Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s10: § 4. Origin of the Jat kingdom; the initial difficulties of Badan Singh

Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s10

Language
English

§ 4. Origin of the Jat kingdom; the initial difficulties of Badan Singh

v2.c28.s10.1

The creation of the kingdom of Bharatpur out of nothing is the achievement of two of the greatest Indian statesmen of the 18th century, as its ruin was the work of a single personality of the opposite character who succeeded them on the throne. The story of that rise can be unfolded in full detail from contemporary records in Persian French and Marathi.*

v2.c28.s10.2

In the declining days of Aurangzib, while the Emperor was absent in the Deccan for a quarter century and all his best officers and troops were concentrated there, individual Jat village headmen, like Rājārām, Bhajjā and Churāman, led predatory bands of their clansmen to rob the royal highway from Delhi to the South and even the suburbs of the capital city of Agra. But these risings, however successful at first in causing loss and mischief, had been ultimately suppressed by the imperial Government through the house of Jaipur. Up to the middle of the 18th century there was as yet no Jat State, no politically united Jat nation, no Jat king standing clearly above the other village headmen or even recognized as first among equals; but only a robber leader whose success had drawn to his banners many of his peers in social status as partners in his adventures and plunder. But even this small beginning of a tribal organization and foundation of a State was totally destroyed when in 1721 Sawai Jai Singh captured Churāman’s stronghold of Thun, Churaman committed suicide, and his sons Zulkaran and Muhakam Singh were turned out to till the soil or to wander over the face of the earth. The Jat levies raised and held together by Churaman; after escaping the slaughter of the battle-field, had been dispersed to their homes and forced to turn their swords into ploughshares. The city of Thun itself was ploughed by asses under orders of the victor, to make it an accursed soil, unfit to serve again as a seat of royalty. The work of Rajaram and Churaman left no trace behind it, and their successor had to begin everything from the very foundations.

v2.c28.s10.3

∗ My internal history of the house of Bharatpur to 1767 unless otherwise stated is based upon Father Francis Xavier Wendel's French account in India Office Libr. Orme MSS., O. V. 216 No. 2 and India XV. No. 11. For the earlier Jat chiefs, see my History of Aurangzib, vols. iii and v. and W. Irvine's Later Mughals, vol. i., Almost all the sources except SPD have been used in K. R. Qanungo's History of the Jats.

v2.c28.s10.4

This great work of construction was done by Badan Singh, the son of Churaman’s brother Bhāo Singh, in the face of almost insuperable obstacles, both from within and without. The Jat people had no tribal cohesion; every village head or leader of a small group of related families stood in proud isolation, recognizing no superior within the clan. Their government, if it could be so called, was a republic of aristocrats, too numerous to be called an oligarchy. The hope of plunder might lure them to join one among themselves (such as Churaman), not as his followers, but as his equal partners in a joint-stock enterprise; they would not take their orders from him in peace times, nor link their estates with his to form a tribal kingdom. Shortly after the death of Churaman, his son and successor Muhakam Singh was turned out by the leading men of the clan, who repudiated his authority, and the nascent political society of the Jats seemed about to dissolve when Badan Singh stepped in and took the thorny seat vacated by his cousin.

v2.c28.s10.5

At the outset the prospect was almost hopeless for Badan Singh. The position of a recognized political chieftain had yet to be created among a scattered race of peasants, who knew no other leader than the head of each family, and every such family head considered himself as perfectly equal to any other head and refused obedience to him. Even within his own family group, namely the Sinsania branch of the Jats, Badan Singh was not the undisputed head, as Zulkaran and Muhakam, the dispossessed heirs of its eldest line, were alive and ever on the look out for overthrowing him and recovering their patrimony with outside aid. The heads of all the other families clung to their independence as long as possible. We see this social condition vividly illustrated in the Jat Court-poet's description of the tribal contingents that followed Suraj Mal in his battles. The list reads exactly like the separate quotas of ships and men sent by the various independent cities of Greece in support of Agamemnon, in Book II of Iliad. [Sujān Charitra, pp. 75, 184.] War and plunder was their only bond of union.

v2.c28.s10.6

§ 5. Badan Singh's reign and policy.

