Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s14.4

v2.c27.s14.4

When Najib Khan on his diplomatic mission from Abdālī reached Qānauj on the Ganges, Shujā came to the opposite bank at Mahdiganj. An envoy of such exalted rank was entitled to the highest respect and attention on personal grounds. Najib waited on Shujā and presented Abdālī’s letter soliciting an alliance with him. In reply the Nawāb showed him the Bhāu’s letter which pointed out the friendship of the Peshwā with Shujā’s late father and urged the duty of the two to reinstate the Emperor of Delhi by expelling the foreign invader from India and giving the imperial Chancellorship to Shujā, as the ex-wazir’s son. Najib, on the other hand, pressed the Nawāb of Oudh to side with Ahmad Shah in this conflict between Islam and infidelity. Shujā was at first loth to commit himself, and proposed to remain neutral. He was a notorious profligate and drunkard, nursed in the lap of unimaginable luxury and extravagance from his childhood upwards, and he naturally preferred ease and enjoyment at Lucknow to the hardships of a campaign. His family feared lest Abdālī should still be harbouring vindictive feelings towards the House of Oudh for Safdar Jang’s victory over him at Manupur in 1748, or that the Durrānī nobles should insult him when he was once in their power. He was India-born, and such men are regarded with contempt by the natives of Persia and Afghanistan (vilāyet-zā.) Above all, he was a Shia, while the Abdālī was a Sunni champion. Therefore, life in the Abdālī camp threatened to be intolerable for him.