Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s13: § 13. The Bhau captures Kunjpura
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s13
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§ 13. The Bhau captures Kunjpura
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This fortified town commanded the ferry over the Jamunā on the road from Karnāl and formed a most convenient half-way house for the passage of reinforcements and provisions from Sarhind (then in Afghan possession) to Abdali's camp in the upper Doab. Its master was Nejābat Khan Ruhela, a *protégé* of Najib. During the Durrani invasion of January 1757, he used to dress his Indian followers like the Qizilbāshes and placed under N. S. 3,000 foot and 3,000 horse (evidently local recruits) and some materiel.
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rob caravans on the grand trunk road between Lahor and Delhi, giving out that these were Abdālī’s soldiers [Miskin, 133], whom none durst resist. His castle was a robbers’ den where other Afghan freebooters and Abdali agents of that tract used to lodge their booty and find a secure asylum in need. Enormous quantities of grain were stored here for the Shah’s army across the Jamunā.
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The conquest of Kunjpurā was absolutely necessary if the Bhāu was to cut Abdālī’s communications with his country and bring him to an action on the west bank of the Jamunā. The Maratha chief’s plan was to capture Sarhind (as had been done in Raghunāth’s campaign in March 1758), join Alā Singh Jāt and other Indian zamindars of the cis-Satlaj region and rouse them against Abdālī, as the first step towards driving the foreign invaders out of the Panjab. Such a policy required at its very outset the destruction of the enemy depot at Kunjpurā. But the strongest allurement of Kunjpurā for the starving and bankrupt army of the Bhāu was that this place was stored full with provisions and money belonging to Abdālī and his partisans, and yet the flooded river would defeat every attempt of Abdālī or Najib to come to its aid.
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The Bhāu started on this enterprise. From his camp at Lāleri (3 miles south of Ganaur) he sent back Nānā Purandarē and Āppāji Jadav Rao to Delhi, and these two agents, on Friday the 10th of October, deposed the titular Shah Jahan II, proclaimed Ali Gauhar as Emperor under the title of Shah Alam II, struck coins in his name, and installed his eldest son Mirzā Jawān Bakht in the Diwān-i-khās as his Heir and vicar. They also conferred the wazirship on Shujā-ud-daulah in absentia, in the hope of luring him away from Abdali's side. [Raj. i. 258, 259. DC. Siyar, iii. 67.]
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Having strengthened his base at Delhi and in fancied security about his long-extended line of communication along the west bank of the Jamunā for a month to come, the Bhāu arrived before Kunjpurā in the evening of 16th October. Outside the city were encamped Abdus Samad Khan (the Durrāni governor of Sarhind) and Miān Qutb Shāh (the preceptor and ally of the Indian Ruhelas, whose brigandages have been described in Ch. 13, §15) with about 2,000 men. There were at least 8,000 more fighters within. The immense Maratha host halted for the night, encircling the city, and early next morning advanced to attack the Afghan camp outside. Ibrāhim Khān Gārdi with his artillery, supported by his eight regiments of foot-musketeers, led the van. Abdus Samad and Qutb issued from their tents and tried to charge the Marathas, but the withering fire of these disciplined troops broke their ranks up before they could come to close quarters. Abdus Samad was shot dead, and Qutb wounded. The remnant of their troops fled to the city gates and demanded entrance, which Nejābat Khan at first refused, as he trembled at the deadly power of the Maratha army which he had witnessed from the walls. After a long wrangle they induced him to open the gates by threatening Abdali’s wrath if he refused them help. But the Marathas had now arrived close behind the fugitives and entered the city pell-mell with them. Thus Kunjpurā fell into Maratha hands at one blow. Evidently there was much street fighting as the Afghans defended their homes, because the Marathas admit nearly a thousand casualties on their side (but no officer slain.) The booty secured was immense,—3,000 horses, besides all the camels and guns found in the fort. Two hundred thousand maunds of wheat and other goods of a total value of 10 lakhs, and six and a half lakhs of Rupees in cash came to the public treasury, while the soldiers and camp-followers on the day of the assault looted much property in the houses. So vast was the quantity of the captured provisions that the Maratha troops were paid their weekly subsistence in grain.
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The Bhāu halted at Kunjpurā for seven days, celebrating the Dasaharā festival (19 Oct.) with great exultation and pomp, and digging up the floors of houses in search of buried treasure.* Besides Abdus Samad Khan who had fallen in the plain outside, Nejābat Khan died of his wounds in captivity. A sterner fate waited on Miān Qutb Shah, who had fled wounded to the city and been seized. Nine months ago, when Dattāji Sindhia lay wounded and writhing on the field of Barāri-ghat, Qutb Shah had severed his head and carried it away in triumph to the Afghan camp. He had shown no mercy to a fallen foe, and in his day of defeat he could expect none. So, he opened his mouth in abuse of the Marathas when brought as a prisoner to their camp, and was sentenced to death,—with torture, according to one account. The severed heads of Samad and Qutb were placed on lances and paraded in triumph through the Maratha camp, and, as we can easily imagine, specially in the bazar of the Sindhia contingent. Two sons of Nejābat were captured in the fort and taken with the Maratha army to Panipat. Only one son, Dilir Khan, who was absent, escaped and lived to recover his father's seat.
