Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c25.s4: § 7. Renewed attacks on Najib in Delhi

Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c25.s4

Language: English

§ 7. Renewed attacks on Najib in Delhi

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So the war broke out afresh on 30th August. Raghunāth fought against the Delhi Gate (in the south) and Imād against the Lahor Gate (in the north-west.) In the night of 29-30 August, the Marathas opened fire from all sides of the city. "Their cannon-balls reached the Hayāt Bakhsh Garden, the Diwān-i-khās, the Diwān-i-ām, and the imperial Wardrobe, within the palace. Two bastions of the Delhi Gate were demolished. The 31st also passed in this kind of artillery attack from all sides of the city. The Ruhelas made a sortie from the Lahor Gate, drove away the men of Imād and Ahmad Bangash who had advanced from the Idgāh, and returned after plundering the Tobacco Mart and carrying away everything there, even the timber of the houses.” They made another sortie from the Turkomān Gate, killed some soldiers of the wazir’s diwan Dilel Singh, and captured his banner.

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§ 8. Peace made with Najib, 3 Sep. 1757.

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But the defenders were hopelessly outnumbered. Famine was raging within the city, and “many men dispersed and only a few remained true to Najib.” At last he bowed to the inevitable. The next two days (1 and 2 September) passed in peace parleys; Malhar tried to soften Raghunath and Imād, while Majd-ud-daulah (Abdul Ahad Khan) pressed Najib hard. At last Najib consented to visit Malhar and accept any terms that the Maratha general might dictate.* On 3rd September first Qutb Shah visited Malhar to settle the preliminaries, aud, then about 3 P. M. Najib himself went to Malhar’s camp at Qudsiabad by boat and was welcomed. He accepted all the terms and returned to the city at night.

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∗ Najib’s message conveyed by Abdul Ahad Khan to Malhar ran thus: (1) I am your [adopted] son and I shall act as you bid me. You have done me many favours and it is not proper that you should [now] bare your sword against me. If you say so, I shall go away across the Jamuna, and you can entrust Delhi and the empire to the control of whomsoever you please. (2) Bid me and I shall go to the Abdali Shah and arrange a peace between you by delimiting your respective boundaries, which would be respected in future by both parties, so that there might not be war again. (3) I shall depute my son Zābita Khan to serve you

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The peace became operative on the 6th. Najib issued with his property and war material from Dārā Shukoh’s mansion, left the city and entered his tents pitched at Wazirabad. His Ruhela soldiers vacated the fort, with all their belongings, and the Marathas took post as guards at the gates of the capital. Raghunath set free the captive followers of Najib; the ferries over the Jamunā were opened to traffic and grain again began to come to the city from the marts on the other bank. The triumphant wazir now replaced Najib’s agents by his own men as qiladār of the palace-fort, superintendent of the Private Audience, peshkār of the Emperor, and superintendent of the canal. Ahmad Bangash was made imperial Paymaster-General vice Najib. The completeness of the Maratha supremacy over Delhi is seen from the entry in the official history of the reign, “The Emperor, as requested, sent robes of honour to Malhar to make new appointments at his own discretion”; “the persons thus inducted to office,

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with a contingent of 5 or 7 thousand men, as a proof of my fidelity. (4) If you do not agree to these terms—but are bent on fighting me, I shall unite the Pār Ruhelas and others and give you a good battle. He will rule the whole realm whom God gives the victory. SPD. ii. 77, supported almost verbatim by TALS. 136b and Nur-ud-din.

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Peace negotiations,—TALS. 132b-137a. DC. Ghulam Ali, i. 33.

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after putting their *khilats* on, made their bows to Raghunāth Rāo in his tent.”*

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Thus Delhi and its sovereign once more exchanged one master for another. Najib’s reign of five months was over. Fighting against all the other forces of the realm, Hindu and Muslim combined,—except the trans-Ganges Ruhelas and the governor of Oudh,—his handful of troops had yielded only to famine, but established their reputation as the most indomitable warriors in India. He avoided paying any money indemnity, and went back to his estates, where he lived in open defiance of the Delhi Government and kept constantly writing to Abdali to come back to India and expel the Deccani infidels from Delhi. [Nur-ud-din.]

