Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s3: § 6. Govind Bundele’s raid near Najibabad fails
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s3
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§ 6. Govind Bundele’s raid near Najibabad fails
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The war thus dragged on indecisively during the height of the rains, throughout the three months of July, August and September. Then when the river level began to fall and the uppermost course of the Ganges became fordable, Dattāji (about 20 October) detached ten thousand horse under Govind Ballāl to cross the river a little below Hardwār (32 miles north of Shukartal) and make a raid upon Najībābād, where Najib had built a city and fort and lodged his family as well as those of his followers and their property. Its only defender was his son Zābita Khan with a handful of troops, as all the military resources of Najib had been concentrated at Shukartal. The Maratha hordes, descending from the north-west, swept away the feeble defence of Sakalgarh, a half-way fort, and burst into the environs of Najībābād, plundering and burning. There was no field army of the Ruhelas to oppose them. But the Afghan clansmen of Rohilkhand proper, came forward under Sadullah Khan (Ali Muhammad Ruhela’s successor), Dundi and Hāfiz Rahmat, and held Najībābād in full strength. So, the light raiders shrank from approaching the city, turned back from Jalālābād, 8 miles west of Najībābād, and swerved south-westwards to the bridgehead opposite Shukartal, ravaging the defenceless country on the way. They captured about a hundred horses and even destroyed two boats of the bridge,—no very serious damage.
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∗ Nur-ud-din, 23b-24b, TALS. 210a. The former asserts that from that day assault was stopped, but the latter says that two or three pitched battles took place. The latter gives 15 September as the date of the battle, and DC. 1st September (evidently a mistake for 15 September, as the news reached Delhi on 19 September acc. to DC.)
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Ten days passed in this way, and though Hāfiz Rahmat mediated for terms, Najib was not induced to abandon Shukartal for the defence of his home. During this raid the food supply of Shukartal was for a time cut off and wheat sold there at four seers a Rupee and the besieged mostly lived on peas boiled whole (ghughni) ; the Afghan garrison became alarmed for the safety of their families left behind in the threatened villages, and began to give way to bewilderment and despair. But their veteran chieftain held on with a grim tenacity of will and reassured them, saying, “Remember God. Ahmad Shah is coming. From the first day of the siege, I have set my heart on death. Whatever is destined will happen. Seek no other course than fight.” The military effect of Govind Ballāl’s raid was therefore nothing.
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Then, as the Maratha raiders, with no enemy in sight, were lying scattered and careless in fancied security, early one morning (c. 3 November) they were surprised by the vanguard of the Oudh army, 10,000 strong, under Umrao-gir and Anup-gir Gosain. Rumours about the approach of the main body of the Oudh army, (30,000 strong) under Shujā himself, magnified the terror felt by the raiders. They offered no resistance ; some fell under the enemy’s sword, but most took the direct road to the river, and missing the ford, about half of their number was drowned, while the rest, abandoning all their provisions baggage and spoils fled northwards and found safety only on reaching Dattāji’s camp, having “undergone great hardship and imminent risk to their lives,” as their leader Govind Ballāl wrote. Five thousand Oudh horse under Umaraogir rode into beleaguered Shukartal over the bridge of boats and afterwards took post at a fortified camp of their own a little to the south of that place.
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A few days after this, Shujā himself arrived on the opposite bank in full strength. The terror of the returned raiders infected the Maratha siege army. A rumour arose that Najib, thus reinforced and now secure about his eastern flank, was preparing to make a sortie. At the mere report of this, before a single enemy had been sighted, all the followers in the camps of the three Maratha generals crowded together and fled in uncontrollable confusion for eight miles to the rear. It was only when Dattāji overtook them after his morning reconnaissance that the panic was arrested and the army induced to halt.
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§ 7. Dattaji is compelled to raise siege of Shukartal.
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More alarming news now came from the west: Abdāli’s troops in overwhelming force had again entered the Panjāb, and the Maratha governor of Lahor, Sābāji Sindhia, bowing before the storm, was hurriedly escaping to Dattāji’s side after abandoning the Panjāb to the invaders. Who could say that the Afghans would stop at the Satlaj and not come to Delhi, as they had done in 1757?