v2.c28.s10.7

For uniting these scattered atoms, Badan Singh had, at first, no superior armed force, no recognized higher status, no hoarded wealth. But with matchless cunning, tireless patience, and wise versatility in the choice of means, he attained to complete triumph at the end of a long life. First of all, he followed the path of suppleness in getting into the good graces of Sawai Jai Singh, the conqueror of Thun, and securing him as a protector. His manners were so humble and submissive and his conduct so obliging, in contrast with the usual rude character of the Jats, that Jai Singh was quite won over and began to take a special delight in favouring this man whom he had raised from the dust and whose greatness he felt would shed reflected lustre on his patron. Jai Singh bestowed on Badan the *tika*, the *nishān*, the kettle-drum, the five-coloured flag, and the title of *Braja-rāj* (or lord of the holy land of Mathura)* so as to give him authority among the Jats at home and to entitle him to greater respect abroad. But in spite of his getting these insignia of feudatory princes, Badan very astutely abstained from assuming the title of Rajah and throughtout life styled himself only *Thakur* or baron and represented himself publicly as a mere vassal of the Rajah of Jaipur.

v2.c28.s10.8

Thanks to Sawai Jai Singh, Badan was installed in a higher position than any of his predecessors, and he soon translated that position into the reality of sovereign power. At first he set himself very cunningly to join together the richer among his people under his newly acquired authority. He tolerated neither the very rich nor the very great, but made himself master of the lands and goods of those who had hitherto been the chief men of his clan, reducing them to the level of the common Jats. Thus, in a short time he became the sole lord of all the domains and wealth which had so long lain dispersed among the Jat village headmen. From a zamindar, Badan Singh became shortly a petty Rajah, strong enough to be obeyed at home and feared abroad. During the administrative disorder caused by the Sayyid brothers' usurpation of power at Delhi, the Jats continued their robbery and rebellion in a more intense form than before, because Badan Singh was more powerful, his bands more numerous more hardy more sustained and doing more widespread and irremediable harm than the Jats under Churaman or Rajaram. Besides a large force of infantry, whom he had engaged little by little, he formed a considerable corps of cavalry of whom one portion was employed in robbing the plains, the royal road to Delhi and the environs of Agra, and the remainder in extending his territory in the neighbourhood. In proportion as he gained territory, he increased his army.

v2.c28.s10.9

∗ The entire country of Braja (Mathura) was never subject to him, but only a small fraction on the west. It was Suraj Mal who afterwards made himself little by little master of the whole of it. [Wendel.]

v2.c28.s10.10

Badan Singh's immense expenditure on forts, cities, palaces and parks, indicated the great value of his booty. It was most probable that he had discovered either by chance or from some key handed down from father to son a big hoard of the buried treasure of his ancestors, for burying one’s wealth underground was the universal practice among the Jats.

v2.c28.s10.11

Taking advantage of the internal dissensions in the Delhi Government, the Jats began to fortify their villages in large numbers and furnish them with munitions and provisions for long defence. In the place of Thun, Sansani, Soghor and other old forts which had been demolished by the imperialists before his time, Badan Singh founded four new forts, Dig, Kumbher, Bharatpur and Ver. By bribing the wazir Qamr-ud-din, he silenced all complaints made against these military preparations at the Court of the Emperor. When next Sawai Jai Singh obtained the governorship of the Agra province, the Jats had more leisure and more liberty to do as they had always done. Jai Singh officially entrusted to the Jat chief the patrolling of the king’s highways to Agra, Delhi, Jaipur &c. and the collection of the transit duties on them, in the hope of turning him back from rapine. Jai Singh’s deputy and actual administrator of the Agra province was a villain and a close ally of Badan Singh; he was the man most suitable for the enterprises of the Jats, who roamed freely over the province, demolishing houses, gardens and mosques, disfiguring them for the sake of a knob of copper, a piece of marble or a bit of iron. Every gate, stone slab, and beam was carried off from these old edifices to the places which the Jats were then building. At the same time these tribesmen, in bands of two to three hundred each armed with sword and musket, carrying hatchets and torches in their hands and blowing their trumpets, broke into the houses of the rich, which they had previously divided among themselves and carefully noted where the owner was not in a position to offer resistance. The invasion of Nādir Shah led to a sudden and vast expansion of the Jat power and dominions ;* Badan Singh became master of the environs of the two capitals, completed his forts and began new ones in the lands he had recently annexed. All these forts were put in a strong posture of defence, being armed with an infinite number of small pieces of artillery acquired by plunder or purchase and larger pieces cast by himself, as well as provisions. One contemporary writer hardly exaggerates when he says that the walls of Kumbher were lined with guns with no interval between them. These forts were known to be impregnable in the India of that age.

