Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s10.11

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.