement of the Marathas, Jahān Khan had got a force together and advanced to Batālā in eight days. From this place he detached 2,000 horse under Yusuf Khan to enter the doab and scout for intelligence, each day roving 20 miles on the right or left side of the road, or in front. After some weeks this force learnt that Sarhind had fallen; they rapidly withdrew from the doab, and in two days recrossed the Biās at Rahila ghat, and joined Jahān Khan. That general fell back on Jalalabad, where he halted for eight days, but on learning that the Marathas had crossed the Satlaj and entered the doab, he made a forced retreat to Lahor in four days.

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§ 9. Marathas occupy Lahor and expel Afghans.

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It was impossible for Timur Shah to defend Lahor against the myriads of Marathas; the fort was out of repair and insufficiently provisioned with food and material; the Sikh population throughout the province was hostile, his reliable troops, Afghans and Persian Turks, numbered only a few thousands, and there was no hope of relief from Ahmad Shah who was troubled by risings in Khurāsān and had to go there in person with all his forces. So Timur decided on flight (c. 19 April.) Setting up a temporary camp on the other bank of the Rāvi, he and his Durrāni followers loaded their property in carts and sent it by repeated trips from the city to this camp. Every one was busy in preparing for the exodus; none thought of making a stand or guarding the city. Next day news came that the vanguard of the invaders under Adina Beg and Mānāji Pāygudé had crossed the Biās and arrived twelve miles north of Lahor. That day at noon Timur abandoned his capital and crossed over to the camp, his wazir following him. Throughout that day of evacuation, utter confusion and terror reigned in the masterless city; but Tahmāsp Khan (pen-name Miskin), a former page of Muin-ul-mulk, on his own initiative shut the city gates and patrolled the streets all night.

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At about nine o'clock next morning, 500 Maratha horsemen and a hundred Mughalia troopers of Khwājah Mirzā under ‘Āshur Ali Khan, appeared at the Delhi gate of Lahor. Miskin at once opened the gate and entrusted the city to their care. A day later Khwājah Mirzā himself arrived with 1,000 Mughalia and 10,000 Maratha horse. But early in that morning Timur Shah had marched away from his camp towards Kābul, after setting fire to the heaps of apparel and other things that he could not carry off, and leaving behind him a small rear-guard under Mir Hazār Khan. Khwājah Mirzā crossed the Rāvi and attacked this force, which fled while fighting, but was enveloped by the cloud of Maratha light horse and its leader taken prisoner. At this Timur quickened his pace. Jahān Khan at first halted at Sarāi Kānchi, 36 miles north-west of Lahor; but Khwājah Mirzā, whose force had now been trebled by reinforcements from Lahor, came up with him. Lack of artillery prevented him from storming the sarāi, and taking advantage of this respite, Jahān Khan slipped out of the place, and found safety by crossing the Chenāb near Wazirabad. The depth of the river and the hurry of the flight prevented Timur Shah from taking to the other side any but his Durrāni clansmen. All his other troops,—Uzbak, Qizilbāsh and Afghan, as well as his entire camp and baggage, were left behind on the eastern bank of the Chenāb and fell into the hands of the Marathas and their Panjabi allies. "The spoils were shared between the Marathas and Adina Beg. Khwājah Mirza and his troops thus became very rich. Every day some Central Asian horses came to hand. He enlisted the captured Uzbak and Qizilbāsh soldiers and officers in his own army." [Miskin, 179.]

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The Marathas did not venture to carry the war across the Chenāb, because the river was too deep for fording and the country beyond it was mostly tenanted by Afghan supporters of the Durrānī cause.* Lahor was captured about 10th April 1758. Raghunāth passed one entire month there. He wisely realized that as his own troops could not be induced to garrison a province so distant from their home and subject to such severe winter, and as the universal rebellion of the Sikhs made its direct administration by Maratha officers impossible, the only means of keeping the Panjab in nominal allegiance to the Maratha power and getting any revenue out of it was to entrust it to Adina Beg, who had a very old understanding with the Sikhs and possessed the experience of many years' successful administration of that country. So, Adina Beg was given the viceroyalty of the Panjab on promising on annual tribute of 75 lakhs of Rupees. After this settlement, the Maratha chiefs and their soldiers marched back towards Delhi, arriving at Sonepat on 14th June. Adina Beg went back to his home in the Jalandar doab, leaving his son-in-law Khwājah Mirzā Khan to govern Lahor as his deputy.†

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∗ Not a single Maratha soldier crossed the Chenāb. The assertion that the Maratha standards were carried up to the Indus at Attock, is an ignorant boast.

