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Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c29: Chapter XXIV. The Panjab and Rajputana, 1761-1771

Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c29

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Chapter XXIV. The Panjab and Rajputana, 1761-1771

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§ 1. The state of the Panjab during 1760 and 1761.

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Throughout the year 1760, when Ahmad Shah was busy campaigning in the Doab or the Delhi region, he had left the Panjab in charge of his agents, Buland Khan* the subahdar of Lahor, Abdus Samad Khan the faujdar of Sarhind, Rustam Khan the faujdar of "the Four Mahals" (Sialkot), and others. But during the campaign of Panipat (Oct. 1760—Jan. 1761) all the Durrani forces were naturally concentrated round the Shah’s person, and the Sikhs finding the province so weakly garrisoned, everywhere rose with impunity. While Abdus Samad Khan was slain by the Marathas at Kunjpura (17 Oct.), the trans-Satlaj Sikhs defeated and captured Rustam Khan and Tahmasp Miskin (our invaluable memoir-writer), and these two could secure their release only by paying ransom. The victors, in a body reported by Miskin as 40,000 strong, then invested Sialkot, but the place was strongly fortified and its defence was gallantly kept up by Rustam’s diwan for three days, till a relieving army under Qāsim Khan was sighted, when the Sikhs withdrew. [Miskin, 218-224.] Emboldened by the news of the Bhau’s capture of Delhi and Kunjpura, the Manjha Sikhs attacked Lahor itself. Jassa Singh Ahluwalia (the founder of the Kapurthala State), Jai Singh Kanhaiya, Gujar Singh Bhangi, Lehna Singh and other group-leaders assembled at the sacred tank of Amritsar on the Diwali day (6 Nov. 1760), and after concerting their plans advanced with 10,000 horsemen to loot Lahor. The Durrani governor shut the city-gates and himself retired to the citadel for safety. The Sikhs roved round the city, plundering the suburbs, stripping the houses of their timber and then setting fire to them. Many people were killed and the rest fled away. The raiders were dissuaded from breaking into the city by the governor paying a ranson of Rs. 30,000, disguised under the name of “a donation for consecrated food offering to Khālsaji.” [Kanhaiya Lal, 32.]

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∗ Miskin 214. The traditional history of Lahor says that the governor was Karim-dād Khan; but we know that Karim-dād was present with Abdali at least from c. 10 Dec. 1760 to 20 January 1761.

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But at the beginning of next year Ahmad Shah became free by crushing the Marathas at Panipat (14th Jan. 1761.) Then, after settling the affairs of Delhi, he left the imperial city on 20th March and reached Ambala on the 27th. Posting Zain Khan Mohmand as his new faujdar at Sarhind and granting Ala Singh Jat a rescript* confirming him in the possession of the Patiala principality in return for a tribute of 5 lakhs, the Durrani king moved on to Lahor, arriving there on 26 April. He was indignant at the weakness of Buland Khan, which had left the suburbs of the provincial capital to be turned into a howling wilderness, and punished him with dismissal. Then, appointing Khwajah Abid Khan as subahdar of the Panjab, Abdali passed quickly on to his own country via Sialkot, to avoid a second summer in the Indian plains.

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∗ Issued on 22 Shaban 1174 (29 March, 1761) under the

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§ 2. Abdali's campaign in the Panjab, 1762.

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As soon as the dreaded Abdali was out of the country, the Sikhs came out of their hiding places and again overran the province. Mirza Khan with a thousand men was attacked and cut off by a large Sikh force. Khwajah Abid Khan himself came out of Lahor and invested Gujranwala (43 miles northwards), where Charat Singh Sukarchakia (the grandfather of the great Ranjit Singh) had built a fort. But there was a small body of Sikh horse in the governor's employ; Charat Singh's garrison conspired with these men, fell upon

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seal of Shah Wali wazir, recognising the integrity of the territory held by Ala Singh and promising to defend him if he was attacked by anybody else. Mirza Taqi was left at Patiala to collect the tribute. [Patiala State records.] I believe Ala Singh at once submitted to the victor of Panipat, without provoking a siege by him, in March-April 1761. My dates are from DC. and SPD. xxi 202.

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Abid Khan's force in concert and drove him in headlong rout to Lahor, capturing all his baggage, (early January 1762.) They next routed Sadat Khan and Sādiq Khan Afridi, the Durrani faujdars of the Jalandar Doab. Their raids again made the highways unsafe, and people could travel from Sarhind to Peshawar only by making a long detour through Sialkot and the northern hills. [Miskin, 237-238.]

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The news reached Ahmad Shah in Afghanistan and he hastened to the rescue of his officers in the Panjab, with a lightly-equipped cavalry force, accustomed to rapid marching. The Sikhs were then engaged in the siege of Jandiala, a city twelve miles east of Amritsar. It was the stronghold of the Niranjani sect,* who may be equally well described as dissentient Sikhs or Hindu deists,—their religion being a mixture of the tenets and rites of both these great religions. "In the conflict between the Sikhs and Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Niranjanis aided the latter . . with information. In revenge for this the Sikhs invested Jandiala. Akāldās, the Jandiala guru, sent off a sawār post haste to Ahmad Shah, who was . . . at Rohtas. He returned to their aid with a force of cavalry." [Amritsar Gaz. 165.]

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∗ Husain Shahi, 77, says,—The residents of Jandiala "were friendly to Islam and Nanakshahi faqirs, listening to the bāng and salwat. Hard pressed by the Sikhs, they hung out shanks of beef from their fort walls."

