Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c29.s3.3

v2.c29.s3.3

guard himself from Madho Singh of Jaipur who had given refuge to Ram Singh, the dethroned king of Marwar, and was openly threatening to restore him by force. But the Jaipur Rajah’s entanglement with the Marathas and the Jat king and thereafter with his nobles, made it impossible for him to undertake any expedition against Bijay Singh, and the latter breathed freely. Quarrels with his headstrong and disloyal nobles weakened Bijay Singh no less than his enemy of Jaipur, and left both an easy prey to Maratha aggression. Every time a Maratha army entered their territory, the Rajput Courts without a single exception, held parleys with it, gained as much time as possible, and finally agreed to a subsidy the actual payment of which was beyond their capacity and against their real wishes. Something was paid after long higgling and threats by the Maratha residents and the invaders were bought off for the time.* “Procrastination is the sole policy of these States,” as one of these tribute-collectors wrote with bitter truth. Ajmir had been ceded to the Marathas in 1755 and continued to be held by them. This inglorious and monotonous course of Marwar history was varied in 1767 by the visit of Jawahir Singh to Pushkar, where Bijay Singh met him by invitation (6 Nov. 1767.) On the bank of the lake sacred to the Divine Creator, Jawahir and Bijay Singh exchanged turbans in sign of full brotherhood and vowed to wage a joint war of Rajputs and Jats for crushing the Marathas and Najib Khan in Hindustan. Bijay Singh invited Madho Singh to come to Pushkar for cementing this coalition. But the proud Kachhwa chief replied, sternly rebuking the head of the Rathor clan for having degraded himself by sitting on the same bench with “a silly Jat, a tenant of the house of Jaipur, who had always come to our feet on the receipt of our summons. Only the Maharana, the Rao Rajah and yourself are my peers.” This letter threw Jawahir into a paroxysm of rage and he plunged headlong into a war with Jaipur which nearly ruined him. [Vam. Bh. 3720, SPD. xxix. 162.]