v2.c28.s10.12

But, in spite of his wealth and military strength, Badan Singh always declined the Emperor's invitation to visit his Court, saying that he was no noble but a mere peasant! He did homage solely to the Rajah of Jaipur, acknowledging himself as that Rajah’s vassal and attending his Dasahara darbar every year till old age curtailed his movements. Outside Jaipur he built a mansion, garden and other houses for himself, at a village assigned to him by Sawai Jai Singh and named Badan-pura after him.

v2.c28.s10.13

∗ As in the parallel case of the Sikhs, but with a very important difference. The Jat expansion was made easier and more rapid by the fact of their being (unlike the Sikhs) always on the side of the Emperor and his ministers and sharing in his campaigns along with the old nobility, so that the Jat territorial gains were legalized by the Delhi Government.

v2.c28.s10.14

Badan Singh followed one most ancient and legitimate method of enhancing his political strength, by marriage alliances with the heads of other groups of families who were once the equals of his forefathers. In addition, he kept a prodigious number of women of all castes and tribes,—a mark of his wealth. His ancient predecessor on the royal seat of Mathura, the divine cow-herd of Hindu mythology, was girt round by a hundred blooming young women.* Badan Singh improved upon it and kept a harem of 150, some secured by consent, some by force. Of his sons, thirty were known to have become heads of villages in his territory, and there were at least as many more of whose future career nothing was known. “The swarm was so large that he had difficulty in recognizing his own offspring; each of them had to announce his mother’s name and his own age and place of residence, when he came to do his father reverence!” [Wendel.]

v2.c28.s10.15

∗ Vrindāvana-stham yuvati-shata-vritam Brahma-gopāl-vesham [Bhāgavat Purān.]

v2.c28.s10.16

§ 6. Suraj Mal, his birth and early career.

v2.c28.s10.17

Badan Singh died at Dig on 7th June 1756; but for many years before it he was a quiescent figure, stationary at his capital, and merely presiding over State councils. His inactivity was further increased by his growing blindness. The policy of his State in war and diplomacy was shaped and its campaigns were led by his adopted son Suraj Mal, the ablest statesman and warrior that the Jat race has ever produced. Suraj Mal was no son of Badan Singh, nor did he share his blood in any way. He was the lawful son of a married woman who during a visit to her sister (a member of Badan Singh’s harem) with the infant Suraj Mal in her arms, caught Badan Singh’s fancy and was enrolled among his concubines and soon became his first favourite. But apart from his mother’s influence, Suraj Mal’s outstanding genius made it clear to all that he was the fittest man to lead the rising Jat nation. So, Badan Singh adopted Suraj Mal as his son and successor, with the full approval of the elders of the clan, setting aside the offspring of his body. Therefore, the history of the Bharatpur kingdom during the latter half of Badan Singh’s reign was really the history of Suraj Mal.

v2.c28.s10.18

The earliest expansion of the Bharatpur State was at the expense of its immediate neighbours on the north and west, in that ever-anarchical mosaic of fiefs and universal brigands’ den called Mewat.* The fame of Suraj Mal’s capacity for leadership and the tough fighting qualities of his troops spread rapidly, and there came repeated solicitations for his sword from the highest in the land. A Jat contingent accompanied the Emperor Muhammad Shah in his expedition against Ali Muhammad Ruhela (May 1745) and fought creditably in that inglorious campaign. In November next his support was hired by Fath Ali Khan (son of Sābit Khan, a famous governor of Aligarh), who had been robbed of some of his father’s estates by Asad Khan Khānahzād. In the battle near Chandausi that followed, Asad Khan was shot dead and the Jats gained a complete victory. Suraj Mal’s next achievement was to lead his father’s contingent of 10,000 horsemen in support of his feudal superior, Rajah Ishwari Singh of Jaipur, who had appealed for Jat aid when threatened by a Maratha invasion. In the battle of Bagru (August 1748) Suraj Mal led the Jaipur vanguard and fought most gallantly, defeating the Marathas opposed to him, though the campaign ultimately went against Ishwari Singh. Still greater fame was won by the prince of Bharatpur when, on 1 January 1750, he defeated and reduced to utter impotence the commanderin-chief of the Empire, Salabat Khan Mir Bakhshi, near Sarai Sobhāchānd. [Ch. 7 § 9.]

v2.c28.s10.19

∗ This conquest must have spread over a number of years and been effected little by little. The poet Sudan’s assertion that Suraj Mal captured the fort of Mandu is unsupported by history.