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§ 9. *Sufferings of the Delhi people during 1757.*

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The Afghan conqueror’s haughty agent had been expelled from Delhi, but the agony of the imperial city showed no sign of ending. It had been squeezed dry of its wealth twice by Abdali and his troops in the first quarter of the year 1757; Najib’s war requisitions had kept up the strain in July and August, and Maratha cannon had damaged its palaces and bastions; the high price and scarcity of foodstuffs had continued throughout, and now during the two months of September and October “a shaking fever raged with violence through the entire city, and left the eyes affected. Then came an epidemic of brain fever * in the following March and April. Grain became very dear, mung dāl was so scarce that only half a seer could be had for a Rupee, māsh dāl 5 seers, and wheat 9 seers ; even medicines became very dear and scanty on account of the exactions of the Marathas.” |DC.| Inside the walls, “theft and dacoity prevailed greatly owing to the break-down of the Emperor’s administration. Respectable men like Sayyids, Mughals &c., who formerly used to earn a living by service as soldiers, now found no employment, while those in service could not get their salaries. The jāgirdārs received nothing from their jāgirs, which other men had usurped. Every one [of these classes] took to burglary in the houses of the city, collecting large gangs armed with muskets. Their leaders were two Turki soldiers. The head of the city police was accused of shielding the burglars and sharing their spoils ! To crown this long-drawn agony came a visitation of earthquake on 21st November, 1757. The first shock, felt about one o’clock in the afternoon, was a severe one, followed by six lighter tremours. Then, about 9 P. M. "it was so violent that Doomsday seemed at hand." | *TALS.* 148 ; *DC.* |

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∗ *TALS.* 138a-139a, *DC.* Najib’s halting place was “the plain of Jahānnumā, close to the *Bārādāri* of Abhay Singh,” *i.e.*, in Jaswantpurā. Antāji Mānakeshwar was appointed imperial faujdar of the environs of the capital.

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∗ “Boils known as Kanphora became epidemic. When the boils appeared, their pus passed into the patient’s stomach and killed him.” Shakir, 90.

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During the three weeks' war with Najib, Raghunath was not free from anxiety that the Abdālī forces in the Panjab might attempt to relieve their ally in Delhi. He again and again urged the Peshwā to send Dattaji Sindhia to the north with instructions to keep his eye constantly fixed on Attock for news of Abdālī's return. At the same time one of his officers, Mānāji Pāygudé, scouted north of Delhi up to Thāneshwar to find out if any Afghan force was coming from Sarhind.

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§ 10. Further movements of Raghunath and Malhar from Sep. 1757.

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After Delhi city had been placed in the friendly hands of Imād, Raghunath and Malhar on 18th September 1757 moved rom Barāri Ghat in the north of the city, westwards to the Bāsi hillocks, liberated their captive Prince Ali Jāh, and sent to Musā Khan Baluch (son of Kām gār demanding tribute for his possessions in the Rohtak district. The latter paid a sum through his manager Satbhāni (the widow of Sitarām Khazānchi of Kaliānā) and took a lease signed by the Maratha chief for the possession of the villages. The Marathas now planned to conquer the Panjab from Abdali's men. But on hearing that Abdus Samad Khan, the governor of Sarhind, had collected a large force to bar their way and that Najib's son, after being ousted from Saharanpur and other places in the upper Doab by the Marathas, had joined Abdus Samad, Raghunāth gave up the plan of conquest, “knowing a war with Abdali’s troops to be beyond his power.” [TALS. 142b-146a.]