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At the report of his approach the Sikh besieging force at once vanished from the scene. Abdali halted near Jandiala for two or three days when he learnt that the Sikhs had fled to the Sarhind district, and there joining their cis-Satlaj brethren had begun to plunder the country. Zain Khan the faujdar, with Bhikhan (Hingun, according to Cunningham) Khan of Maler Kotla, Murtaza Khan Paracha, Qasim Khan Maral and other officers, issued to oppose them, and halted at Maler Kotla, while the Sikh army lay ten kos to the north. In the night of 4-5 February, 1762, swift Durrani couriers came to Zain Khan and told him that the Shah had crossed the Bias and the Satlaj by unbroken rapid marches and would fall upon the flank of the Sikhs the next day, and that the Shah had ordered Zain Khan to issue next morning with all his troops and assail the Sikhs in front. But the Sikhs too had received intelligence of Abdali's approach and tried to escape from him by decamping south-eastwards. Early in the forenoon of 5th February, Zain Khan's vanguard under Qasim Khan fell in with the Sikhs near the village of Kup (6 miles north of Maler Kotla) and was driven back in a panic flight upon its base. But another officer named Murtaza Khan Paracha (with Miskin) stood his ground on a small eminence and was joined after some time by a detachment of Ahmad Shah's horsemen. The Durrani force, in two divisions,—one under the Shah and the other led by his wazir (with Zain Khan), moved round the two flanks of the Sikhs, slaying all they met with. The pursuit was kept up till the evening, when the tired victors reached Bharthala (10 m. n. e. of Maler Kotla) and encamped there. In the course of this running fight, some ten thousand Sikhs were slain and the day is still remembered by them as that of the *Ghallu-ghara** or great scrimmage.

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After a short halt, the victor proceeded to Sarhind and encamped in the imperial Shalimar garden outside the city. From this centre he raided Ala Singh’s country. The Patiala chief’s tribute had evidently fallen into arrears,—or he might have assisted his Manjha brethren in their late attack on Zain Khan,—but he now deemed it politic to seek refuge in his fort of Bhawanigarh (21 miles west of Patiala.) Rajah Lachhmi Narayan, the diwan of Sarhind, assured Abdali that if Ala Singh were captured, a ransom of 50 lakhs could be easily secured from him. Guided by the diwan’s local knowledge, Abdali made a forced march of 80 *kos* in the course of 36 hours and suddenly appeared before Bhawanigarh. Ala Singh gave him the slip by evacuating the fort just in time, but he felt further struggle to be useless, and submitted to the Shah through the mediation of Najib-ud-daulah, who had come to the Shah’s camp on the Satlaj at his call. He secured peace by promising a large tribute and making a part payment immediately. Leaving Sarhind on 15th Feb., Abdali arrived at Lahor on 3rd March, carrying Ala Singh in his train. On the way, he razed to the ground the Sikh temple called Har Mandir built by Guru Arjun at Amritsar, and desecrated the “pool of immortality” by killing cows on its bank and throwing their bones and the debris of the temples around it into the water.*

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∗ Husain Shahi, 78-83; Miskin (present) 241-243; Nur-ud-din 57a; Siyar, iii. 74; Forster, i. 278; Raj. vi. 465. Ludhiana Gaz. 23. Cunningham, 100. A Marathi despatch written from Shāmli 20 days after the battle says that five to seven thousand Sikhs were slain, Siyar ‘nearly 20,000’, Miskin 25,000, Husain Shahi 30,000, Forster 25,000, Cunningham 12,000 to 25,000. Cunningham’s Barnala is Bharthala. “On the site of the battle there now exists a village named Jitwal, near Malod”. [K. S. Barhat.] The Atlas gives a Jhatiwal, 6 m. n. w. of Maler Kotla.

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§ 3. Abdali stays in Lahor 1762, makes political settlement of Delhi empire, conquers Kashmir.

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At Lahor Abdali halted for the rest of the year, wishing to put the affairs of the Panjab in order, settle the question of the government of Delhi, and conquer Kashmir. He was sincerely anxious to ensure a general peace in Northern India by making a permanent friendly settlement with the Peshwa. From Sarhind he had sent letters calling to his side Najib and Yaqub Ali on behalf of the empire and they promptly joined him. The Maratha envoys at Delhi, Bāpu and Purushottam Hingané, were invited by three or four letters in succession to come to Lahor. Bāpu went there soon (c. middle of March) and Purushottam some two months later after writing to the Peshwa and securing his approval. Diplomatic parleys opened. The Maratha envoys naturally wanted to resume the negotiations from the point of agreement reached between the Bhau and Shah Wali Khan in the days before Panipat, but no officer of Abdali knew anything of the terms proposed by the two sides at that time. Shah Wali Khan, the wise and pacific Durrani wazir, pleaded for the claims of the new Peshwa, and induced his master to recognise Madhav Rao Ballal by presenting to him, by the hands of these envoys, the tikā of Rajaship, the impression of his palm dipped in saffron (keshar-pānja), robes, jewels, horses and an elephant, and deputed his own envoy to accompany them to the Court of Puna (June. 1762.)*

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∗ Abdali against Ala S. and sack of Amritsar,—Raj. vi. 465, 382. Nur. 57a. Miskin 244. Siyar. iii. 74. Forster i. 278 Amrit. Gaz. 150. Husain Shahi, p. 41, wrongly ascribes the sacrilege to Buland Khan Sadduzai and in 1757, adding that after Prince Timur’s flight early in 1758 the Sikhs compelled the Muslims to cleanse the tank (p. 45.)

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While these negotiations were in train, Abdali set himself to recover Kashmir from Sukhjivan Ram Khatri, the former diwan of that province, who had thrown off the Durrani authority, and seized the governorship in the name of the Emperor of Delhi. He was an exceptionally able and upright administrator, liberal in religion, charitable to the poor, a patron of poets and the financial supporter of a new history of the province. But Ranjitdev, the Rajah of Jammu, was his rival, and was induced by the Durrani wazir to come to Lahor and to undertake to guide the Durrani army of invasion by showing some undefended pass for penetrating into Kashmir. The first expedition composed of about 3000 Durrani soldiers and some Jammu auxiliaries, started in June, but returned baffled, as all the passes were found to be held too strongly for assault or surprise. A later expedition achieved complete success, Sukhjivan was defeated and taken prisoner, and Kashmir annexed to the Durrani empire. [Siyar, iii. 74, Raj. vi. 384.] During the autumn of 1762, Ahmad Shah called up to Lahor Najib and Yaqub Ali from Delhi and Agha Raza, Abdul Ahad, and Munir-ud-daulah from Shah Alam’s Court to put the affairs of the Delhi Empire inorder and end the chaos that had followed the murder of the last Emperor. It was agreed that the Durrani king would call upon all the Indian princes, with the prestige of his authority but without lending his armed aid, to recognise Shah Alam II as Emperor and instal him in his ancestors’ capital, while Najib and Munir-ud-daulah undertook on behalf of the Indian Government to pay Abdali a tribute of 40 lakhs a year. This settlement concluded, Ahmad Shah left Lahor on 12 Dec. 1762, while Najib and other Indian envoys took leave of him and reached Delhi in January 1763. [DC.]

