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Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35: Chapter XXVIII. Downfall of the Jat Power, 1773—1776

Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35

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Chapter XXVIII. Downfall of the Jat Power, 1773—1776

§ 1. Ministerial changes at Delhi. Rise of Abdul Ahad: his early career and character

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The return of Mirza Najaf Khan to Delhi after the Maratha failure in Rohilkhand (20th May 1773) was followed by a revolution at Court. A sovereign like Shah Alam II, with no strength of character, energy or even personal courage, was bound to pass his life under the tutelage of some cleverer brain or stronger will. His administration was directed by one favourite after another. Munir-ud-daulah had dominated the exiled Court at Allahabad; but his influence depended solely on his enjoying the trust of the English authorities of Bengal and securing the smooth payment of the annual tribute of 26 lakhs promised in return for the diwani of the eastern provinces—which was now the sole support of the Emperor's household and officers. When that tribute fell into arrears, Munir's advocacy of every policy favoured by the English began to be counted as a sin and his fall was completed by his open opposition to the migration of the Court to Delhi on which the Emperor had set his heart. Saif-ud-din Muhammad Khan Kashmiri, (entitled Saif-ul-mulk), now rose to high favour. He conducted the pact with the Marathas for the restoration of the monarch to his capital, took delivery of Delhi fort for his absent master from the Maratha hands, and acted as the chief minister during the march from Allahabad. But a fortnight after the royal entry into Delhi he was supplanted by Hisām-ud-daulah, evidently because he had no administrative capacity and could not satisfy the Emperor’s pressing need of money from the revenue but had spent all the collections in keeping together the army that formed the imperial escort to Delhi.

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Hisām who had been the jealous rival of Munir-ud-daulah during the royal sojourn in Allahabad, achieved no better success in filling the Exchequer, and he was ruined by his pro-Maratha policy during the attack on Delhi in December 1772. The failure of the Marathas to divide the rich spoils of Rohilkhand equitably with the Emperor and even to maintain their military predominance in Hindustan, necessarily involved their partisans at Court in their discredit. Najaf Khan, who had advocated a directly opposite policy which the Emperor had rejected in favour of Hisām’s, was now triumphantly vindicated, and Hisām fell entirely out of favour. Moreover, Najaf was a former *protege* and constant friend of the English, and his influence over them would be very useful in securing the restoration of the Bengal tribute of 26 lakhs which the Bengal Governors had stopped after the great famine of 1770. The cession of Kora and Allahabad to the Marathas, brought about by Hisām, had antagonised the English and he stood condemned for this diplomatic false step. Now that the Marathas were happily gone out of Hindustan covered with failure and disgrace, Najaf Khan was the proper person to restore the broken friendship between the Emperor and the English. He was also the only general capable of recovering the imperial dominions and suspended tributes from the Jats and other upstart rebels, while Hisām was no soldier.

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So, Najaf Khan on returning to Delhi was received in audience (20th May 1773) with the highest honours; and at his recommendation Abdul Ahad Khan was appointed deputy wazir two days later, *vice* Hisām-ud-daulah whose title of nobility was taken away and his name reduced to plain Hisām-ud-din. This Abdul Ahad Khan (now ennobled as Majd-ud-daulah Bahrām Jang) had at first been a servant of Najib-ud-daulah and posted at Delhi under Najib’s representative in that city to act as a channel of communication with the Queen-mother and the Crown Prince who were living at the capital during Shah Alam’s exile. He had acted as the bearer of these two august personages’ message to the absent Emperor in September 1769 and also as Najib’s envoy to the Marathas in the Doab in April 1770. After Najib’s death he had borne Zābita Khan company and conveyed his new master’s presents and proposals to the Emperor on his way to Delhi (19 November 1771.) On the fall of Pathargarh and the flight of Zābita, he had come out of that fort and had received the Emperor's formal pardon for having been a rebel's follower (30th March 1772.) For a year after this he hung about the Court without employment, though his speech and manners charmed the Emperor. At last the supple Kashmiri won Najaf Khan over to his interests by vowing to be his faithful follower and supporter at Court ever afterwards and thus secured the Premiership (22nd May 1773.)*

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Abdul Ahad was a courtier after the Emperor's heart, with the smooth polish, perfect suavity of temper and false bewitching tongue of a typical Kashmiri Muslim, and he soon grew into the best loved personal friend and private companion of Shah Alam. But he was no soldier, no ruler of men, and his natural weapons of duplicity and covert intrigue broke hopelessly down when coming in contact with the hard facts of life in that troubled and changeful world.