v2.c28.s10.20

Advancing higher still, Suraj Mal was enlisted by Safdar Jang, the imperial wazir, to assist him in his war on the rebellious Bangash clan of Farrukhābād and their Ruhela allies from beyond the Ganges. The brunt of the fighting at Ram Chatauni (September 1750) was borne by the Jats with conspicuous success, and if Safdar Jang failed it was due simply to his folly and lack of generalship. The same service was repeated in Safdar's victorious invasion of Rohilkhand in 1751-52. On 20 October 1752, the grateful wazir induced the Emperor to create Badan Singh a Rajah with the title of Mahendra, and Suraj Mal a Kumar Bahadur with the title of Rājendra * and a few days later to confer the office of faujdar of Mathura on Suraj Mal. This gave him the governorship of most of the territory on the two sides of the Jamuna, in the province of Agra and the environs of that city, for an annual tribute. "This was the first step in the ascendency of the Jats, because though they had before this acquired enough of goods and riches, they had not obtained rank among the potentates of Hindustan for want of title and [officially conferred] authority; but now their head was created a Rajah by the Great Mughal himself, as Jai Singh was." [Wendel.] Safdar Jang now expedited the issue of patents from the imperial Chancellory for the fiefs that had been ordered to be granted to Suraj Mal before.

v2.c28.s10.21

∗ TAh. 43b, 45a. Wendel is wrong in saying that at this time Suraj Mal was created a Rajah with the title of Jaswant Singh.

v2.c28.s10.22

§ 7. Expansion of Suraj Mal’s power from 1753 to 1756.

v2.c28.s10.23

Backed by the wazir, Suraj Mal ousted Bahadur Singh (Bar-Gujar) the faujdar of Chakla Koil (Aligarh), and even took from him his paternal stronghold of Ghasira (40 miles south of Delhi) after a three months’ siege. The fighting here was most obstinate : 1,500 Jats were slain by gunfire from the fort-walls ; and at last Bahadur Singh in despair slew all his women, threw the gates open, and rushed upon the enemy with twenty-five desperadoes like himself, who perished to a man (23 April 1753.)* During Safdar Jang’s rebellion against the Emperor, Suraj Mal joined his former patron and took a leading part in the fighting round the imperial capital. The rising failed, and Suraj Mal was glad to make peace with the Emperor through the new wazir Intizam-ud-daulah (25 Oct.) The imperial Bakhshi Imad-ul-mulk, who had not been a party to this treaty, next launched a campaign and freed the country south of Delhi from Jat encroachments ; Ballabhgarh and Ghasira were wrested from the Jats and even the Aligarh and Jalesar districts east of the Jamuna. [Ch. 12 § 2.] Carrying the war into the enemy's own territory, Imad co-operated with the Marathas in the siege of the Jat stronghold of Kumbher. After four months (Jan.-May, 1754) the fort remained untaken, * and the besiegers were glad to go away on receiving promise of an indemnity of 30 lakhs of Rupees. [Ch. 12 §5.] Holkar's raid on the Emperor's camp at Sikandrabad (25 May), which followed within a week of the raising of the siege of Kumbher, and the change of Emperors by Imad-ul-mulk (2 June) introduced chaos into the Delhi administration and the Jats joined in the plunder of the country round the imperial capital, "with this advantage on their side that after Malhar Holkar and Imad-ul-mulk had left, the Jats were sufficiently in time to profit by the general consternation into which the one or the other had put the capital and its environs." [Wendel, 71. SPD. xxvii. 90.]

v2.c28.s10.24

∗ Bahadur's son Fath Singh was then in Delhi and thus escaped the massacre of his family. He naturally joined Suraj Mal's enemy Imad-ul-mulk and recovered Ghasira with Mughal help in January 1754. [TAh. 47a, 52b, 106b.]

v2.c28.s10.25

In the second half of the year 1754, large Maratha forces occupied the country round Delhi and north of it, under Raghunath Rao, who found it expedient to come to an understanding with Suraj Mal, by which the Jat chief agreed not to oppose the Maratha enterprises nor to obstruct the frequent marches of Maratha forces through Northern India which had now become necessary, while Raghunath allowed Suraj Mal to occupy much of the territory of the province of Agra, then at Maratha disposal. [Wendel.]

v2.c28.s10.26

∗ Suraj Mal's fame spread all over India from his successful defence of Kumbher against 80,000 men led by Malhar Holkar, Imad and a Jaipur general. [Wendel.] But the Marathas suspected the Jaipur agent Haragovind Natani of collusion with the Jats. SPD. xxvii 94.

