Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c25.s1.3

v2.c25.s1.3

Saharanpur, Mirat, Sikandrabad, Shukohabad, Phaphund, Etawa and even southwards as far as Kora-Jahanabad, were all freed from the agents of the Delhi Court or of Najib. The wazir Imād-ul-mulk kept the diwan Nāgar Mal at Anupshahar to entreat the Marathas to make friends with him again. Shujā-ud-daulah had readily agreed to the Maratha proposal to remain neutral during this war in the Doab, as Maratha encouragement had stiffened his opposition to the wazir’s recent attempt to dispossess him of his two subahs by means of the Shāhzādas. But the financial gain of the Marathas was insignificant. Though the Muslim usurpers had been driven away from the region, the normal maintenance of order and the peaceful collection of revenue could not be restored so easily. Thanks to the last four years’ constant change of legally authorized owners, usurpations, political revolutions and foreign invasion, the whole of the Doab had become a No-man’s land, seething with disorder. The eclipse of the legitimate government during Abdali’s invasion and the Ruhela-Maratha contest had tempted every ambitious man to come out with his band, renounce all masters and encroach upon his neighbours’ lands. The Gujars spread in lawless activity through the Dāsna sub-division. The Rajput landlords of this region were a sturdy rebellious lot; almost every village had been fortified with mud walls,—as the English found to their cost in suppressing the Mutiny in 1858,—and the petty Rajahs with their armed bands had seized as much land as they could. Two thousands of such mud-forts were reported in the Doab by the Maratha agents, and their conquest by force would have taken years and a full-sized army and exhaustless gun-munition. [SPD. xxvii. 195, 196, 168, 169, 170. ii. 76.]