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∗ Raj. vi. 382, 384, 423, 425 (primary.)

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Even during the second half of 1762, the Panjab was not free from internal trouble. His massacre during the Ghallu-ghara was no more successful in crushing the Sikhs than stamping on a few thousand ants can exterminate an ant-hill. On the contrary, his wanton outrage on their holiest shrine more than anything else defeated his purpose of cowing the Sikhs for ever. Hitherto that sect had greatly multiplied its converts and drawn them closely together by the need of mutual protection against the oppression and exaction of the local governors of the decadent Mughal empire. And now Afghan sacrilege roused the Sikhs to their highest exertion and united them in the closest bond by the unquenchable thirst of a vengeance that was a sacred duty. The noblest and the basest passions of the human breast were united in a national resistance to the alien from beyond the Indus and his local associates. Durrani rule in the Panjab became impossible in future.

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As early as May 1762, the Sikhs reappeared in the Sarhind district. In June, Zain Khan made peace by paying them Rs.50,000, and the raiders set out on their return. But when they had marched away about 10 *kos*, Zain Khan's troops treacherously looted their rearguard. The main Sikh army then turned back, attacked him, plundered him as well as his diwan Lachhmi Narayan, and drove them to fight a pitched battle at Harnul-garh, 15 *kos* from Sarhind. [Raj. vi. 384.] During the earlier part of this year, "the roads again became open on all sides, the danger of robbery and fear of highwaymen disappeared, because Ahmad Shah was staying in Lahor.” But the province was in a miserable condition ; the Jalandar Doab had been repeatedly plundered and devastated by the Shah’s troops and the country on all sides of Lahor was a “lampless” solitude. [Miskin, 244-247.]

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§ 4. Sikh power revives, Zain Khan slain, 1763.

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Ahmad Shah left Lahor for his home on 12 Dec. 1762, and immediately afterwards Sikh aggression revived * and was aggravated by the misrule of his lieutenants, who, like all Afghans, had no administrative capacity or honesty, and the administration broke down on the rock of finance. The eye-witness Miskin writes, “Zain Khan departed from his former character and rules of conduct. He stopped paying his soldiers their salaries and began to live by looting the villages of his district, and giving a portion of the booty to his troops in payment of their arrears, though not amounting to one-fourth of their dues. He planned in alliance with the hill-Rajahs to amass a fortune,” probably with a view to carving a larger and more independent principality of his own out of the disintegrating Mughal empire. The starving of his soldiery, however, had the inevitable result of weakening his defensive strength and ultimately bringing about his ruin. Throughout the whole of 1763 Ahmad Shah was kept busy in his own country by a rebellion in Khurasan and could not attend to India. This was the Sikhs’ opportunity. In the autumn of this year we have the final and decisive upheaval of their power. They assembled at Amritsar on Dipavali day (4 November) and vowed to restore their sacred shrine and assert their independence. They first turned against the enemy within the gates, crushed the Muslim colony (Gurdezi Afghans) of Kasur and Bhikhan Khan of Maler Kotla,—who had joined every Durrani invasion,—and then attacked Sarhind in a body 40,000 strong (December 1763.) Just before this fateful contest, Zain Khan had been abandoned by his starving lieutenants, Qasim Khan and Murtaza Khan, who had marched away in search of bread to Najib’s estates in the Gangetic Doab. The faujdar of Sarhind, at the head of a small impoverished army, came out of the city and was defeated and slain, with the loss of his baggage and armament. The Sikhs, flushed with victory, entered Sarhind, and “looted and totally devastated it, turning the city upside down”, and converting into an untenanted wilderness the “ accursed place which had witnessed the death of the mother and children of Guru Govind” at the hands of Aurangzib’s officers. Swept on by the impulse of victory, the Sikhs crossed the Jamuna at Buriāghat and poured into the Upper Doab, plundering the Saharanpur (20 Feb. 1764), Shāmli and Kandela parganahs. Their owner, Najib Khan, fresh from the slaughter of Suraj Mal,—which paralysed his Jat enemies for the time,—hastened to the defence of his estates, and induced the raiders, by a bribe of 11 lakhs to recross the Jamuna. (February 1764.)* But it was the beginning of the annual Sikh raids into the Doab.

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∗ I follow Forster (Journey, i. 279), and Cunningham (102n) in rejecting the Sikh tradition, unsupported by any contemporary record and naturally incompatible with other known facts, that in November 1762 the Sikhs assembled at Amritsar (in a body of 60,000) for a sacred bath, and when Ahmad Shah arrived to attack them, they drove him back in headlong flight to Lahor, and in retaliation took that city after a short siege. This success was achieved not on Ahmad Shah but on his local agent, and its date was 1763.

§ 5. Sikhs begin to dominate entire Panjab, occupy Lahor : 1763-1765

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In the meantime, Sikh activities in Lahor and further west had called up Jahan Khan from his master’s side to the Panjab. But only a small force could be spared for him, and after he had crossed the Indus at Attock he was easily defeated (on the eastern bank of the Chinab) and driven back to Afghanistan (middle of November 1763.) Then the Sikhs attacked Lahor.†

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∗ Miskin, 250-263. SPD. xxix. 55. Cunningham 102. Nur. 72a. Williams in Calcutta Review, 1875, vol. 50, p. 26.