v2.c28.s10.27

In the course of this renewed Jat expansion in the country south of Delhi and west of Agra, we can note the chief events,—the seizure of Palwal (36 miles south of Delhi) on 27 Sep. 1754,* the recovery of Ballabhgarh, the reconquest of Ghasira from Fath Singh Bar-Gujar in November 1755, and the acquisition of the imperial fort of Alwar (c. 23 March 1756) by composition with its custodian. These successes were chequered by some reverses. On 29 June 1755, Najib Khan set out on a campaign, under orders of the kingmaker Imad, for recovering the lands in the Ganges-Jamunā doab seized by Suraj Mal. But Nāgar Mal, the diwan of Crownlands, mediated, and after some haggling arranged a peace between them, near Dasnā, on the following terms (26 July) :—

v2.c28.s10.28

∗ A force sent by Suraj Mal on 27 September captured the city of Palwal, which was in the wazir's jagir. The Jats seized and slew Santokh Rai, the qanungo of Palwal, who had instigated Aqibat Mahmud to kill Balu Jat. They also carried off the qazi of the place. The wazir, on hearing of it, assembled his forces and went to Malhar asking him to join in an attack on Suraj Mal. On 29 Sept. Malhar took him to Raghunath, who frankly told him, "We have come to terms with Suraj Mal and shall not deviate from our promise to him. Do you remain here in composure of mind. I shall send word to Suraj Mal to abstain from seizing any place in your jagir." TALS. 22a.

v2.c28.s10.29

(i) Suraj Mal was to retain the lands in the Aligarh district that he had occupied before.

v2.c28.s10.30

(ii) Rupees 26 lakhs was settled as the perpetual quit-rent (*istimrār*) of these lands, out of which 18 lakhs was deducted as cash compensation for the jagirs which Jāvid Khan and Safdar Jang had formally assigned to Suraj Mal in the last reign, but which had not been actually transferred to him.

v2.c28.s10.31

(iii) Suraj Mal would vacate the fort and district of Sikandrabad, which had been handed over to him by the Marathas in the preceding month.

v2.c28.s10.32

(iv) Out of the balance of 8 lakhs due to the imperial exchequer, Suraj Mal paid two lakhs down and gave an undertaking to clear the balance in one year at the rate of half a lakh per month. [*TALS.* 57-58.]

v2.c28.s10.33

§ 8. *Rebellion of Jawahir Singh against his father.*

v2.c28.s10.34

But a worse thing was to come on the Jat chief. Badan Singh died on 7th June 1756, and though the disappearance of the blind old figurehead of the State made no difference in its actual administration, this event precipitated a civil war through the impatient ambition of Suraj Mal's son Jawahir Singh. This youth had been born with a boundless courage, a fierce delight in fighting, and some power of leadership; but these high gifts were neutralized by his reckless impetuosity, blind obstinacy and utter lack of self-control and foresight. While Suraj Mal, with all his power and wealth, lived to the end of his days in a very simple style, being inclined to be miserly rather than liberal in all kinds of expenditure, Jawahir was of exactly the opposite character, a prodigal fond of luxury and profusion, "playing the Mughal umara in his equipage company and diversions." Selfish favourites gathered round him and instigated him against his strict and stingy father as an obstacle to his happiness and independence, and led him on to live far beyond his modest allowance. Suraj Mal's remonstrances only increased his son's anger and aversion towards the Rajah's old counsellors. When he next tried to remove Jawahir's evil advisers, "the young Absalom" (as he is aptly called by a Jesuit priest of Agra) flew into rebellion and prepared for war in the fort of Dig which was then his residence. Suraj Mal had no help but to lay siege to it. Jawahir, as was his wont, made a reckless sortie upon his father's troops, personally rushed into the thickest of the fight, and was captured with three severe wounds from sword lance and bullet. For some time after, his life was despaired of; but he recovered, though these wounds left his right arm weak and one leg lame. Suraj Mal seems to have now made some more liberal provision for Jawahir, because he could not afford to lose his most spirited and war-experienced son.* This civil war ended in November 1756, and next month Abdali's invasion burst upon the Delhi empire.

v2.c28.s10.35

∗ Wendel reports the current story that Badan Singh with a grandfather's doting affection handed to his favourite Jawahir

v2.c28.s10.36

Suraj Mal set himself to improving the defences of Dig and to building more forts, his chief care being to fortify Bharatpur so strongly as to make it absolutely impregnable and a worthy capital of his kingdom. At the same time he began a grand palace at Dig, which was planned on such a gorgeous and costly style that it was not completed even in Jawahir Singh's reign.