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On 5th June 1773 Mirzā Najaf was appointed Second Paymaster General, the titular Mir Bakhshi Zābita Khan being an absentee like the nominal wazir Shujā-ud-daulah whose actual functions were discharged by Abdul Ahad Khan as his deputy at Court. On the same day Hisām, who had been dismissed from this latter office, was thrown into prison, but Najaf Khan with his usual moderation and foresight got his fallen rival released, five days later, by pleading with the Emperor, took him to his own house and there set him to render account of his management of the royal treasury (Crownlands) during his year of chancellorship. The ex-minister compounded for the claims against him by paying six lakhs to the Emperor and three to Najaf Khan. Mahdi Quli Khan, who had oppressed and fleeced the Delhi people during Imād-ul-mulk’s wazirship and had later flourished under the protection of Hisām, was thrown into prison on the downfall of his patron (14th June), and after a month of beating, was tortured to death by being chained to the leg of an elephant and dragged through the streets of Delhi (12 July.) [Muna Lal 148-149. Ibrat. i. 229, 243-244. DC.]

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∗ *DC. Ibrat. i. 228. G. Ali iii. 21-28. Miskin 288. Muna Lal 146. These dates are taken from the contemporary Persian sources and therefore the patent of nobility given to René Madec really belongs to the year 1774. (Barbé pp. 289-91, dates incorrect.) CPC. ii. 178, 626, 987 (Saifuddin had incurred a debt of 12 lakhs for the Emperor's journey to Delhi.) Siyar, iii. 85.

§ 2. Mirza Najaf’s new army; his military superiority

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Secure, at least for a time, from the back-biting and intrigues of envious rivals, Mirzā Najaf set himself to raising a new army for the Emperor, with his usual energy and success. His reputation drew out of work veterans and ambitious young recruits from all sides, and his task was rendered easier by the help of a number of very able and devoted lieutenants that he had gathered round himself, such as Najaf Quli Khan and Afrāsiyāb Khan (these two being popularly called his adopted sons) and Muhammad Beg Hamadāni, besides former Mughalia captains like Qilich Beg, Niyāz Beg, Mirzā Beg, Badal Beg, and our invaluable memoir-writer Tahmāsp Khan (who used the pen-name of Miskin.) Mulla Rahimdād with 3,000 Ruhelas in a state of utter destitution,—without clothing on their backs, arms in their hands, or armour on their persons,—entered Najaf’s service to avoid starvation. The country round Delhi, especially the Baluch colonies in Mewāt, was beaten for recruits and the response was prompt and ample. In a short time the assembled force exceeded 20,000 men.

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The question now arose how to feed and equip them. The Treasury was empty. An attack upon the Jat Rajah, known to be the richest vassal in the north, was the only resource left, now that the attempt to squeeze Zābita Khan had failed. The vast new army if left unpaid would form a constant danger to the peace of Delhi, and therefore Abdul Ahad gave Najaf two lakhs of Rupees on condition of leading these men out on a Jat expedition. One lakh more was raised by Najaf’s two lieutenants as a loan on their personal security. The new army was thus equipped and set out against Nawal Singh. It was agreed that the territory and booty seized would be shared equally between the Emperor and his general. Najaf Khan was also appointed subahadar of the yet to be reconquered province of Agra in addition to his Deputy Paymastership.

