Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c22.s1.2

v2.c22.s1.2

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.