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† *SPD.* xxvii. 218. *Muz.* 128. From this point the historian loses the primary source for Panjab history, namely, the autobiography of the ‘Eye-witness’ Miskin, who now left Lahor in the company of Adina Beg and henceforth wrote of Lahor affairs only on hearsay. Death of Adina Beg and administration of Khwājah Mirzā: Miskin 182, 194. *TALS.* 190b-191b. *SPD.* ii. 96.

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But this nominal Maratha domination gave no peace to the Panjab. Adina Beg Khan enjoyed his highest glory for five months only. On 13 October 1758 he died after a prolonged illness and in the fulness of years. Immediately afterwards, confusion broke out in the Panjab at the disappearance of the strong and clever hand that had held the realm in order for so many years. The wazir Imād-ul-mulk tried to escheat the dead subahdar's property to the State, but he was prevented by a Maratha force which the retreating Raghunāth had hurriedly sent up from Malwa (November.) At Lahor, Khwājah Mirzā Khan now engaged in governing the province as substantive subahdar. "The Sikhs were such rebels and robbers that the governor could not cope with them." Maratha armies one after another reached Lahor and its districts and took up their posts. Beyond the Jhilam some Afghans and Gakkhars in concert looted the Gujrat pargana and crossed over to the east bank of this river. Khwājah Mirzā with a band of Sikhs came up from Lahor, defeated and drove them back across the river. He followed them to the other bank and entrenched. But the Afghans and Gakkhars reappeared in vaster numbers and defeated him there. On hearing that Maratha armies were marching up from Lahor to his aid, the Afghans shrank from coming over to the eastern bank of the Jhilam again, (evidently in December 1758.)

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The Sindhias in the Panjab, 1759.

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But Khwājah Mirzā's worst enemies were at home. "The Qizilbāsh captains of Timur's army whom he had captured [and afterwards enlisted] made a coalition with the Marathas. From among them, their leading captain, Mirzā Ahmad Khan, made himself subahdar of Lahor, and the second highest, Sālih Khan, that of Multān. They paid some money to the Marathas in cash and promised more, and placed Khwājah Mirzā and his brother Khwājah Said Khan in confinement." [Miskin, 194.] This anarchy in the Panjab and ruin of the Maratha interests there induced the Peshwā to send a strong force to that province under the able and spirited Dattaji Sindhia. This general reached the eastern bank of the Satlaj in the first week of April 1759 and halted at Machhiwārā for about three weeks. Here Adina Beg's son came and saw him and paid some money on account of the tribute due from his father. By his advice, Dattaji sent Sābāji Sindhia* with an army to Lahor to take over the governorship of the province directly into Maratha hands. "On finding that in Lahor and around it the Sikhs were predominant and commanded a vast force, making the conquest of the Panjab difficult, Dattaji turned back towards Delhi." [*TALS.* 205*b*.]

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∗ A Marathi letter from Delhi [SPD. ii. 100] written 2 May says that Jankoji recalled Sābāji from Lahor and ordered Naro Shankar there. But we find Sābāji actually serving as governor of the Panjab till the expulsion of the Marathas in October next. TALS. 205b says that Jankoji crossed the Satlaj and entered the Jalandar doab; but the Marathi records prove that he turned back from Machhiwara to Delhi without crossing the Satlaj.

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§ 11. *Final Abdali conquest of the Panjab.*

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This second Maratha occupation of Lahor lasted barely six months, but the terror of the vast forces of Dattaji lying within easy call of Sābāji, caused that governor to be obeyed by all the chiefs and landholders of the province. At the end of August Sābāji beat back an invasion of Jahān Khan from Peshawar. The Afghan general lost his son and many of his troops in killed and wounded, and himself retreated with wounds across the Indus. [*DC.*, but Raj. vi. 378 credits the Sikhs with achieving this victory.] But the scene changed early in October next, when news came that a strong Durrāni army under Jahān Khan as commander-in-chief had crossed the Indus and was marching towards Lahor. By this time Dattaji was inextricably involved in the siege of Shukartāl, 70 miles east of Pānipat, and Sābāji finding himself too weak to confrout the Afghans fell back from Lahor. The advance of the invaders was rapid and unopposed. Arriving at Wazirabad, Jahān Khan sent out his troops to raid on all sides. The capital of the Panjab was without a governor or a garrison. Jahān Khan sent 3 or 4 of his men ahead to Surat Singh, a banker of Lahor, with a letter bidding him stamp coins and read the *khutba* in the name of Timur Shāh and issue a proclamation warning all people not to oppress any citizen.