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† Kanhaiya Lal, 33-34. DC. CPC. i. 2174. SPD. xxix. 58,55 (says that the Sikhs est. their post in Lahor, Apr. 1764), 73 (Sikh sardars have gone to Amritsar, Oct. 1764 ; for Chelaguru read Chakguru=Amritsar.) xxxviii. 128.

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Its Durrani governor Khwājah Abid was slain in battle, his deputy Kābuli Mal conducted the defence of the capital. The besieging Sikh army howled for the surrender of all the cow-killing butchers of Lahor to put them to death. The governor hesitated, the Sikhs broke the Delhi Gate and entered the city plundering, and then Kabuli Mal secured peace by cutting off the noses and ears of some of the butchers and turning them out of the city and also paying a large contribution to the Sikhs. This happened in February 1764, for we find Ahmad Shah back in Lahor in March next. But he could stop there for a fortnight only, and had to return to his own country in consequence of a civil war there, mutiny among his own troops, and dearth of grain. Kābuli Mal marched out for some distance to see his master off. Immediately after he had started, the three Sikh leaders Lehna Singh, Gujar Singh and Sobha Singh attacked Lahor. The masterless city capitulated on the promise of life and property being spared; the gates were thrown open. Some amount of plunder, however, took place on the first day, but the three chiefs divided the city between them and each ruled over and administered his portion as its master. Thus, peace at last returned to Lahor, but not prosperity. The city continued in desolation and misery till its revival under Ranjit Singh.

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"The whole country, from the Jhilam to the Satlaj, was partitioned among the Sikh chiefs and their followers, as the plains of Sarhind had been in the year previous." Ahmad Shah's atrocity on their holy city was now avenged in his own manner: "numerous mosques were demolished, and Afghans in chains were made to wash the foundations with the blood of hogs.* The chiefs then assembled at Amritsar, and proclaimed their own sway and the prevalence of their faith, by striking a coin with an inscription to the effect that Guru Govind had received, from Nanak, grace, power, and rapid victory—

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Deg wa tegh wa fath wa nusrat-i-bedirang
Yaft āz Nānak Guru Govind Sing,

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The Sikhs were not interfered with for [the next] two years." [Cunningham, 103.]

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In January 1765, while Jawahir Singh, with Malhar Holkar, Imad-ul-mullk and a vast force of Sikh mercenaries, was attacking Najib Khan in Delhi, that Ruhela chief sent urgent appeals for help to Ahmad Shah. The Shah, by a rapid march,—along the southern skirt of the hills,—arrived at Mustafabad (end of February.) Here he learnt that Najib had made peace already without waiting for him, and so he in high anger at once hurried back to Afghanistan, on hearing of which Najib, then on his way to Abdali's camp, returned from Ismailabad. [Nur, 92b. Ghulam Ali, ii. 230.]

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∗ Taken from Forster (i. 279), who adds, "The Afghans in chains were also compelled to excavate the reservoir at Amritsar, which in the preceding year they had filled up...Though the Afghan massacre and persecution must have been deeply imprinted on their minds, the Sikhs did not, it is said, destroy one prisoner in cold blood." Husain Shahi, 45. gives wrong year.

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§ 6. Ahmad Shah's last invasion, 1767; Sarhind faujdari given to Patiala Rajah.

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Ahmad Shah's last expedition took place in 1767.* He reached the Bias, after overcoming the Sikh opposition on the way; Mayā Singh submitted and paid him a visit, Charsā Singh (?) fled away to the hills, while Jassa Singh was wounded and routed (c. 20 January, 1767.) Internal dissension among the Sikh chiefs made Abdali's path of advance very smooth. He now sent a message to Najib Khan, ordering him to present himself with the tribute of India, now in arrears for seven years, and amounting to two *krores* and 80 *lakhs*! Najib did not know where to find even a tenth of this vast sum. So, he sent some of his troops across the Jamuna at Ramraghat (near Karnal) and himself halted there trying to collect some revenue, and reporting to Ahmad Shah that he was soon coming (c. 1 Feb.)

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When the Shah arrived at Ismailabad, 20 miles south of Ambala, Najib Khan waited on him, on 9th March. So, also, did the envoys of Jawahir Singh and the trans-Ganges Ruhelas; but not one of these chiefs had the courtesy to come in person, though they owed their deliverance from the Marathas to Abdali's unselfish exertions. Ahmad Bangash did not even care to send an envoy. The Shah, therefore, treated Najib with every mark of honour and personal favour. "At the Court held for receiving the Indian chiefs' agents, Ahmad Shah repeatedly inquired about Najib's health. The latter replied that in his war with Jawahir Singh, when his enemies numbered more than a hundred thousand, he had undergone much hardship and gained the victory only through this Emperor's grace, but illness and fatigue had left him very weak. Ahmad Shah asked, 'How are you now?' Najib replied, 'The sight of the Shahan-shah has made all my illness melt away' . . . Najib and Yaqub Ali used to be frequently admitted to the private audience of Ahmad Shah."

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∗ CPC. ii. 12A—415 (minute and useful details.) Nur. 110a-112b. SPD. xxix. 165, 119. Chahar Gulz. 474a. Husain Shahi, 84-85.

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The Durrani king was at first asked to make Zabita his faujdar of Sarhind, but he was induced by his grand wazir, who had been heavily bribed by Fattu, the widow of Ala Singh, to entrust that district to Amar Singh, the grandson of Ala, with the superlative title of *Rājā-i-Rājgān*, as the only man capable of keeping the trans-Satlaj Sikhs out, on his agreeing to an annual tribute.