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Backed by Abdālī, Qutb Shāh the right-hand man of Najib had expelled the Marathas, early in 1757, from the Saharanpur district and taken possession of it. But in May, the wazir’s partisans Kāmgār and Bahādur Khan Baluch defeated Qutb in the Gohānā pargana and drove him wounded and with broken forces east of the Jamunā to Kairānā. After the Dasaharā celebration (22 October) Raghunāth and Malhar marched into the Doab, crossing the Jamunā at Khizirabad and withdrawing their outposts from the environs of Delhi and Shāhganj. “Some sort of composure came to the city.” On 26th November they crossed the Hindan and encamped on its eastern bank. From this place, six days later Raghunath himself marched to Garh Mukteshwar to bathe in the Ganges, plundering all places on his route as during his first pilgrimage of January 1755; none of Najib’s local officers ventured to oppose him. Similarly levying ransom and plundering villages all along, Malhar with his own division advanced north through the Doab, by way of Luni, Bāghpat (Rs. 20,000 levied), Barāut (Rs. 17,000 ransom), and the Saharanpur district. Najib retreated before the flood of invaders, sending his family camp and baggage from Saharanpur to the eastern side of the Ganges. The whole of the Saharanpur district, villages and towns, was mercilessly sacked as being Najib’s jagir. At the plundering of Jhunjhānā many men were slain. [*TALS.* 120a, 147-150b.]

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Turning from the desolated villages round Saharanpur, Malhar crossed the Jamunā at Rāmrā Ghat, looted Karnāl and Tilāuri, and sat down before Kunjpura demanding tribute. Nejābat Khan, the zamindar of this fortalice, was helpless, as the country outside had been devastated as far as Thāneshwar. He agreed to pay five lakhs,—three lakhs to Malhar, one to Ahmad Bangash, and half a lakh to Dilel Singh, the wazir’s diwan.

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Then the Maratha general crossed the Jamunā back into the Saharanpur district with Ahmad Bangash. It was now near the end of January 1758. [*Ibid.*, 150.]

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Raghunāth and Malhar next met together and adopted the plan of withdrawing their forces from the Doab, abandoning a part of that tract to the wazir, and concentrating their efforts on the conquest of the Panjab. Crossing the Jamunā again from Saharanpur and plundering Thāneshwar on the way, they took Sarhind (21 March 1758) and finally Lahor (*c.* 20 April), as we have seen in chapter 14. During their absence, Najib drove out the wazir’s agents and recovered Barāut, Saharanpur and other places which had formerly belonged to him! As Najib had failed to pay the five lakhs promised on 3rd September 1757, the wazir imprisoned his envoy Meghrāj on 8 May 1758, and two days later issued an imperial rescript appointing Vital Shivdev faujdar of Saharanpur *vice* Najib, in the vain hope of thus supplanting the Ruhela! [*TALS.* 151*b*, 164*a*, 165*b*, 177*b*, *DC.* *SPD.* xxvii 225, 224.]

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§ 11. *Raghunath and Malhar return from the Panjab and leave for the south, 1758.*

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After the conquest of Lahor, Raghunath left the old and experienced local magnate Adina Beg Khan as his governor of the Panjab and set out for Delhi. "During their return march, Raghunāth and Malhar, as was their wont, demanded money from every village and revenue-collector on the way, and plundered the place if it was not paid. They reached Sonepat on 14th June and two days later turned south-westwards to Buāna, and thence to Farrukhnagar and Rewari (arrival 20 June), *en route* to Mālwa and the Deccan.* Thus the main Maratha armies retired from Delhi and the northern provinces, a year after their arrival in June 1757, with the following gains to their credit:—

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(i) the restoration of the former Maratha possessions in Etāwa and other places in the lower Doab, but not Sikandrabad nor the country north of it, (ii) the nominal ownership of the Panjab with the promise of an annual tribute of 75 lakhs from Adina Beg Khan,

Linked texts (1)

Selections from the Peshwa Daftar — Marathi