Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s1: § 1. Ahmad Shah Abdali's doings in India after Panipat
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s1
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§ 1. Ahmad Shah Abdali's doings in India after Panipat
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From 10th October 1760, when Sadāshiv Rao Bhāu deposed the wazir's puppet Shah Jahan II and proclaimed Shah Alam II Emperor in Delhi, to the 6th of January 1772, when Shah Alam rode into the capital of his fathers for the first time as sovereign, the imperial city was widowed of her lord. True, throughout this long interval of over eleven years, there always lived in Delhi a recognized vicar of the Emperor in the person of his eldest son Mirzā Jawān Bakht, with the title of Wali Ahad or Heir; but the Emperor himself was sighing out his days in exile at Allahabad or elsewhere in the territory of the Nawab of Oudh, unable to control the administration of the realm from its centre. This eclipse of royalty coincides almost exactly with the noontide splendour of Najib Khan's career as the virtual dictator of Delhi and the supreme regulator of the affairs of what still remained of the Mughal empire. Only fourteen months separate the death of Najib (31 Oct. 1770) from the return of Shah Alam to Delhi. Therefore, the history of the centre of the Mughal empire can be best studied as a part of the life-story of Najib-uddaulah, even though he very seldom resided in the city of Delhi during these ten years.
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The day after his greatest victory, Ahmad Shah Abdali visited the city of Pānipat, dressed in a splendid robe on which glittered the costly jewels (including the Kohinur) taken away by Nadir Shah from the Delhi palace and seized by Ahmad Shah during the plunder of his murdered master’s camp. He made a pilgrimage to the tomb of the saint Bu Ali Qalandar and there knelt down in thanksgiving to the God of Hosts for His crowning mercy. He soon set out for Delhi, which he entered a fortnight after the battle (on 29th January, 1761.) *
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Throughout the last three months, “a feeling as of death had settled upon that unhappy city from rumours of the Shah’s coming,” and on his arrival “grain became extremely dear.” Its Maratha governor Nāro Shankar, had found his position untenable as soon as the news of the disaster to the Bhāu’s army reached Delhi. The Muslim mob assembled and engaged in plunder without fear or check ; every fugitive from Pānipat was stripped of his all. But, thanks to the grateful support of the ex-Empress Zinat Mahal, Nāro Shankar issued from the city with his property and family without molestation, except for being forced to pay up the dues of the Abyssinian qiladar Habsh Khan and his garrison. He presented 3½ lakhs of Rupees in cash, besides costly articles of the Deccan to the Queen-mother; much dispersed property which he could not collect and carry away in his hurry, came into the imperial treasury.
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∗ Abdali after Panipat.—Kashiraj, DC. Ghulam Ali, ii. 186-188. Wendel 83. SPD. ii. 142, xxi. 202.
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Then the Durrani army entered the city and engaged in seizing property "beyond imagination." Habsh Khan was squeezed out of 10,000 gold coins. The Queen-mother welcomed the victor by advancing with the Heir to Narela, 12 kos north of Delhi, and presenting one lakh of Rupees to him and half a lakh to his wazir.
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During February and the first half of March, Ahmad Shah occupied the Delhi palace, living with his wives in the rooms set apart for Mumtaz Mahal in the reign of Shah Jahan, and holding Court in the famous Diwān-i-khās. After the hardships of the last fifteen months of campaigning and privation, he gave himself and his army up to pleasure and repose for some time in the imperial city.
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But his peace was disturbed by the mutiny of his Durrani troops who clamoured for their pay,—now two years in arrear,—and also insisted on being immediately led back to their mountain home, as they would not spend another summer on the Indian plains. Najib was called upon to pay the cost of his deliverance from the Maratha menace by Durrani arms. He tried hard to shift the burden from his own shoulders by presenting Nāgar Mal the envoy of the Jat Rajah (21st Feb.) and opening negotiations for the payment of a tribute by that prince in return for Abdali’s forgiveness. But the Queen-mother Zinat Mahal hated Suraj Mal as the protector and ally of her husband’s murderer and she knew from the past that Suraj Mal was only playing to gain time and would pay nothing unless compelled by force. So, she induced the Durrani wazir to dismiss the Jat envoy with a direct refusal. On 8th March, Shah Wali Khan, with Prince Jawan Bakht and Zinat Mahal, set out for Agra in order to put pressure on Suraj Mal; but the Durrani soldiers refused to march to the Mathura region where they had daily lost hundreds of their brethren from cholera in this very month of March only four years ago. The increasing disorder among his troops compelled Ahmad Shah to decide on a prompt return to Afghanistan and he recalled his wazir. In the meantime, a riot had broken out between Shuja’s Shia followers and the Shah’s Sunni troops, and the Nawab of Oudh, in high anger at this return for his valued assistance during the late war with the Marathas, left for his province on 7th March. On the 13th of that month the Shah began preparations for his retreat. Leaving Delhi city on 20th March he halted for two days in the Shalimar garden north-west of the city, and began his return march on the 22nd, reaching Ambala on the 27th. A Maratha letter reports that there was a three days’ plunder of Delhi by his retreating troops.
