Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c30.s2: § 2. Cause of Shah Alam’s failure ; the moral decay of the Mughal nobility
Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c30.s2
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§ 2. Cause of Shah Alam’s failure ; the moral decay of the Mughal nobility
v2.c30.s2.1
In short, Shah Alam’s character at this time was one of promise. Given proper instruments and favourable circumstances he might have succeeded in restoring the Delhi monarchy. But it was the tragedy of his life that he was called upon to set right a world that was out of joint morally even more than politically. Nowhere could he find a single faithful friend or able lieutenant. All the men who gathered round him during his struggle for a kingdom were selfish men, shady adventurers, or pretenders to baronies or public offices, whose one aim was to use his prestige as lawful Emperor to oust the men in possession of the coveted landed estate or Government post. Even an angel would have to beat his wings ineffectually in such a foul atmosphere, heavy with the inertia of an age-old decadent society and State. The character of the peerage that now represented Yamin-ud-daulah and Sadullah, Mir Jumla and Asaf Jah, filled every true friend of the Delhi monarchy with despair. As Jean Law spoke in the bitterness of disappointment to the historian Ghulām Husain Khān (in April 1759),—"I have travelled everywhere from Bengal to Delhi, but nowhere have I found anything from any one except oppression of the poor and plundering of wayfarers. Whenever I wanted that one of these famous potentates, like Shuja, Imad and their peers, out of a regard for honour and a desire for the regulation of the Government, should undertake to put in order the affairs of Bengal and suppress the English [usurpers of that province], not one of them felt any inclination to this task. They did not once weigh in their minds the praiseworthiness or shame of their conduct... The Indian nobles (umara) are a set of disorderly inconsistent blockheads, who exist solely for ruining a world of people." [Siyar, ii. 257.] Shah Alam himself, after years of bitter experience, came to the same conclusion. As he wrote in 1768: "Through the perfidiousness of the nobility and vassals this anarchy has arisen, and every one proclaims himself a sovereign in his own place, and they are at variance with one another, the strong prevailing over the weak... In this age of delusion and deceit, His Majesty, places no dependence on the services or professions of loyalty of any one but the English chiefs." [CPC. ii. 1101, 836. Shākir, 107.]
v2.c30.s2.2
The highest noble in the land and hereditary claimant to the imperial Chancellorship was Imad-ul-mulk. But apart from the deadly malignity which he bore to Shah Alam and his kin, Imad had fallen off from the high standard of capacity that he had displayed in the struggle with Safdar Jang six years earlier. He seems to have now taken after his maternal grandfather, the former wazir Qamruddin Khan Itimad-ud-daulah, and found the highest wisdom in letting matters drift and doing nothing himself. But he lacked that gay toper's uniform courtesy, geniality of spirit, and aversion to bloodshed. Though his intellect was very keen, his capacity for action seems to have been paralysed. To the licentiousness and sloth which he shared with most other nobles, he added a deceitfulness, cowardice and sadistic love of cruelty all his own. Jean Law, who often met him, writes, "I have not seen in his conduct anything but much deception and a cruelty that revolts. He has almost always the rosary in his hand, but his devotion is nothing but hypocrisy. He caused to be inhumanly massacred those in whom he appeared to have the greatest confidence and to whom he was actually indebted for his elevation." [Memoire, 179.]
v2.c30.s2.3
Thus, by an irony of Fate, though Shah Alam was the lawful Padishah of Delhi, his hereditary wazir was his mortal enemy, and this wazir was the nominee of the two strongest Powers in India, the Peshwa and the Jat Rajah. But the blood of his murdered father and slain followers ran as an impassable stream between Shah Alam and Imad. Najib-ud-daulah was probably strong enough to instal and uphold him on the throne of Delhi, provided that Imad did not bring the Marathas again to oust him and he could be sure of securing in time the rather expensive aid of Abdali in such a danger. But Najib was not prepared to make any sacrifice or run any risk of entanglement for the sake of his fugitive sovereign. Nor could Shah Alam be entirely free from suspicion regarding the Ruhela chieftain. During Ahmad Shah’s invasion of 1748, the Afghans all over India had openly talked of expelling the Turki dynasty of Babur from Delhi and restoring the Afghan sovereignty that had yielded place to the Mughal. Abdali’s defeat at Manupur had averted that catastrophe in 1748, but now after their crowning victory at Panipat, what Power was left in Northern India to make even an hour’s stand against such a design of the exultant Afghan race? What protection had Shah Alam from the extermination of his family if he put himself helplessly within the reach of Najib? [CPC. iii. 270.]