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Sābāji with his main force fell back precipitately, by way of Batālā, Jalandar and Sarhind towards Shukartāl, without halting anywhere.* Consternation and flight raged in Sarhind. Sadiq Beg Khan, who had been the Maratha faujdar of Sarhind, and Adina Beg's widow and sons fled away from their places to Delhi at the report of the advance of the Afghans.

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The entire province of the Panjab was abandoned to the Afghans, but not without a severe loss of men to the Marathas. Though Sābāji did not stand up to a fight, his detachments, dispersed throughout the country, could not be withdrawn in absolute safety ; a general and several soldiers of the Marathas who had lagged too long behind near Lahor, were overtaken and cut off by the Afghan vanguard. One corps of 6,000 Maratha horse and foot posted in Multan retreated to the east of Lahor without loss. But in the Jalandar doab the disappearance of all authority tempted its notoriously lawless peasants to rise against these fugitives. When only a part of this force had crossed the Satlaj the villagers fell upon those left behind and plundered them of 4,000 camels (worth Rs. 40 each), and of most of their horses, treasure and other property. Only a thousand horses and ponies escaped capture, and 500 well-born Maratha cavaliers had to march on foot through this loss of their mounts. But though the Marathas failed, the Sikhs opposed the invaders, and in a severe battle with them the Afghans triumphed only at the cost of 2,000 of their own men. [Raj. i. 146.] After establishing his government in Lahor, the Abdali king resumed his march and entered Sarhind on 27 November 1759. Thus, the Panjab was finally lost to the empire of Delhi.

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∗ *TALS.* 211*b* and 213*b* and *SPD.* ii. 116 say that he retreated without halting or fighting. But an encounter between his troops and the Durrāni vanguard is mentioned in Govind Pant Bundelé's letter of 8 Nov. (Raj. i. 142) and *Mux.* 175. Miskin (202) shows that it was the Maratha rear-guard that was cut off by the advancing Afghans.

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CHAPTER XV

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THE AFGHAN INVASION OF 1757.

§ 1. Abdali invades the Panjab, Imad fails to organize defence

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Early in the autumn of 1756, Ahmad Shah Abdali set out from Kabul on the invasion of India. On 4th October a detachment of his troops entered Lahor and reinstated Khwajah Abdullah as governor. His envoy Qalandar Beg Khan reached the Court of Delhi and was first received in audience on 31st October, and though the wazir Imād-ul-mulk kept him in play for a month, he could not be detained for ever and took his congé on 9th December, without receiving any satisfactory reply.

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Meantime the Afghan king, after a halt at Peshawar, had resumed his march on 15th November and crossed the Indus at Attock eleven days later. His vanguard under Sardar Jahan Khan had preceded him by some weeks and expelled Adina Beg from the Jalandar doab. Abdali himself entered Lahor on 20 December and spent some twelve days there in arranging for the government of the province and exacting tribute from the Rajah of Jammu, reputed to be the richest feudatory of the Panjab. The way having been cleared by Jahan Khan, who had crossed the Satlaj and occupied the country beyond it up to Sarhind by 6th January 1757, Abdali himself crossed that river (c. 10 January) and reached Sarhind, while Jahan Khan made a further advance to Panipat (12 January.)

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We shall now see what the Government of Delhi had been doing all this time. The news of the Afghan occupation of Lahor (4 October) and the flight of its leading men to Sarhind had been followed a fortnight later by the arrival of the Afghan envoy at Delhi (end of October.) The popular report was that Abdāli himself would follow his vanguard and wreak vengeance on Imād for having insulted and plundered Mughlāni Begam whom the Afghan king used to call his daughter. The danger was great, but Imād did not know what to do. The disbandment of the Sin-dagh risala had left him utterly without troops, except for a few hundred men under Bahadur Khan Baluch. He called to his side Salabat Khan Zulfiqar Jang, ex-Bakhshi of the last Emperor, who had been living in unemployment and disgrace at Agra. But this last great noble of the age of Farrukhsiyar and Muhammad Shah was now an aged phantom only, and sank into the grave on 6 June 1757. Imād next appealed to Najib Khan for help, but the Ruhela demanded the unpaid salary of the troops he had been entertaining for the wazir’s service, and an acrimonious discussion between the two chiefs resulted. On 8th November Najib visited the wazir with a large force, and on his way back at night looted five or six shops in the wazir's camp bazar, "none daring to oppose him." [TALS. 81b.]