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The fugitive governor of the Panjab arrived in the siege camp on 8th November. Dattāji was utterly bewildered. His work in the Panjab had been undone at one stroke, and his five months' siege of Shukartal had proved barren of any result except a heavy loss of men and money to him. And now, if Abdali occupied Delhi in his rear, with the unsubdued and reinvigorated Najib in his front, his own army would be crushed between the two enemy hosts. And yet he could not show his face at Puna if he retreated from Shukartal without realizing any indemnity. It was Jayapa's position before Nagor once again.
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Dattaji, therefore, held a council of war on 9th November, at which it was decided that the camp and baggage should be stationed at a safe distance, sixteen miles in the rear, while the general with his troops in light equipment should continue to hold the siege lines and present a bold front to the enemy. Shuja offered his good offices as a peacemaker, threatening to enter into the war on the side of Najib if any attempt was made to crush the Ruhela chieftain altogether. An indemnity of 25 lakhs was demanded from Najib, but no agreement was reached, and the war was resumed.
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Dattaji turned to securing allies. A Jat force of 5,000 men sent by Suraj Mal (under Rupram Kothari) joined him on 8th November. Ahmad Bangash, the Nawab of Farrukhabad, too, arrived about the same time. Fast camel-riders were sent to hasten the coming of Malhar from Rajputana. Envoys were despatched to Delhi to urge the wazir to go to the siege-camp and join in the attack on Najib, their common enemy. Dattaji wrote to Imad, "In what sleep of negligence are you sunk ?... I am engaged here in fighting at your request, and you are planning to flee away to Bharatpur !" His envoy was authorized to offer the wazir two lakhs for his travelling expenses if he would start for the Maratha camp. On 16th November, Imād took formal leave of the Emperor and went to Murādnagar on the eastern side of the Hindan, *en route* to Shukartal. Here he received definite news of the Afghan invaders having taken possession of the entire Panjab up to Sarhind and of the Marathas having everywhere fled away before them without striking a blow.
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§ 8. *Imad murders Alamgir II. and Intizam-ud-daulah.*
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Imād saw the danger of leaving the Emperor in Delhi, to be captured by Abdali and used as his tool against the wazir, as had been done in 1757. He got the harmless crowned puppet murdered on 29th November and his long powerless old rival Intizām-ud-daulah strangled the next day.
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Zafarullah Khan (the brother of Ubaidullah) at the command of Mahdi Quli Khan (the chief adviser of Imād) tempted the Emperor Alamgir II to visit the Kohtila of Firuz Shah, by falsely telling him that a very saintly darvish possessed of miracle-working power had come from Lahor and taken up his residence there. When in the afternoon the party from the palace reached the spot, the Emperor entered a chamber under one of the bastions of the Kohtila, the door of which was guarded by a party of Central Asian troops of Bālābāsh Khān, the wazir's captain. Only one eunuch was admitted with him and all his other attendants (including Prince Mirzā Bābā) were detained outside. Bālābāsh Khan stabbed the Emperor to death with his dagger, came outside, disarmed Mirzā Bābā, and seizing him by the wrist took him back to Delhi. The Central Asian troops plundered the horses and all other property of the imperial cortege, and flung the Emperor's corpse down on the river bank below the Kohtila, circulating a false story that he had died (like Humāyun two centuries ago) by an accidental fall from the wall of that ruined fort. The murder of Alamgir II was an insane and absolutely profitless crime, because, if Imād had spared that meekest of meek usurper's hoary head, it would not in any way have added to the number of his enemies, nor weakened his own strength, which was already reduced to nothing.
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Alamgir II was buried at midnight in Humāyun's tomb. Mirzā Bābā was kept under guard by Bālābāsh in the Delhi palace, without food or drink all that night. The next morning the regicides crowned Muhi-ul-millat, the son of Muhi-us-sunnat and grandson of Kām Bakhsh (the youngest son of Aurangzib), under the title of Shāh Jahān II. Intizām the ex-wazir and Mirzā Lutfullah Beg, when engaged in reading the fatiha prayer in their prison in the artillery office within the fort, were strangled by these foreign mercenaries of Imād, and their corpses were thrown into the Jamunā with heavy stones tied to their feet, from the Salimgarh gate. The murderers falsely gave it out that Intizām had secretly fled away. [*TALS.* 214a-215a. *DC.*] A reign of unrelieved weakness and misery for sovereign and subjects alike thus fittingly closed in a bloody sunset, amidst the ruin of the imperial family and the old nobility and invasion and chaos in the country. Even for the arch-traitor Imād, Delhi ceased to be a refuge after this.
