Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s27.5

v2.c27.s27.5

In the north-west, the Panjab was for ever lost to the Marathas. A race that could not stand fast and true as the watch on the Indus, had no moral right to rule that frontier province. At the end of the eleven years that followed Pānipat, while a Durrāni viceroy held Court at Peshāwar, central and eastern Panjab had been practically abandoned to the Sikhs, and Sarhind formally to Alā Singh’s successor, and these new masters would have been no more submissive to the Maratha intruders than to the Afghan. Nay more, the Sikhs rushed into the upper and north-middle Doab to fill the void caused by the eclipse of the Maratha power there during these eleven years, and by their annual raids left the land sucked dry for any Maratha army or tribute collector that might come after them.