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§ 7. *Durranis repress the Sikhs in Mani Majra; defeat Sikh raid into Mirat, 1767.*

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Leaving Ismailabad on 17th March, 1767, Abdali marched back through Sarhind and Machhiwara to the northern foot hills of the Jalandar Doab, carrying Najib in his train. "He set himself earnestly to root out and destroy the Sikhs. His vanguard used to march two or three days' journey ahead. The Sikhs in terror of his troops fled far away like crows. Whenever he got a chance, he used to seize the Sikhs who had taken refuge in places hard of access . . . His own soldiers, accompanied by a contingent of Najib's Ruhelas under Afzal Khan, penetrated into the Mani Majra hills, and brought away large numbers of captive men and women from the region, but the Sikh leader escaped. Much plundered property was sold cheap in the Durrani camp, and captives also." [Nur. 110b.] On 11th May, Abdali from the bank of the Satlaj gave Najib leave to return to Delhi. Some days before news had reached his army that the Sikh raiders had slipped past the Durrani camp, and after fording the Jamuna at Buria-ghat had poured into Najib's jagirs in the upper Doab, and sacked Nanouta and Mirat. On account of Najib's attendance in the Abdali camp, with his brothers, sons and troops, this region had been left entirely defenceless, and Najib in bewilderment appealed to the Shah to save him, and the latter promised a considered reply at night.* "The Shah, overcome by the jackal-tricks of the Sikhs, himself stopped there. When three hours of the night had passed, suddenly the noise of horses' hoofs and the tramp of soldiery was heard in the Ruhela camp. It was ascertained that sardar Jahān Khan had arrived, with 8,000 troopers by hard riding. Entering the tent of Najib, he said, ‘The Shah has ordered me to take one of your sons or brothers with me and make a lightning raid into your estates. Tell me where the Sikhs are.’ Najib immediately deputed Zabita Khan to accompany him. The sardar said to Zabita, ‘Your head and body seem to be very soft. You have been habitually used to sitting in *palkis* and on carpets ; how will you be able to keep pace with us?’ Zabita replied, ‘I too am an Afghan’s son’ . . . Jahān Khan asked him, ‘Why are you taking an elephant with you?’ He answered, ‘Wherever there is a river on the way, the sardar will cross it on this elephant’s back. At midnight Jahān Khan started from that place with 5,000 horse of Zabita Khan, and in three days reached the Mirat pargana, 120 *kos* away. The Sikhs got news of it four *gharis* beforehand and decamped across the Jamuna. Those that remained behind were all slaughtered [9,000 men, according to Miskin, who was present], and much plunder was also taken. The chief of the Sikhs was slain and Baghel Singh wounded. The party returned to Abdali’s halting place (on the west bank of the Satlaj) in the course of seven days.” [Nur. 111-112 ; Miskin, 268.]

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∗ It was an invariable practice with Ahmad Shah to keep the spies and idle babblers in his camp entirely in the dark about the departure and destination of his detachments, by issuing marching orders to their captains only during a hunting excursion or in the secret audience at night. This Sikh raid is best described in CPC. ii. and Williams, *Calcutta Review*, 1875, vol. 50, p. 27-28. *Chahar Gulz.* 475a. *CPC.* ii. 269, 310 (tribute paid.)

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§ 8. Ahmad Shah's ultimate failure; his political arrangements in Panjab.

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This long contest with a nation in arms, while no dependable ally or lieutenant could be found by him in India, at last wore Abdali out: his illness too now proved to be hopelessly intractable; his soldiers became rowdy through his frequent failure to pay them, and a large contingent of them mutinied and left for Afghanistan in open mutiny. This was destined to be the last of Ahmad Shah's Indian campaigns. He realized the limits of his power, and like a true statesman confined his ambition to the attainable. He left a contented and grateful Phulkian Sikh chieftain, with largely extended territory, in hereditary charge of the Ambala district (Sarhind-Patiala), as an agent most likely to keep order and pay the annual tribute. He himself retained hold of Peshawar * and the country west of Attock, while he abandoned the Manjha districts and central Panjab including Lahor to the Sikhs; but the Sindh-Sagar and Jech Doabs in western Panjab remained a debatable land which finally came into Sikh possession in the days of his unworthy successors.

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It was recognized throughout India that after his experience in 1767, Abdali would be in no haste to visit India again. The wildest exultation filled the Marathas at the news of his internal troubles and hurried retreat. One of their agents now planned to revive their old dream of controlling the Delhi Government as the Emperor's keeper after escorting Shah Alam II to his capital, this time in coalition with the invincible English troops stationed at Allahabad and the Jat Rajah. [*SPD.* xxix. 192.] But the moral canker that was eating into the vitals of the Puna Court put off the pursuit of this policy in the North.

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∗ In the geography of the Mughal empire, Peshawar was a part of the subah of Kabul (and not of the Panjab as now), Sarhind was attached to the Delhi subah, and the Panjab was bounded by the Indus on the west and the Satlaj on the east. See my *India of Aurangzib: Statistics Topography and Roads*.

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The historian of Delhi is no further concerned with the internal history of the Panjab province after this date, as it now ceased to be a jumping-off ground for Afghan invasions of Northern India, though the fear of such invasions continued to haunt the Indian rulers for a generation after, even down to Lord Wellesley's time. No doubt, trans-Satlaj Panjab continued to send Sikh raiders almost every year into the Doab and the Delhi-Hariana country, but they should be treated as private bands of forayers and not the organised forces of a State engaged in regular warfare with the empire of Delhi.

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§ 9. *The repercussion of Panipat upon the Rajput States, 1761.*

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In December 1759, Malhar Rao Holkar had wrested the fort of Barwādā from the usurper Ratan Singh Kachhwa (the son of Fath Mal Kusalath) and restored it to its original owner Jagat Singh Rathor, and then left Rajputana to encounter Abdali near Delhi, [Ch. 18 § 10.] On the way his men looted Chatsu and some other places in the Jaipur kingdom [Vam. Bh. 3667.] Thereafter a full year had passed without any Maratha general being free to visit Rajputana. Panipat saw the annihilation of the Maratha armies of the North in January 1761, and the repercussion of it* was a revolt against Deccani domination everywhere in Hindustan,—in the Gangetic Doab, Bundelkhand, Rajputana and Malwa alike. Everywhere the dispossessed or humbled original chieftains, and even petty landlords, raised their heads and talked of shutting the southern invaders out of their country in future. But it all ended in talk; union was impossible among the countless separate caste and tribal chiefs of these regions, and no great leader arose to unite the ancient Hindu baronage of the North and win their freedom.