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§ 9. *Dattaji's position at Shukartal becomes untenable.*
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Meantime Dattāji Sindhia had been dreaming the vain dream that when the Emperor and the wazir would arrive in his camp and strengthen his legal position with their prestige, he would detach a large force under that constant failure Govind Ballāl to Farrukhabad, with orders to absorb the feeble levies of the lame invalid Ahmad Bangash, throw a bridge over the Ganges at Farrukhabad, and sack and burn the Ruhela country east of that river. This was the very strategy that had failed at the end of October. But rumours about Shujā having decided to make a counter-attack by crossing the bridge below Shukartal and joining Najib, kept Dattāji in alarm and suspense and detained Govind Ballāl in his camp for some days. While the two sides were higgling for the amount of the war-indemnity, events moved apace. The murder of the Emperor hastened the advance of the justly incensed Abdali upon Delhi for punishing the traitors and rebels. In the past two months the Afghan hold upon the Panjab had been fully established, the Sikhs brought under control,—at least along the main route,—and the conqueror was free to cross the Satlaj in person. On 23rd November, five hundred troopers, stripped of all their clothing above the waist and all their baggage,—the sole remnant of the six thousand Maratha soldiers posted in Multan,—straggled into Dattāji’s camp, proving beyond any doubt that “a great disaster has befallen us.”*
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§ 10. Abdali defeats Sindhia near Thaneshwar and crosses into the Doab.
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There was nothing left for Dattāji now but to raise his futile siege (8th December.) He effected the withdrawal of his camp in safety, because Najib, with his smaller army, wisely abstained from tempting Fate by coming out of his trenches† and meeting the Maratha horse in the open before he could be reinforced by the invincible legions of Abdali. From Shukartal, by way of Muzaffarnagar, the Bārha Sayyids’ country, Dattaji marched northwards and crossed the Jamunā at Rāmra-ghat near Pānipat (c. 20 Dec.) Here he got the correct intelligence that Abdālī’s vanguard under Jahān Khan, Shāh Pasand Khan, and Abdus Samad Khan had entered the Banur and Chhat district (16 miles north of Ambālā city) on the 15th, and that their front skirmishers had occupied Ambālā and “were advancing, daily foraging right left and in front, beating the jungle and shouting for 20 or 30 miles on each hand.”
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∗ Letter of Govind Ballal, 24 Nov. [Raj. i. 146.] † We find Najib at Shukartal up to 16 Dec., if not later. SPD. ii. 114a. Dattaji after leaving Shukartal,—Raj. i. 147, 150, 157. SPD. ii. 109, 111 (at Kunjpura), xxvii. 243 (at Sonepat.) DC. Battle near Thaneshwar,—SPD. ii. 112 (= xxi. 178), 117. Nur-ud-din, 28a—29a. Husain Shahi, 49.
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From Ambālā the Maratha position at Kunjpurā was only 48 miles south south-east, and the first encounter with the enemy could not be delayed beyond four days. Dattājī immediately divided his army into two bodies; he kept with himself one corps of 25,000 chosen and dependable troops, under noted and well-mounted officers, all lightly equipped, without tent or heavy baggage. The second corps was placed under Jankoji as a support twenty miles to the rear with the artillery and Imād and his contingent, while the camps of the wazir and the Maratha generals were stationed still further behind for safety. Govind Ballāl, who had been given leave for Etāwa at the end of November and then detained in the upper Doāb with the main army, accompanied Jankoji, crossed at Kunjpurā on 22 December, and was charged with the duty of conducting the camp baggage and families back to the South in the case of a disaster in the field.