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§ 2. How Najib became regent of Delhi.
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The Durrani king's parting instructions were that Shah Alam should be recognized as Emperor, Imad reappointed wazir and Najib Mir Bakhshi, and that these two ministers should bury their old hostility and work in friendly co-operation and singleness of devotion to their master's interests. But a river of blood lay between Shah Alam and Imad, and the opportunist Najib used this fact to secure his own elevation as regent of the empire for the next ten years. He wrote to the Queen-mother that if Imad returned to Delhi and resumed charge of the government, he would set Shah Alam and his branch of the royal family aside and set up a crowned puppet of his own like the late Shah Jahan II. So, the Heir issued a rescript calling upon Najib to come and take charge of the capital. Thus, while Imad, after receiving the wazir's robe from Abdali's agent was delaying at Mathura to assemble his Jat escort and "building castles in the air," Najib stole a march over him, came to Luni, and was brought over to Delhi by the Crown Prince (7th April), the two seated on the same elephant.* This move checkmated Imad; his sole supporter Suraj Mal, when faced with the accomplished fact, refused to instal Imad in the wazirship as it now meant an attack upon Delhi.
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∗ Nur. 54b-55b. DC. SPD. ii. 144. There are two lives of Najib in Persian, one (extremely well-written) by Sayyid Nur-ud-din Hasan Khan (afterwards Sir C. W. Malet's *munshi*) composed probably in 1773 (Br. Mus. Pers. MS. 24,410), and the other by Bihari Lal, the *munshi* of Najib, written in 1787.
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Najib became the official head of the army of the empire (*Mir Bakhshi*), governor (*faujdār*) of the metropolitan district, and regent (*mukhtār*) of the imperial administration. "In the whole city his men were installed in the offices of tax collection, control of the grain market, &c. His agent was posted at the gate of the palace-fort as its commandant. Shah Alam ratified the arrangement." Najib put a garrison of some six thousand men in Delhi, and held the capital by means of a trusty lieutenant such as his brother (Afzal or Sultan Khan) or his son Zābita Khan, who governed it. This work Zabita discharged very ably and pleased every one, especially the traders, by his strict justice, suppression of robbery, and sympathy with the people in their distress. [Nur 98b].
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§ 3. *Abdali's attempt to conclude peace with the Peshwa and Suraj Mal fails.*
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Ahmad Shah Abdali, like a wise statesman, wished to leave behind him an agreed peace among all the Powers of India: he himself would keep the Panjab from the Satlaj westwards and content himself with an annual tribute of 40 lakhs of Rupees for the rest of the Mughal empire, payable by the minister who would wield the regency of Delhi. As for the Marathas,* during several years after Panipat Abdali persisted in the attempt to placate the Peshwa; he wrote repeatedly to his Delhi agent, Yaqub Ali, to go to the Peshwa and beg him to excuse the Durrani king for the slaughter of his son and cousin at Panipat, as Ahmad Shah had no intention of fighting them, but the Bhau had begun the offensive and forced the Shah to take up arms in self-defence. The envoy was instructed to assure the Puna Court that the Maratha-Durrani boundary as now settled by negotiation would be scrupulously respected, and that all the Indian Powers would have Abdali’s blessing in supporting Shah Alam on the Delhi throne and letting the regular government of the empire start again.
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∗ Abdali and the Peshwa after Panipat,—Raj. vi. 382, 384, 423,
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In short, Abdali’s sole interest in India was to get his tribute punctually year after year, without having to send an Afghan army for its collection. It was, therefore, necessary for him that the *status quo* should be maintained in Hindustan, the Ruhelas secured from molestation, and the Marathas induced to come to terms with the Durrani and Shah Alam and not to disturb the Delhi administration and cut off its revenue resources as they had done by their invasions in the past. Such a live and let live policy was the most sensible and business-like plan at the time, if only the Peshwa could be induced to let bygones be bygone and to curb his ambition within the bounds of what was realizable. The Maratha failure to do this shows that they had not a single statesman among them and that by trying to grasp all they were destined to lose all in the end.