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His military superiority lay in his copious supply of artillery, rockets and smaller fire arms, six battalions of sepoy musketeers,—two of them trained by the English and the others organised and led by commandants who had previously seen service under Europeans,—his assemblage of the remnants of the old Badakhshis (all veterans familiar with Durrāni warfare) and a large body of desperate Ruhela soldiers who had been disbanded after Najib-ud-daulah's death and the downfall of his son. He had, besides, the benefit of the advice of very competent European generals, such as Major Polier, an expert military engineer highly praised by Hastings, in the campaign of January 1774, and René Madec and the Comte de Modave in the war of 1775-1776. Above all shone his own undoubted genius for war and diplomacy and power of controlling men.*

§ 3. Causes of the decline of the Jat military power

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Against such an adversary, the Jats were hopelessly outclassed. They had not adopted the combined tactics and disciplined use of firearms which the Europeans had introduced into Indian warfare; they had even lost the high level of efficiency in the indigenous style of fighting to which Suraj Mal had raised them. All their veteran captains were dead. Jawahir Singh’s ruthless selfishness had destroyed most of their leading chiefs, and time had removed the rest. No younger men had risen to take the places of these. Their Rajah was a weak voluptuary, lacking even the brute courage of his ancestry. And his Government was torn by family dissensions, the factious opposition of his brothers and uncles, and the open defection of Balu Jat’s sons. Of his European retainers, Madec had been seduced by the Emperor in October 1772 and Sombre was to be in May 1774.

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∗ Miskin 283. Ibrat. i. 229.

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Under Suraj Mal the Jat power had successfully defied the great Durrāni Shāh by a policy of pure defensive. But they now failed to play such a game by reason of Mirzā Najaf’s rapidity of strokes, masterly use of the time factor, and sharp turning on strategic lines. The campaign of 1773-74 and that of 1775-76 ended in unmitigated disaster for the house that Suraj Mal had raised to supreme eminence in Hindustan. The murder of the Peshwa Narayan Rao on 30th August 1773 and the intestine and foreign wars in which the Puna Government was next involved, prevented any Maratha advance north of the Chambal for eleven years after it, and thus kept the ring clear for the combat between the Delhi Government and its refractory Jat vassal.

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§ 4. Dān Shāh Jāt and Chandu Gujar defeated in the Doab, Sep. 1773.

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Najaf's invasion of the Jat homeland was preceded by a smaller trial of strength in the Doab* immediately south-east of Delhi (in the Bulandshahar district.) The armed preparations in Delhi during the monsoons had not escaped the Jat Rajah's notice. By his order his forces in the Doab, then commanded by Dān Shāh, the best general left to him, and Chandu Gujar the governor of Aligarh, advanced from their base at Dankaur and ravaged the imperial territory from Sikandrabad to Ghaziabad (1-2 September 1773.) At the arrival of this news, Najaf Khan despatched from Delhi a strong detachment of 6000 Mughalia horse (under Tāj Md. Baluch and Niyāz Beg) and two battalions of English-trained sepoys (under Rāmru commandant) with a good supply of guns and rockets (7th September.) When this force reached Shāhdara, the Jat raiders hurriedly fell back on their base, the imperialists giving chase and every day slaying their stragglers and capturing their camp property.

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∗ Doab campaign.—DC. Ibrat. i. 213-214 (wrongly places in 1772.) G. Ali iii. 29-33. Chahar Gulzar 492 b-493a (full.) CPC. iv. 558.

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Outside Dankaur, the Jats turned at bay in a strong position protected by pits and hillocks and offered battle (16th Sept.) "Chandu Gujar led a charge upon the imperial artillery. But the guns fired grape and the sepoy battalions delivered volleys from their muskets rank after rank with exact precision. The Jat light horse which had never expected this, were shot down in large numbers. Chandu Gujar, though wounded, broke into the sepoy ranks and was bayoneted," and the broken remnant of the Jat vanguard fled away. Meantime Dān Shāh had crossed the stream with a few thousand horsemen and fallen upon the imperial rearguard. Here a long and obstinate hand to hand fight took place, but at last the Jats were routed by a bold counter attack led by Tāj Md. Khan. Dān Shāh himself fled away wounded. Over 3,000 Jats perished in this campaign. Large quantities of spoils fell into the victors' hands, and that region was cleared of Jat authority. The detachment crossed back to the west bank of the Jamuna and joined Najaf.