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∗ Bhau’s capture of Kunjpurā,—Raj i. 255 (wrongly dated), 258-260, 265. vi. 405. SPD. xxi. 198, 192, 193. Husain Shahi 57. Nur-ud-din, 34-35. Mux. 185-186 Imad, 186, 78.
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§ 14. Sadashiv Bhau comes to Panipat.
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After a week's halt at Kunjpurā for digging out buried treasure, looking after his numerous wounded, arranging for the proper care and transport of his vast booty in grain and animals, and setting up his own outpost in the captured fort, the Bhāu on 25th October started for Kurukshetra, 30 miles to the north. He had covered only half the way, when next day at Tarāuri, near the scene of Sābāji Sindhia's repulse ten months ago, he learnt that Abdāli had crossed the Jamunā at Bāghpat.
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and arrived at Sonepat (two days earlier), thus cutting his communication with Delhi and the South. The Bhāu immediately turned back to meet the enemy, reached Pānipat on 29th October and halted to learn of the enemy’s position and plans more clearly. On the 1st of November the Afghan army was sighted seven miles south of his position,* and the long looked for decisive contest at last began.
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§ 15. Abdali encamps in the Doab, his policy, March-October, 1760.
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We shall now turn to the invader’s camp and see what Abdālī had been doing in the meantime. After crushing Malhar’s rearguard near Sikandrābād in the morning of 4th March 1760, and sweeping the Marathas out of the upper Doab, he sacked and occupied the city of Koil (modern Aligarh) about the 26th and laid siege to its fort (then named Rāmgarh), which was held by Durjan Sal on behalf of Suraj Mal. The Jāt Rajah had strongly fortified it and stocked it with provisions artillery and munitions, wishing to make it a second Kumbher for the defence of his trans-Jamunā possessions. He naturally expected the place to hold out for many months; but in the meantime Abdālī’s roving detachments drove out the Jāt posts along the eastern side of the Jamunā in the Bulandshahar district, so as to bring the entire upper Doab into the hands of his faithful Najib.
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∗ SPD. xxi. 194, 197. Raj. i. 265. Kashirāj (wrong.)
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The garrison of Aligarh, being thus cut off from all hope of succour from their brethren west of the river and remembering the massacre at Ballabhgarh after its capture by Abdāli in March 1757, capitulated within a fortnight, and this unexpected reverse greatly damped the spirit of Suraj Mal. The Rajah now sent an agent to Abdali to beg for terms ; the victor demanded 45 lakhs. [26th April. DC. Wendel 79-80. Husain Shahi, 52-53. Nur-ud-din, 32. Miskin, 210. Imad. 76-77.]
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If Ahmad Shāh had been left to himself, he would have immediately gone back to Qandahār, in order to avoid the Indian summer which had killed off hundreds of his soldiers daily in 1757. His task in India was done by the middle of April ; he had annihilated the Maratha power in the North, slain Dattāji Sindhia, routed Malhar Holkar, captured Delhi, cleared the upper Doab of every enemy of the Ruhelas, and brought the Jāt Rajah to promise tribute. It only remained for him to confirm the work of his sword by inviting Shah Alam II to take the throne of Delhi with the loyal Shujā as his wazir. This expedition, unlike that of 1757, had brought in no rich tribute or booty, and the invader was hard pressed for money to feed his soldiers with. But Najib Khan begged him hard not to abandon the Indian Afghans to the mercy of the vast army that the Peshwā was sending to retrieve his prestige in the North ; he even contributed ten lakhs of Rupees in cash to meet Abdāli's war charges and also undertook to supply his army, if it remained in the Doāb, with provisions from his estates there and east of the Ganges. Thus it happened that as the rainy season approached, Abdāli made up his mind to go into cantonments near Aligarh. Here grass and bamboo huts were constructed for his army and tents were brought from the Delhi imperial stores by writing to his agent there, Yaqub Ali Khan. [DC. Nur-ud-din, 31-32a.] Each side now began to beat up for allies.
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From this camp Abdali sent Hāfiz Rahmat Khan to Mathurā (16th May) to settle terms with Suraj Mal, and if possible with the Marathas also. We have seen how this embassy failed through the blind greed of the Marathas, and Hāfiz returned to the Shah (c. 20 June.)