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⁴²⁵ *DC. SPD.* xxi. 202 (completed by ii. 103.) xxvii. 272. ii. 145, 146. xl. 141, 142. xxix. 10.
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Yaqub Ali Khan, by Abdali's order, left Delhi on 9th April with the robe and jewelled pen-case appertaining to the office of imperial wazir, for delivering them to Imad at Mathura. On the 19th the envoy was presented to Suraj Mal. Long consultations were held by these three, as well as Tatya Gangadhar (Holkar's diwān) and Bāpu M. Hinganē (the Peshwā's resident wakil at Delhi), for settling a peace between the Shah and the Peshwā and restoring the normal administration of the country. Envoys of the trans-Ganges Ruhelas and of Ahmad Bangash and Shujā-ud-daulah too arrived to join in this peace congress. But nothing came of it, partly because with a dying Peshwa on the throne the Maratha State was headless, but mainly because Suraj Mal and Imad were bent upon setting Najib aside and asserting their own authority over the imperial dominions without a partner. A lasting peace with Abdali and Najib was the last thing that they desired. Imad and Tatya Gangadhar prevented Yaqub Ali from going to the Peshwa and settling the peace terms and the boundary question by direct negotiation with him, and asked the envoy to conclude the discussion at Mathura. The envoy protested that the Shah's order was for him to go to Puna, placate the Peshwa by offering condolences for the slaughter at Pānipat, ascertain his demands and make terms then and there. But in view of Balaji Rao’s mental derangement and imminent death, he was detained at Mathura and the congress broke up after two months of futile talk.
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Yaqub Ali was a mere courier of the Shah’s message; he could undertake nothing on his own responsibility. So, he plainly told Imad that his task was over with the handing of the wazir’s insignia to the latter and that Imad must make himself the *de facto* head of the Delhi government by his own strength. Suraj Mal was now by far the most powerful prince in India, with absolutely unimpaired forces and an overflowing treasury. The recent two years’ Afghan-Maratha contest had left him quite untouched. In the visible decay of all other Powers in North India, he wished, with Imad as his tool and the cloak of legality which Imad’s office of wazir could throw over all his undertakings, to seize the actual government of the empire and wrest the neighbouring provinces from the Ruhelas the Bangash and Shuja in the name of the Emperor but keep them himself “under a veil.”
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The Oudh and Afghan envoys assembled at Mathura were indignant and replied, “If you want us to give up our lands only in order to lease them to the Jat, we shall not surrender them.” The natural result was that the negotiations broke down, the par-Ruhelas, though jealous and afraid of Najib, were antagonized towards Imad, and the titular wazir’s hope of ousting Najib from Delhi entirely disappeared. Suraj Mal bluntly refused to fight Najib single-handed for the sake of Imad. He had a most precious fruit close at hand, ripe for the plucking. On 12th June he captured Agra fort by bribery, after less than a month’s blockade. Najib had come back from Sonepat to Delhi for the Id prayer of 6th May, which he attended seated side by side with the Crown Prince on the same elephant. Now, on hearing of Suraj Mal’s design against Agra, he at first talked of marching out with the prince to the relief of that fort. But after taking a muster of the troops available at Delhi (9th May), he wisely shrank from a war with the Jat myriads, and left Delhi on 14th June with a view to establishing his revenue control over the Sonepat district, now that the country south of Delhi was hopelessly lost to the empire from Suraj Mal’s occupation of Agra fort.
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§ 4. Survey of Najib Khan’s career from 1761.