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§ 5. Mirza Najaf invades Jat country; successful advance.

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The Mughal generalissimo had himself set out from Delhi on 24th September and entered his tents at Bārapula. He took very happy auspices for his projected campaign by capturing the mud fort of Maidāngarhi, which Suraj Mal had built, as if in supreme defiance of the imperial authority, only 13 miles south of Delhi (1¾ miles south of the Qutb minār.) Najaf’s heavy fire drove the rustic garrison from the walls and the fortalice was taken by a single assault of infantry clambering over the mud walls sword in hand. In another quarter, a Jat detachment from Farrukhnagar attacking the *garhi* of Harsaru was defeated and despoiled by the Mirzā’s lieutenant Najaf Quli Khan, on 5th October.*

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Marching from Delhi by way of Bārapula and Badarpur, Najaf Khan reached Ballabhgarh, 25 miles south of the capital. Here he received a highly important accession to his strength in the person of Ajit and Hirā Singh, the dispossessed heirs of the founder of that great fort, —the northernmost bulwark of the expanded Jat kingdom. They offered to assist the invaders with their local knowledge and influence if Najaf Khan would promise to restore their patrimony to them after it had been wrested from the Jat Rajah’s agents. The defection of such men at the very outset of the campaign “broke the waist of Nawal Singh’s resolution”, and he fell back from his first post at Bāwni-Kherā (six miles south of Palwal) to Banchāri, nine miles further south, where he entrenched his camp. While Mirzā Najaf himself halted at Sikri-Fathpur Biloch, five miles south of Ballabhgarh and nine miles north of Palwal, his captain Najaf Quli, newly arrived from his successful operations in Mewāt, was sent off with the vanguard (8th October) to clear the way. This captain advanced, daily fighting skirmishes and driving back the Jat patrols. Nowhere was any defence offered, and the villages in the north Jat territory lay helpless before the invaders. "As the autumn crop was then ripe, the Nawab's soldiers fed themselves and their horses on the standing millet crop along their route. They plundered every village that lay in their path, set fire to it, and carried off all the cattle and sheep &c., which they sold at low prices or ate; especially the beggarly Ruhelas of Mullā Rahim-dād, whose leanness turned into fatness from eating the plundered provisions, and whose appearance after being clothed in plundered apparel changed from the look of wild beasts to that of human beings." [Ibrat, i. 231, Miskin 290.]

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∗ Maidangarhi.—*Ibrat.* i. 212 (year wrong.) G. Ali. iii. 34. *Chahar Gulz.* 492b. Najaf’s advance.—*DC.* *Ibrat.* i. 231-234. G. Ali iii. 36-39. *Chahar Gulzar* 492b-493b. Muna Lal 151. *CPC.* iv. 628.

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So greatly were the Jat troops demoralised by the example of their craven chief that one day (10th October) they abandoned their camp at Banchāri in a ridiculous panic: "while they were at their midday meal, they mistook a dust cloud on the west for the approach of Najaf Khan's army and fled away in fear, leaving their entire camp standing. The cloud moved like a spiral. The villagers of Banchāri, on seeing the helpless condition of the fugitives, looted their camp. On the news of this reaching Najaf Khan’s encampment in the rear, every man went out of it and looted what remained of the Jat camp, and at night fell back to their own base.” [Ibrat, 233-’34.] Nawal Singh took refuge near Kotban, 4 miles south of Hodal (and 8 miles s. e. of Banchāri),—amidst its abundance of jungles and broken ground.

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Mirzā Najaf, profiting by the advice of his two Jat allies, decided not to attack Nawal Singh there, but to manœuvre him out of his position and force him to offer battle at a disadvantage. Leaving Kotban in his rear, he turned aside and marched sacking the villages in the Chhata and Sahar parganahs further south and east. Vast quantities of spoils in cash and kind were taken here. At this, Nawal Singh issued from Kotban to the plain east of Barsānā, 14 miles in the south. Najaf’s base was now near Sahar, seven miles east of Barsānā.