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This arrangement was completed on 22nd December, and Dattājī immediately advanced from Kunjpurā to seek the enemy out, while Jankoji with the baggage took the road to Karnāl.* The Afghan vanguard was 20,000 strong, but their movements were completely hidden by a wide-spread screen of skirmishers. After some preliminary brushes between the rival scouts, the first battle was fought on 24th December. The scene of this encounter was not far from the historic plain of Tarāori (south-east of Thāneshwar) where six centuries earlier the Hindu chivalry of Delhi had first confronted the invader from Afghanistan. The most advanced troops of the Marathas were 5,000 horse under Bhoité with a thousand Turkish auxiliaries from the wazir's contingent led by Md. Said Khan Qipchāq. They charged and swept back the hundred front skirmishers of Abdāli's army. The practised Afghan horsemen fell back fighting, while the Marathas, in the pride of ignorance, pursued them shouting in tumultuous disorder. At the first news of the conflict, Abdali had pushed up 4,000 horsemen from his vanguard under Shah Pasand Khan, and "at the sight of that famous general's banner, the Mughalia [i.e., Central Asian] troops of the wazir, who had often beheld battles with the Durrānis, slipped away." Shah Pasand opened a hot fire with his flint-locks in front, while a second squadron detached by Abdāli took the Marathas in flank. Bhoité was out-numbered outgeneralled and outclassed in weapons, and fled away utterly broken, after giving up four hundred of his men to slaughter. Their heads were severed and carried away to Abdāli, as the first fruits of his victory. Dattāji himself then rode up to the battlefield, and saw the headless trunks of his soldiers strewing the ground. But by this time the short winter day had come to a close, the battle which had lasted a little over two hours could not be renewed, and each side fell back on its own camp with twenty miles between. It was the first clear defeat of the Marathas in an open engagement.
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∗ Dattaji's plan was "to come face to face with the enemy, watch their tactics and strength and then decide whether to fight immediately or follow Fabian tactics. He would take his own steps according to the indications of Abdali's plan of war." SPD. ii. 109.
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Next morning (25th December) when the dust-screen lifted over the country, it was found that during the preceding night Abdāli with all his troops had forded the Jamunā near Buriā (18 m. n.w. of Saharanpur) and entered the Doāb. By moving along the foot of the Himalayas and striking the river shortly after its outflow from the hills, he had secured the easiest crossing possible. Najib, with whom he had been in constant correspondence and who had pressed this move upon him by letters, had already started from Shukartal and now joined his protector near Saharanpur. The Afghan invader and his Indo-Afghan ally marched down the east bank of the Jamunā towards Delhi. Najib acted as the guide; he had his own revenue collector at every town in the upper Doāb, and the invader's food supply was assured.
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§ 11. Dattāji falls back towards Delhi; his defence plan.
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Thus Dattāji found that while his front was blocked by the Afghan conquest of the Panjāb and Sarhind, his right flank was uncovered by the enemy’s occupation of the entire Doāb. The invaders might easily cross over to the western bank at Delhi, or further south near Mathurā, and cut into the Maratha rear. Dattāji quickly fell back upon Delhi, in order to avoid the very trap in which the Bhau was caught ten months later. Leaving Kunjpurā on 27th December, he reached Sonepat on the 29th and halted there for five days to observe the enemy. The wazir re-entered his mansion in Delhi on 28 December and set about entrenching the eastern face of the capital along the bank of the Jamunā. Ahmad Shah Abdali, who had now been joined also by Hāfiz Rahmat Khan, Dundi Khan, Mullā Sardār, Sadullah Khan and other Ruhela chieftains of Rohilkhand proper, encamped at Luni, six miles north-east of Delhi, on the other side of the Jamunā. So, Dattā fell back from Sonepat to Barāri, some ten miles north of Delhi, on 4th January 1760.
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The Maratha chief now prepared for the worst. He was clearly outnumbered; his enemy’s strength was daily growing by Indian adhesions, while his own followers had been thoroughly demoralized by the severe handling they had received at Tarāori and their constant retreats without one victory over Najib or the Durrānis. Reinforcements under Malhar, which had been urgently called for, would take at least a fortnight to join him. On 6th January Dattāji paid a visit to Delhi and started his camp, heavy baggage, accumulated spoils of a year's campaigning, and the families of himself and his officers,—including his pregnant wife Bhāgirathi Bāi,—for Rewari under proper escort. Thus freed from anxiety about his non-combatants and camp impediments, Dattaji set his face to the fight in the same formation as before,—himself with the light division of picked troops taking the front line, while Jankoji stayed some miles behind with the rest of the troops and the barely necessary baggage.