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This is a convenient point for taking a bird’s-eye view of the rest of Najib’s career. The Panipat campaign had left him without a rival in the Delhi Government and supreme in authority and influence in the north, though grievously weakened by the heavy slaughter of his trained soldiery during the long warfare and the draining of his resources through the payment of money subsidies to Abdali and the supply of provisions to his army from his Doab estates for over a year. On the other hand, the Jat Rajah was now the strongest and richest potentate in India. Najib wisely shrank from a trial of strength with Suraj Mal. His ambition was therefore strictly limited to the country north and west of Delhi and his old jagirs in the upper Doab and Rohilkhand, besides such former Maratha acquisitions in the middle Doab as he could easily seize. Further down the Doab, *i.e.*, roughly south of a line drawn west to east through Delhi, the Jat Power now expanding without fear or check impinged upon Najib’s possessions and precipitated a deadly conflict which was to dominate Delhi’s external politics till February 1765. After Najib’s potent diplomacy and still more potent gold had enabled him in that month to finally checkmate the new Jat Rajah and turn his hostile designs to other quarters, the Ruhela chief’s ceaseless preoccupation to the very end of his days was with the Sikhs. In spite of some signal victories gained by him in the field, this eternal trouble wore his strength and resources out, desolated and beggared his Doab jagirs, and converted the northernmost Doab and the sub-Himalayan tract facing it on the west bank of the Jamuna,—*i. e.*, the Ambala district,—practically into Sikh dominion.
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In this perennial contest, it was only by hard marching, hard fighting, and the relentless sacrifice of everything else to the supreme military need, that Najib could prevent his principality from dissolving and the Sikhs annexing its fragments. But the end was, all the same, the devastation of his lands and the insecurity of the roads every year. At the same time a life of strenuous exertion was telling upon his health, and illness began to sap his vitality from 1763 onwards. After 1764, his patron and potent supporter, Ahmad Shah Abdali, became too much entangled in civil wars at home, the mutiny of his troops, the irrepressible upspring of the Sikh nation and latterly his own illness, to come to Najib’s rescue. Najib was thenceforth thrown entirely upon his own resources. But the folly and failure of Jawahir Singh made Najib safe at home, except for the Sikhs, from March 1765 onwards, as the debacle of Pānipat had removed the Maratha menace from him for a decade after 1761.
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No doubt, this peace was mainly a pure gift of Fortune, but it was rightly deserved by his marvellous diplomatic tact, political insight, masterly handling of his resources, and power of seizing every opportunity with unfailing skill and prevision. He utilized this respite from war to aggrandize his own power and create a strong and spacious domain of his own, without a thought for the interests of his nominal master, which Najib as an intensely practical man must have perceived to be hopeless.
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Secure from the dread of any enemy attack northwards up to the Sarhind border, and, after Jawahir’s decisive repulse early in 1765, equally safe southwards to Ballabhgarh, Najib turned to imposing his authority upon the ever-refractory landlords of the North Delhi region, and then expanded his possession and rule over the Hansi-Hisar districts immediately west of the above tract. Southwest of Delhi lay the Baluch settlements in the modern Rohtak district,—such as Jhajhar, Bahadurgarh, Farrukhnagar and Tauru,—the petty barons of which, as his brother-Muslims and fellow trans-Border men, clung to Najib for protection against the growing menace of the Jat expansion through Mewat towards them. "The parganahs of Hariana,—such as Gohana, Rohtak, Dadri, &c.—came into Najib's possession. The Baluch zamindars of that district became obedient to him,"—Musavi Khan of Farrukhnagar joining him with a force of over 2,000 men. "Day by day Najib's power increased. From the faujdari of Saharanpur he realized 75 lakhs of Rupees [a year.] In the Doab places like Mirat, Sikandrabad, Dasna, Baghpat &c., and seven mahals belonging to the Marathas, came into his possession." [Nur. 55b-56a. SPD. ii. 144.)
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Najib's Baluch protegees formed a line of defence along the south-western frontier of his domain; but this very fact made a war to the death between him and the Jat Rajah inevitable, as we shall see in Chapter 23. The middle Doab also formed a debatable land between him and the Jats who had crossed the Jamunā, recovered their possessions lost to Abdali in March 1759, and rushed in to fill the void caused by the late Maratha withdrawal from that region. Like a wise man of business, Najib seized the substance of power in the Delhi Government, leaving it to Imad and Shuja to fight over the title of wazir—now reduced to a mere shadow, without the least significance in Indian politics. He extended his own sway over the three regions described above and confirmed it beyond challenge by the ruthless sack and massacre of two prominent villages,—Buāna and Bhiwāni,—which struck as much terror and were as effective in cowing all opposition throughout the country, as Cromwell’s massacres at Drogheda and Waterford. With his immense income from the land, he set himself to build a new capital of his own at Najibabad—adorned with splendid mansions, mosques, etc.—and a strong fort at Pathargarh.
Linked texts (2)
- Bayān-i wāqiʿ — Khwāja ʿAbd al-Karīm Kashmīrī 1780, Persian
- Selections from the Peshwa Daftar — Marathi