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∗ Ahmad Shah after his victory entered Delhi and sent off letters to the Rajput Rajahs calling upon them to join him with tribute and troops for driving the Marathas out of the empire. [Original farman preserved in Jodhpur.] Madho S. of Jaipur was ordered to present himself with one Kror of Rupees. On receiving this summons, he in alarm appealed to the Peshwa, then in Malwa to come to Bundi, where Madho promised to unite with him after assembling all the other Rajputs. The Peshwa’s reply was a stern rebuke for Madho S’s coquetting with the anti-Maratha Muslim powers in the past: “You first come to Ajmir taking Bijay S. with you. The Bhau assured you of the possession of, Ranthambhor; he pardoned all your offences at Malhar’s intercession. Let bygones be bygone. You are a leading Hindu. In the past you were kindly favoured by us. [But] you relied on him [Najib or Abdali.] Well, ultimately you Rajput Hindus ought to take heed. If the foreigners defeat us, we retire beyond the Narmada; I do not now fear Abdali, [but Rajputana has no escape from him.]” Pur. Daf. i. 402 (23 Feb. 1761.)

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For three or four months after Panipat the situation was most critical for the Marathas north of the Vindhyas; everywhere they were pushed to the wall, without a single friend or dependant. Though by April next some 40,000 soldiers had been assembled in the Gwalior region and further south, out of the wreck of their northern army and local garrisons, these were beaten leaderless troops and their prospect was darkened by the approach-ing dissolution of Balaji Rao Peshwa, the insolvent Puna Government's attempt to escheat the property of the generals who had fallen at Panipat (in order to recover the collections made by them in their late North Indian campaigns on behalf of Government and the advances from the State Treasury they had taken for equipment), and the family quarrels, delay and vacillation which took place in appointing a successor to Jankoji as the head of the Sindhias. These serious difficulties of the Marathas ought to have been the Rajputs' opportunity, but Rajah Madho Singh's lack of character, quarrels with his feudal barons, and above all his chronic antagonism to Bijay Singh of Marwar, the only other Rajput prince that counted for anything,—prevented him from taking advantage of this situation, and within less then twelve months of Panipat the tables were completely turned against the Rajputs. This was the achievement of Malhar Rao Holkar, the sole "elder general" of Baji Rao's time now left.

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§ 10. Anti-Maratha movements in Rajputana, 1761.

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As a Maratha agent in Rajputana reported to the Peshwa in May 1761, "All the Rajahs and Rajwadas have turned against us . . . The Rajputs are showing too much cheek." [SPD. xxix. 81.] But Malhar on return from Panipat, recouped himself at Gwalior for a short while, rallied other bands of fugitives from that fatal field, and then came to his capital Indor. He found it necessary to set out immediately for restoring his authority in the border tract between Malwa and Rajputana. A Chandrawat baron had seized Rāmpurā, which was in Malhar's jagir; but early in May, before Malhar's arrival, Krishnaji Tandev (an officer of Shantaji Wagh and revenue collector of Mahantpur) had defeated the Chandrawat and retaken Rāmpurā, slaying six or seven hundred Rajputs and capturing there the Rajput's diwan as well as Mir Baqā (a son of Qamr-ud-din Khan of Delhi, whom the Chandrawat had been holding to ransom in that fort.) Three days after this success, Malhar reached Gahukhedi in the Hada country, and then advanced to Ganguri (120 miles north of Indor) where Abhay Singh Rathor, an officer of the Rao of Kota, had seized the fortalice, driven out the Maratha collectors and was causing disturbances. Malhar at once invested the place; but twenty days passed away without any result, and then he received the artillery he had sent for from Indor, bombarded the place, and took it promptly (early in June.) These rapid successes had the immediate effect of overawing the whole province of Malwa, and Malhar moved on to Kakdā in Mewar territory in order to put pressure on the Maharana and secure payment of the old tribute of 1½ lakhs a year that he had repudiated.*

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All this time Madho Singh of Jaipur had been intriguing how to overthrow Maratha predominance in Rajputana. He sent envoys to Najib Khan, Yaqub Ali, and Shah Alam II to negotiate for an anti-Maratha coalition. Then, under the advice of his favourite minister Shāmrām Trivedi, he sent two forces of 4000 and 5,000 men under Raj Singh Chauhan and Nandlal diwan respectively to raid the villages of his refractory vassal Sardar Singh of Uniara (a Nārokā.) Madho himself issued from his capital, and after marrying at Ratlam (on 14 May), went towards Uniara to terrorize his vassal into paying tribute. Many other Rajput chiefs joined him, or promised to do so, such as the lords of Sopar (Indra Singh), Bundi, Kota, Kerauli and Khichi. He took up an attitude of open defiance to the Marathas: "The Rajah is determined to oppose us strongly. All the Shekhawats are coming . . . All the Rajahs and Rajwadas have planned to assemble at one place and form a grand political coalition." The approach of the rainy season compelled Malhar to put off his punishment till the next autumn, when the contest was fought to a quick decision. [SPD. xxix. 81. xxi. 91.]

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∗ Marathas in Rajputana, first half of 1761,—SPD. xxvii. 114, 267, 269, 271. xxix. 81. Oct-Nov,—SPD. xxvii. 276. xxix. 16-22. Raj. VI. 563. Ganguri or Gagroni, 9 m. w. of Khilchipur.

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§ 11. Malhar Holkar defeats Jaipur army at Mangrol, 29 November, 1761.