v2.c28.s10.37

§ 9. Suraj Mal's doings and policy from 1757 to 1760.

v2.c28.s10.38

From Ahmad Shah Abdali's fourth invasion in January 1757 to his retreat after his fifth invasion in March 1761, Suraj Mal passed through a most anxious and critical time, as his home was nearest the danger zone and he had the fatal reputation of being excessively rich. But he emerged at the end of this period with his territory unimpaired, his treasury untouched, and his forces undiminished. This success was due to his marvellous sagacity patience and diplomatic shrewdness, but he was in no less a degree indebted for it also to the exceptional ability and devotion of his minister Rupram Kothari, which rose equal to every danger and every surprise. Throughout these four years there were, at

v2.c28.s10.39

a paper containing the key to his buried hoards, and that Suraj Mal kept pressing Jawahir, when his wounds were supposed to be incurable, to surrender this paper to him. But the fact is that Suraj Mal and Jawahir were temperamentally opposite; Suraj Mal could never forget that he was a cultivator's son and Jawahir that he was a Rajah's son! Wendel, 73. SPD. xxvii. 226.

v2.c28.s10.40

times, threats of Abdali’s attack unless the Jat Rajah paid down a large ransom; at others, there was the opposite danger of Maratha pressure to join with all his forces in their attempts to dismember the Delhi empire, which (Suraj Mal knew) would antagonize all the Muslim and Rajput Powers of North India and inevitably bring the Afghan invader back. But through each crisis as it developed the suppleness of Suraj Mal’s diplomacy enabled him to pass unscathed.

v2.c28.s10.41

We have seen how during the Durrani invasion of 1757 he withdrew his clansmen from their fields into his forts and thus saved them while he gained time by parleying and bribing Abdali’s tribute-collectors, till the Afghan king was driven out by an epidemic in his army. The stand made in vain by his garrison of Ballabhgarh and the gallant but equally unavailing effort of his son Jawahir to defend Mathura from the invaders, have been described in Ch. 16 § 3-5. During the Maratha return to the North under Raghunath Dada and Dattaji Sindhia in 1757-1759, Suraj Mal wisely remained quiescent, only supplying a few thousand auxiliary troops to the Maratha general when he could not help it. His dealings with the Bhau in 1760 have been unfolded in Chapter 20 §5 and 8. The result of all this was that the retreat of Ahmad Shah in March 1761 left the Jat Rajah as the strongest potentate in India with absolutely unimpaired forces and an overflowing treasury, while every other chief had been more or less ruined.

v2.c28.s10.42

§ 10. Suraj Mal captures Agra fort, June 1761.

v2.c28.s10.43

He turned this opportunity to making the greatest expansion that the Jat kingdom ever attained. After his design of making himself regent of Delhi under cover of his tool Imad-ul-mulk had been nipped in the bud (in May 1761, see Ch. 22 § 2), he made more solid gains nearer home. Agra was now the richest city in the empire. Delhi had been devastated and its population thinned by repeated foreign occupation and sack, but Agra fort had never opened its gates to any Durrani agent. The rich fugitives from the capital had taken refuge in Agra and it was the best centre of trade in upper India in those troubled times. The accumulated hoards of the Mughal Emperors from Akbar’s reign had been lodged in Agra fort, and though much of this treasure had been dissipated by Aurangzib’s long wars and the insolvency of his successors, yet much still remained, especially costly robes, furniture, utensils, and jewellery worthy of kings. The fort was held by a qiladar directly under the Emperor. He and the garrison under him had received no pay for two years past and had kept off starvation only by selling the vessels of precious metal from the imperial stores.

v2.c28.s10.44

Suraj Mal sent a strong force to capture Agra. Their first assault was easily repulsed by fire from the impregnable walls and they then laid a regular blockade to the fort, after plundering the houses immediately under the fort-walls and arresting the wives and children of the garrison who used to lodge there. Within a month (Wendel says, 20 days) the qiladar opened the gates on 12th June 1761, on being promised* one lakh of Rupees in cash and five villages. "It is calculated that Suraj Mal carried away 50 lakhs in this pillage. Enormous stores of artillery, munitions, and articles of the royal wardrobe had accumulated in Agra for a long time past. Most of the artillery and all the effects were removed to Bharatpur and Dig. In 1765 Jawahir Singh razed most of the houses in the environs of the fort for the unobstructed fire of the guns on the walls. A garrison of some thousand Jat musketeers was put in."

Linked texts (3)