Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c34.s5: § 5. Najaf Khan compared with Najib-ud-daulah
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c34.s5
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§ 5. Najaf Khan compared with Najib-ud-daulah
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As the dictator of Delhi and commander-in-chief (Mir Bakhshi) of the forces of the Empire, Najaf Khan naturally invites comparison with Najib-ud-daulah, his immediate predecessor in that office. At the zenith of his career, Najib-uddaulah was for ten years the regent of the Mughal Empire, his position and power undisputed by any Court rival or Muslim potentate in India. His strength lay in the fact of his being the head of a Ruhela clan and the recognised leader of the Afghan race in general throughout Hindustan, while at the same time he was up to 1767 backed, sometimes by the presence but oftener by the prestige and name of his unconquerable patron, the Durrānī Shāh. In India itself he was the Sunni champion besides being the head of the Afghan race. Even without Durrānī backing, he was manifestly the greatest Indian general of his age after the death of Asaf Jāh Nizām-ul-mulk. At the same time his possession of fertile and comparatively undisturbed jagirs in the Doab and upper Rohilkhand, which were carefully managed by his able and faithful land-stewards, ensured for him a large and steady income, so that at the time of his death he was the richest Muslim ruler of North India.
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Najaf Khan, on the other hand, possessed some social advantages which birth had denied to Najib-ud-daulah. That Ruhela had started life in India as a poor uninfluential man, entering service in the humble capacity of a foot soldier. From this small beginning he had risen by sheer merit and unfailing opportunism to the virtual headship of the Empire. But Najaf Khan was a Mīrzā, boasting of the royal blood of Persia and closely connected with the house of the Oudh Nawābs by marriage. All this, however, counted for nothing in practical effect as steps to his rise to greatness. He had no racial backing in India; even the Persian Shujā, his kinsman and brother of the faith, was his personal enemy, while Najaf Khan’s creed made him utterly friendless at the Court of Delhi, where the Shia faction created by Amir Khan and Muhammad Ishāq Khan had been crushed after the failure of Safdar Jang’s rising against his master in 1753.
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In the royal council, the ears of the spineless weak-minded Shah Alam were time after time poisoned by Abdul Ahad Khan and other jealous intriguers against Najaf Khan, in spite of his evident loyalty and devoted services, and Najaf had to turn round and meet the challenge of these domestic enemies while he was entangled with foreign foes. In addition to such repeated thwarting by his Court rivals unknown to Najib-ud-daulah, Mirzā Najaf was also hampered by his lack of funds, as he had no fertile and protected jagirs for supporting his army with, and his victorious campaigns were often abruptly ended by the clamours of his unpaid soldiery.
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§ 6. Zābita Khan provokes war with Emperor.
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We shall now trace the services of Najaf Khan under the newly restored Government of Delhi.
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When the news of Najib-ud-daulah’s death (31 Oct. 1770) reached Shah Alam at Allahabad, he first sent to Zābita Khan,* the eldest son of the departed chief, not only the usual condolences but also a robe of investiture for succession to his father's high office of Mir Bakhshi (Head of the Army) with the attached title of Amir-ul-umāra, and asked him to come with his forces and escort the Emperor to Delhi, where "the throne would belong to the Emperor and the control of the Empire to Zābita Khan," as had been the practice during his great father's regency of ten years. At the same time, the Emperor called upon Zābita Khan to pay the customary fee of succession for his father's estates and office, and settle the accounts of the Crownlands and privy purse estates round Delhi and in the upper Doab held by Najib for so many years. Even in the lifetime of Alamgir II there had been complaints that Najib was realising lakhs of Rupees every year as rent from these lands, but paying only a quarter of them or even less into the imperial Exchequer.
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At the outset the Emperor had no unfriendly feeling towards Zābita, and indeed he had no means of asserting himself against that Ruhela chief whose troops were garrisoning Delhi and guarding the Emperor's mother and heir, while the exiled monarch had no army of his own. Zābita knew his sovereign's impotence and after detaining the imperial messengers for some time, packed them off with a haughty refusal, though he assumed the robe of Mir Bakhshi (29 Dec. 1770). According to Ghulām Ali, Zābita’s natural Afghan stupidity was aggravated by the insolence of youth and the pride of such vast wealth acquired without the least exertion on his part.
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∗ G. Ali, ii. 266, 283. Muna Lal 121-123. Miskin 272-273. DC.
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Thereafter, a rapid shifting of scenes took place on the political stage of the Empire. Shah Alam welcomed Mahadji Sindhia’s secret offer of adhesion and came to terms with the Maratha plenipotentiary in Hindustan; Delhi fort was wrested from Zābita’s agent and occupied by the Marathas in the Emperor’s name; a formal treaty was signed with them for escorting Shah Alam to his capital, and finally the Emperor himself arrived near Farrukhabad on his march to Delhi. Here his first conspicuous success was the exaction of a tribute from the heir of Ahmad Khan Bangash, and this was effected only with the backing of Sindhia’s armed force. The royal counsellors urged Shah Alam to follow this success up by attacking Zābita and compelling him to pay tribute and homage. But the Emperor either quailed from an encounter, or deemed it better policy not to antagonise Zābita, as such a course would drive that rich Ruhela to form a pact with the Marathas and leave the Emperor without a single friend in the world.
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So, Zābita Khan was again gently invited to come and pay his loyal respects and offer the customary congratulatory presents at the foot of the throne during the next Coronation in Delhi. All the other nobles and vassal princes of the realm did this duty, but Zābita Khan continued obstinate in his contumacy, refusing to part with any money. Then the Emperor decided to punish him; the pay of the royal army had fallen into arrears and the soliders were clamouring to be let loose on the Ruhela lands as the only means of relieving their distress. Not a day was to be lost; it was already January and in a few months' time the rising flood of the rivers would make them uncrossable for armies.