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Late in October 1761, Madho Singh assumed the offensive by sending a force, 10,000 strong, to besiege Nenvé (held by a Maratha garrison under Sadashiv Gopal), while another detachment led by Keshav Rao crossed the Chambal and penetrated to Patan (Keshorai Patan, 12 miles north-east of Kota city), raiding the neighbouring district (early November.) Malhar, hearing of it, marched from Indor to the Mukandara pass (13 Nov.) with 6,000 men (partly his own contingent and partly the Sindhia family force led by Khanaji Jadav and Chinto Krishna). At Bāriyā, in the Kota territory, he was joined by 3,000 Rajput allies under Akheram Pancholi the diwan of Kota, the youthful Zalim Singh, and the Rao Rajah's foster-brother. The Kachhwa army besieging Nenvé fell upon their main body at Patan, raising it to a strong force of 10,000 men with an abundant supply of artillery, rockets and camel-swivels; their leaders were Raj Singh Ghorchara, the two diwans Kaniram and Nandlal, and Surat Singh Shiva-Brahma-potā. Before this imposing array, the Maratha outposts in the Hada country were evacuated in terror aud their tenants were helplessly abandoned to plunder.

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Malhar promptly marched up and offered them battle between Mangrol and Bhātwara. The two armies came into touch in the afternoon of 28th November and immediately began an exchange of fire which lasted till three hours after sunset. All that night the Maratha soldiers lay with their arms at their sides and their horses saddled ready, surrounding the Jaipur army. Next day the battle raged from the morning and ended near sunset in the total destruction of the Jaipur army. Most of their high officers, including the supreme commander, fled away wounded, Saligram Shah fell, and all their guns with two elephants, many horses and camels, and their entire camp and baggage were abandoned to plunder. Large numbers of prisoners were taken, and out of that army of 10,000 men only 400 fled away, if we can take the Maratha figures. The Sindhia family contingent fought well and boasted of their feat here as if it could wipe out the disgrace of their flight from Panipat. Malhar's skin was grazed by a bullet.*

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The victory was decisive; it at once destroyed all chance of forming an anti-Maratha coalition, and restored Maratha prestige, which had been eclipsed as the result of Panipat, throughout Hindustan. Madho Singh, who had gone to Ranthambhor after sending his army to the fight, now fled to Jaipur. His favourite Shāmram Trivedi, who had evaded the campaign by frankly confessing, "My business is not war; the diwan is going," now set himself earnestly to the defence of the capital. The garrison of Amber fort was strengthened; Guru Shah (bakhshi) himself took post below that ancient capital to hold the way leading up to it.

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∗ *SPD.* ii. 5,6. xxi. 92-94. xxix. 27. Tod repeats the Rajput tradition that this battle (named by him after *Batwara*) was won solely by Zalim Singh and the Kota contingent, while Malhar merely looted the Kachhwa camp! The detailed and absolutely contemporary Marathi despatches disprove this story. The Kota contingent of 2,500 men could not have routed the Kachhwa army of over 10,000 horse, equipped with artillery shutarnals, jizails and rockets borne on camels, and flushed with their recent success in the trans-Chambal region. The severe contest waged for nine hours by Malhar and the Sindhia family contingent than under his banners, shows that the Marathas bore the brunt of the fight and that Zalim Singh played a very minor part. That there was no ewift panic flight of the Jaipur army is proved by their exceptionally large proportion of casualties.

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Mangrol, 35 miles n. e. e. of Kota, on the east bank of the Banganga, while *Bhatwara* (*Tod's Butwarro*) stands four miles south of Mangrol, but on the west bank.

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Block-houses were set up in Amber and Jaipur alike, with strong bands of musketeers; outlying detachments were hurriedly recalled to the capital. The royal family was removed to Amber for safety, while Madho Singh continued at Jaipur with light equipment, in the deepest anxiety. This sudden failure of all his plans almost unhinged his mind, and his temper "went out of control." The wise old diwan Kanirām immediately reopened negotiations with the Maratha general to settle the dispute about the outstanding tribute. After a few days' halt at Mangrol, Malhar pursued the fugitives to Khopra (? Kāpran) and then halted at Manoharpur (40 miles north of Jaipur), to enforce his demand for tribute. Agents of Jodhpur Kota and Bundi also reached his camp.

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While these negotiations were dragging their customary slow length along and the Maratha horse was subsisting by raids on the Jaipur villages, an unexpected diversion came to the relief of Madho Singh in the form of the invasion of Bundelkhand by the Emperor Shah Alam II and his new wazir Shuja-ud-daulah, their prompt capture of Kalpi (January 1762) and Jhansi (1 Feb.), the uprising of all the Bundela chieftains against Maratha rule, and the treason of three Maratha local agents who went over to the Muslim invaders. Holkar was compelled to turn away from Rajputana to the eastern side from which frantic calls for help were reaching him. He left Jaipur territory, by way of Nandgaon, Sākore and Pataudi (17 Feb.) for Jhansi. But that fort had already been lost to the Marathas. So, he turned back via Sanganer (27 Feb.) to Indor, as his wound had festered, making him very weak and reduced in health, with the result that he was given no bath for three months. His retreat disheartened all the Maratha officers and partisans in that country.*

§ 12. Maratha interests in Rajputana neglected, 1762-1764

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Throughout the whole of 1762 and 1763 the Maratha power in the North was paralysed by the events at home,—Nizam Ali's invasion of Maharashtra and sack of Puna, Raghunath Dada's desertion to the enemies of his house and the civil war between him and the new Peshwa. It was only after the decisive defeat of the Nizam at Rakisban (10 Aug. 1763) that the Puna Government was free to attend to their interests in Hindustan. It also took a long time before the young Peshwa's advisers could recognise the fact that Mahadji Sindhia was the coming man and that their delay in filling up the vacancy caused by the death of Jankoji and their fatuous policy of appointing two heads to the Sindhia family with divided powers, were really ruinous to the Maratha cause in the North. Malhar Holkar's old age and recurring ill-health made a vigorous policy in Rajputana or Bundelkhand impossible, and thus things lingered on till his death (26 May 1766), when new and younger actors entered the northern scene as leaders of the Holkar and Sindhia families and Maratha pressure on Rajputana was resumed with effect. But two years before that time, the contest was complicated by the entrance of another factor, the Jat Rajah Jawahir Singh, who openly challenged the power of Jaipur and flung himself amidst the inter-State disputes of Rajputana. Throughout Jawahir Singh’s blood-feud with Najib Khan (1764-1765), Madho Singh wisely courted Najib’s friendship as a check on the insolent Jat Rajah on his western flank.

