Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s17.12

v2.c27.s17.12

The news of Govind Ballāl's advance up the Doab had spread consternation among the Indo-Afghan allies of Ahmad Shah for the safety of their defenceless homes. At their entreaty the Shah had detached the above force, to make a rapid march with their fresh horses and cut Govind Ballāl's division off. The two generals crossed the Jamunā at Bāghpat and after covering 160 miles in one night and day, reached Shāhdara about 4 o'clock in the evening of 16th December, and at once annihilated the Maratha outpost there (under Nāro Shankar's deputy.) Early next morning they destroyed the second Maratha corps at Ghāziābād, and followed this victory up by immediately pushing on ten miles northwards to Jalalabad and surprising Govind Ballāl, "who was totally off his guard." That general had alighted at this village, which had been sacked by his troops a day or two earlier and now lay utterly deserted by its inhabitants. He was engaged in his ceremonial bath and preparations for personal cooking, when the Afghan cavalry burst upon him in overwhelming force. After a short feeble resistance the Marathas, hopelessly outnumbered and outridden, took to flight. Their half-naked general fell down from his horse, with a bullet wound (according to Bālkrishna Dikshit's letter from Benares), and was beheaded before his rank could be known. When it was learnt, the head was taken to Abdali by the returning victors, exposed in the market-place of the Durrāni camp, and finally sent to the Bhāu, as a triumphant proof of the downfall of his plan. On the sandy plain outside Jalalabad, Govind Ballāl Bundélé at last found that peace which had been denied to him in life. No more for him the jealous accusations of Antāji Mānakeshwar, the backbiting of Bāpuji M. Hingané, the confiscation of his estates by the Peshwā, the persecution of his caste-brethren by the Punā Brāhmans, and the last eight months' constant nagging censure and prodding into activity by Sadāshiv Rao Bhāu. Even the blackening of his memory by the Chitpāvan partisan V. K. Rājwadé was to come a century and a half later. His son Bālāji escaped from the carnage with a handful of men of the family contingent. Everything in the two Maratha camps including the vast stores of provisions which this force was convoying for the Bhāu, was carried off by the Afghans. "After this action, the Durrāni army was constantly supplied with provisions."