Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s10.34

v2.c27.s10.34

All evidence agrees in showing that the Bhāu antagonized Malhar Rao Holkar, and even if he did not openly insult his veteran lieutenant by calling him a dotard past his usefulness, he certainly disregarded Malhar’s counsels and thus lowered him in the eyes of the army and the public. Malhar’s angry remark that if these proud Brāhmans of Punā were not humbled by the enemy they would make him and other captains of the Maratha caste wash their soiled clothes, is historically true,* in view of his natural feelings, after this scarred veteran’s advice had been brushed aside by a youth under thirty years who had never seen North-Indian warfare. Suraj Mal, who was the shrewdest Hindu potentate then alive, naturally saw eye to eye with Malhar Rao for his strong sense of realism in politics and war, and distrusted the Bhāu, who trod the air of theory instead of planting his feet on the bedrock of the real facts of a situation. Suraj Mal had before this placed himself under the protective wings of Malhar, and sided with him in the Bhāu's council-chamber ever since their coming to Agra.