Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c28.s3.6

v2.c28.s3.6

Having thus restored Government authority in the north Delhi region, Najib returned to the capital, whence he was soon recalled to Najibabad by the news of the illness of his wife, a daughter of Dundi Khan. She died, leaving two sons and one daughter behind. After spending the rainy season there, Najib in October returned to Delhi, and turned to subduing the peasantry of the region west of the capital, in the modern Rohtak and Hisar districts.* Some 30 miles west of Rohtak city there was a village which had paid no revenue for three years. Parleys went on for ten days, and then the villagers agreed to terms. A collector was posted there, but he was attacked at night. The news reached Najib's camp; at once he rode out, came up to the village while it was still dark and delivered an assault on it. The village was set on fire; many of its inhabitants fled away, the rest were slain or taken prisoner. This terrified the headmen of Bhiwāni, a most important village in the neighbourhood (35 miles s. e. of Hisar), notorious for its bold and successful defiance of the local governors and even of the Emperor in person. After a futile preparation for armed opposition, the villagers realized Najib’s overwhelming superiority and fled away at night, evacuating all their houses. “Next morning the Ruhela soldiers entered the village and brought away heaps of grain to their camp. All the men, and even their animals, fed on this grain for four or five days. When they marched away, they set fire to a great store of grain. Even after that, so much was left that it could not be computed...Najib after devastating Bhiwāni, went towards Rohtak, where he heard of a Sikh raid into his Saharnapur estates and marched thither.”