Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c22.s5: § 1. Abdali invades the Panjab, Imad fails to organize defence
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c22.s5
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§ 1. Abdali invades the Panjab, Imad fails to organize defence
v2.c22.s5.1
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.
v2.c22.s5.2
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.)
v2.c22.s5.3
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.]
v2.c22.s5.4
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.]