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Najib having failed, the next master of a respectable force was Suraj Mal Jat, and to him the imperial chancellor now turned. Through Nāgar Mal he sought to placate Suraj Mal, whom he had been vindictively pursuing since October 1753 for his partisanship of Safdar Jang. At his call Suraj Mal came to Tilpat, south of Delhi, and met the wazir's envoy as well as Najib Khan. But the negotiations broke down on a conflict of policy : the Jat Rajah rightly argued that the best defence of the empire was for the wazir to take a personal lead in the war, combine the Ruhelas, Jats, Rajputs and old Mughal nobility in an anti-Maratha campaign, confine the Deccani spoliators to the south of the Narmada, and after thus ensuring the safety of their homes lead their united forces into the Panjab for expelling the Afghan invader, as had been done in 1748. But the sole prop of Imād's power were the Marathas and he would not cast them off. So Suraj Mal, finding further discussion useless, went back to his forts in disgust, leaving Imād to his fate. [TALS. 82b-84a.]

§ 2. Afghan invaders approach Delhi. Fruitless peace efforts. Panic and flight from Delhi

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The month of November 1756 wore out in holding such futile talks and the putting off of any decision, as is the facile habit of men without strength of will. With December came alarming news. On the 9th of that month the capital learnt that Abdali had crossed the Indus 13 days before. There could now be no mistaking his intentions, "it became known that he wanted to come to Delhi."* Ten days later came reports of the nearer approach of the danger; Abdālī's troops had penetrated plundering up to Batālā and Adinanagar. That day "the wazir sent off letters summoning the Marathas, the Jat Rajah, and Shujā-ud-daulah. The great men of the capital made preparations for flight" [DC.] Next day (20 Dec.) Aghā Razā Khan was sent off with gifts worth two lakhs of Rupees to placate Abdali and turn him back from coming to Delhi. But this very day it was learnt at Delhi that the invaders had occupied all the country up to the western bank of the Satlaj, that Adina Beg had abandoned the Jalandar doab without a blow and fled away none knew where, and that "from Lahor to Sarhind not a place was left tenanted, all men, high and low, having fled away. A great distraction fell on Delhi also, the upper classes sent their families to Mathura and Agra in the jurisdiction of Suraj Mal, or to other places. The wazir, who wielded the empire without a sharer in his power, took no step to meet the danger ; he refused to go to Sarhind to oppose the invasion, but consulted darvishes how to overcome the enemy through their prayers without fighting. He would not spend money for raising an army. He only wrote letters summoning the Marathas, but they too demanded money. Najib Khan, in spite of the measureless favours shown to him by the wazir, planned to go away, crossing the Jamuna, to Saharanpur." [TALS. 85b-86a.]

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∗ Ahmad Shah Abdali in Delhi, 1757 : the most detailed and authentic sources are *DC.* (invaluable) and *TALS.* 80-102, with graphic touches in the narrative of Shaikh Ghulam Hasan Samin, tr. by W. Irvine in *Indian Antiquary*, 1907, (which has many inaccuracies of date due to its having been written 25 years after the event.) The Maratha letters, so valuable and accurate at other times, fail us during this period, as Antāji Mānakeshwar fled away from Delhi on 19th January and Bāpu M. Hingané on 7th Feb., and what they wrote afterwards was distant hearsay; so also were the private newsletters received at Jhansi or Aurangabad and communicated to the Peshwa. Antaji's gasconade and reviling of Bāpu must be taken with a grain (or rather an ounce) of salt. The two 18th century histories of Abdali, *viz.*, *Mujmil* and *Tarikh-i-Husain Shahi*, are meagre about this period and the latter work is often confused and inaccurate. *Tarikh-i-Muzaffari* and Shakir's *Memoirs* are very brief, and *Siyar-ul-mutakhkharin* is only a secondary and very distant compilation of a quarter century later. Miskin only tells us of Mughlāni Begam's doings and his own sufferings (129-139.) Nur-ud-din is short but useful.

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