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∗ *SPD.* ii. 7. xxix. 27, 33, 34, 37.

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Early in October 1764 we find Malhar Holkar revisiting Rajputana, at Jobner (13 miles east of Sambhar), in order to put pressure on Madho Singh for payment. Soon afterwards, in response to the Peshwa’s instructions and a large daily subsidy paid by Jawahir, he left to join that Jat king in his attack upon Najib in Delhi and the Gangetic Doab. Nothing came of this alliance through Malhar’s treacherous collusion with Najib, his ‘foster son’, and Jawahir had to make an unsatisfactory peace with the Ruhela (Feb. 1765), after having wasted his treasures on the mercenary chief of Indor. Malhar was next lured by Shuja-ud-daulah to oppose the English, and met his doom at Kora on 3rd May, at the hands of Sir Robert Fletcher. His only activity before his death on 26 May 1766 was in the Gohad district early in that year. He had clearly outlived his usefulness.

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Madho Singh, realizing that he could not succeed by arms against the Marathas and faced with the new danger of Jawahir Singh’s hostility backed by all the European-drilled troops and Sikh mercenaries that the Jat king’s enormous wealth supplied, very wisely set himself to conciliate the Marathas as his only protectors. He made friends with Holkar, most probably by bribing Holkar’s diwan, and agreed to make a reasonable settlement of his long-standing arrears of tribute through Malhar’s friendly mediation. As the Peshwa’s agent wrote in September 1765, “At Malhar’s instance we are treating the Jaipur Rajah with every tenderness and consideration, but Mahadji Sindhia has been dunning him for the arrears . . . This Court moves very slowly and protracts business.” However, before the end of that year he paid the current instalment of five lakhs, and proposed to issue orders on bankers for the balance. [SPD. xxix. 99, 107, 108, 102.]

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§ 13. Jawahir Singh’s attack on Jaipur, 1765-1767.

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A vast Sikh army (25,000 strong) led by Jassa Singh Tara Singh and two other sardars, in the pay of Jawahir Singh, penetrated into the Jaipur kingdom by way of Rewari, and joined by the Jat Rajah began to plunder the realm unopposed (late Dec. 1765.) Dulerai (the bakhshi) and Jaychand (the Khan-i-saman) had been then sent from Jaipur to invest the fort of Kanaud which was being held by Ratan Singh Khangarot, a rebel against the Jaipur Government. The Sikh invaders arrived on the scene and encamped seven *kos* from the Kachhwa siege lines. Their strength was overwhelming, and Madho Singh in utter helplessness appealed to Malhar and Mahadji to come to his aid. A Sindhia contingent, some 5,000 horse, under Achyut Rao Ganesh, which was plundering near Kishangarh, on being promised Rs. 5000 daily, hastened to Jaipur. This prompt intervention of the Marathas upset Jawahir’s plans and he patched up a truce with the Jaipur Rajah through Nawal Singh. The Sikhs were promised a subsidy and sent back to their homes, while Jawahir returned to Kumbher. Achyut, arriving near Fāgi, found that there was no work for him; the Jaipur general Raj Singh Ghorcharā gave him and his officers presents and put them on the way of return to Mahadji. During their march these Maratha allies “were beyond their officers’ control, plundered the country and devastated the crops.”

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The detachment under Dulerai bakhshi was now recalled from Kanaud to Jaipur, March 1766. [*SPD.* xxix, 72, 99, 102, 105, 107. xxvii. 109.]

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The insolent challenge of the young Jat Rajah continued as the dominant factor of Jaipur history till the death of the two principals,—Madho Singh on 6 March 1768 and Jawahir Singh four months later. In 1765 Sombre (Walter Reinhard) with his well-drilled contingent of a thousand men left the service of Madho Singh for that of the Jat Rajah. Next year (c. June) Jawahir received a more valuable accession to his strength in the person of the able and honest French mercenary René Madec. But Jawahir’s career was foredoomed to failure from his wilful character. He quarrelled with everybody else. After provoking Madho Singh by invasion and insult, he in November 1767 dreamt of building up a coalition with all the Rajput States and expelling the Marathas from Rajputana and even Malwa! And yet he gave fresh offence to Madho Singh which resulted in his disastrous defeat near Pushkar (14 Dec. 1767) and another reverse near Kāmā (29 Feb. 1768.) These affairs we have treated in the chapter on Jat history. [Barbe, p. 43. SPD. xxix. 128, 162, 162a, 84.]

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After the death of Madho Singh, the Peshwa demanded a succession fee (tikā nazar) from his heir Pirthi Singh, as if the Brahman minister of the Rajah of Satara had become the lord paramount of all India. [SPD. xxix. 248.]

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§ 14. Mewar and the Marathas, 1761—1766; the tribute promised.

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We now turn to the doleful history of Mewar during these ten years. The reign of Raj Singh II (1754-1761) was a long minority during which his weak and helpless State received repeated visitations from Maratha generals and had to buy them off every time. On 3rd April 1761 Ari Singh II succeeded to this impoverished heritage, and though he was of ripe age and reigned for twelve years, his violent fits of anger, ungovernable temper, and insolent demeanour led to a general rebellion of his vassals and the breakdown of law and order throughout the State, which continued for half a century and was ended only by the establishment of British paramountcy and British peace.

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The annual subsidy promised in writing by the Maharana to Baji Rao in 1736 [Ch. 6 § 11] had long ago fallen into arrears and then been repudiated by the Udaipur Government. In April 1761 the Peshwa wrote to Malhar Holkar urging him to march his army to Udaipur to add weight to the Maratha envoy's demand for this subsidy, and also to squeeze ten or even twenty lakhs of Rupees out of the new Maharana as his succession-fine. [SPD. xxix. 269.] But Malhar was detained in the Hada country till the rains by his entanglement at Gagroni, and thereafter, in November, by his war with Jaipur. During 1762 and 1763 no Maratha general could turn to Mewar for the reasons already given. During 1764 and the first part of 1765, Jaipur engrossed their attention.

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