Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s1.18

v2.c28.s1.18

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.”