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The fog of war hid the entire eastern bank of the Jamunā, where the Marathas had not a single friend or news-reporter. There was no knowing what step Abdāli would take next, or where he would cross the river. The Maratha general posted small parties to watch the fords of the Jamunā; seven hundred men under Sābāji holding the Barāri-ghāt, nearest to Dattāji's own position, with other bands at two or three places further down the river and nearer Delhi. In the depth of winter the river level was at its lowest and the Jamunā opposite Barāri had been parted into two channels by a broad island; the main volume of its water flowed by the eastern bed, while a shallow stream running along the western or Delhi bank had dried and left a marshy nālā behind it. The island was covered with a jungle of the *jhāu* shrub and tall reed-bushes, “so dense that one horseman could not see another” in it.
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§ 12. Battle of Barāri-ghāt ; Dattāji slain.*
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Here Sābāji was surprised at his post on 9th January 1760. Najib crossed the river unperceived and arrived at the western side of the island about three hours after daybreak, his own Ruhelas leading the van and the Durrāni supports bringing up the rear. The island was impossible for cavalry action ; the Ruhela chiefs came mounted on elephants, with their light artillery (swivel-guns) tied to the sides of these beasts for convenience of crossing. To the Maratha patrol at the Barāri-ghāt, the sky above the *jhāu* bushes on the western edge of the island suddenly became alive with the fluttering pennons of the Indo-Afghan infantry, every officer of which, however humble, carried a banner of his own. Sābāji immediately engaged the enemy, but was driven back by the pressure of numbers and the dominance of musketry fire over sword and spear, across the *nālā* to the Barāri side, with heavy slaughter. He had waged this losing combat for an hour, when reinforcements came up from the rear, three miles away, under Dattāji himself, to restore the battle. The new-comers charged at the gallop and forced the victorious Ruhelas back over the *nālā*. A small band of Marathas advanced before the rest and pressed the counter-attack to the very edge of the island. At their head rode a very dark short and thickset man, barely forty years of age, who was foremost in darting his spear at the enemy. This seasoned warrior could no more restrain himself amidst the din of battle than an old war-horse that hears the trumpet note to charge. He was too good a target to be missed by the Ruhela sharpshooters lying concealed among the *jhāu* bushes with loaded muskets. As his horse was ploughing its way up the loose sand on the further bank of the *nālā*, the Afghan *jizails* rang out at point-blank range and Dattāji fell down with a bullet through his eye.* With him fell many of his brave companions. At this psychological moment, Najib charged with fresh troops into the mingled mass of Afghan infantry and Maratha horsemen in the bed of the *nala*. Once again the tide of battle turned against the Deccanis ; they fled away giving up their chieftain's body to crows and jackals ; Sābāji's entire contingent was destroyed, though he himself escaped. As Dattaji lay on the ground, Miān Qutb Shah cut his head off and took it to Abdali.
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∗ Last battle of Dattaji,—Raj. i. 156, 165, ii. p. 154 (list of the slain.) *SPD.* ii. 114, xxi. 181, 182, 185, xxvii. 247. *Muz.* 176. *Husain Shahi*, 50-51. *Nur-ud-din*, 29b-31a (very useful.) Miskin, 203.
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Roused by the fatal news, Jankoji hurried up with the reserve and tried to renew the fight. But there was no heart left among his troops. The Maratha army, 20,000 strong, stood in the background, looking at the fate of their vanguard, without venturing to advance to their support. Jankoji himself pushed on, but the story of spear against musket was repeated. After an hour and a half of renewed conflict, he received a bullet through the fleshy part of his upper arm and was dragged out of the field by his followers. The Maratha army now totally broke and fled towards Delhi; "the enemy gave chase and there was a heavy slaughter." Imād left Delhi for Bharatpur on hearing of the ruin of his ally.
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∗ According to Nur-ud-din, 30b. But Raj. i. 165 has 'in the neck.' Purushottam M. Hingané at the same time received a bullet in his thigh. *SPD*. ii. 114.