§ 6. Battle before Barsana; Jat disaster. Fall of Kotban

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After skirmishes for ten days, the decisive battle was fought on 30th October, midway between Sahar and Barsānā.* This was the first battle in Upper India (outside the Bengal Presidency) in which sepoy battalions drilled by Europeans and European-trained gunners were ranged on both sides. Hence the contest was prolonged and the mortality exceptionally heavy; the victors lost 2,300 men in killed and wounded, and the Jats about 2,000, but Sombre’s battalions were severely cut up. The Jat army was thus drawn up:—a strong force (probably 5,000) of Nāgā monks armed with muskets under Bālānanad Gosain on the left, Nawal Singh himself with his Jat clansmen in the centre, and nine battalions of sepoys under Sombre with their artillery on the right. The Jat Rajah’s own guns were ranged in front of the centre and chained together for breaking cavalry attacks. The imperial right was formed by Rahim-dād Khan and his 5,000 Ruhelas; in the centre Najaf Quli was placed with the Mughalia horse; on the left four battalions of disciplined sepoys under Razā Beg Khan and Rahim Beg, commandants; the artillery formed the first line. Like a modern general Mirzā Najaf deviated from the old Indian practice, and mounted a fleet horse instead of an elephant, so as to be able to gallop to any threatened point and push up succours wherever needed. On his own elephant he placed Masum

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∗ Battle.—Chahar Gulz. 493b. Ibrat. i. 236-240. G. Ali iii 40-44. DC. CPC. iv. 638. Sack of Chhata, G. Ali iii : 38.

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Ch. Gulz. 493a.) Sack of Mathura by Najaf Quli (Ch. Gulz. 494a.) Ibrat. names the battlefield Shāhpur, which I cannot find by local inquiry. (? Tatarpur).

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Ali Khan, who was naturally mistaken by the enemy for the generalissimo and paid for the false personation with his life. Between the rival forces a dense plantation of tall millets intervened.

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The battle began shortly after noon with an exchange of artillery fire which lasted for four hours. Then, with only one hour of sunlight remaining, the two sides closed together. The Ruhela infantry on the Mughal right charged the Nāgās, who fired volleys in succession; but the Ruhelas dodged the bullets by promptly falling down on the ground, then rising up and resuming their run, till they came up with the Nāgās before they could load again. After a bloody combat, the Nāgās broke with the loss of a thousand of their men. At the other end of the line the Emperor's sepoy battalions advanced against Sombre's. "The former had reserved their fire till they would come to close quarters, but fate did not give them the necessary time for it. The first salvo of Sombre's guns killed these two commandants, and their sepoys threw their muskets down and hid themselves among the tall crops." This was the crisis of the battle. But Najaf's superior generalship gave him the victory over the inert and timid Jat chief. The Mirzā, on seeing his left wing dissolved, galloped up to his centre and ordered that division (all cavalry) to charge the Jat centre. The Mughalia horse, cutting passages through the line of linked enemy guns in front, attacked Nawal Singh at the gallop.

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Here the Rajputs and Jats offered a desperate defence. But Nawal Singh's heart failed him as usual, he fled away, and his centre division ceased to struggle any longer.

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The victorious imperialists, including even their higher officers, at once dispersed for plunder, as the fabulously rich Jat royal camp was just behind the field of action. But the battle had not yet been won; Sombre maintained his position, forming his infantry into squares and working his guns in front. Under shelter of this disciplined force, Jodhrāj the Jat diwān formed his 500 horse ready for action. Najaf, mad with vexation at the disorderly conduct of his troops, with only a few personal attendants round him made a charge upon Jodhrāj's horse, carefully skirting Sombre's sepoys. He himself received a spear thrust which penetrated his armour and cut his left thigh open to the bone; but Jodhrāj was routed. Then only did Sombre withdraw from the field, his sepoys marching away with the utmost steadiness and order. They were saved by a splendid rearguard action fought by his French second-in-command, who coolly kept his place and repelled charge after charge of the Mughal horse by the discharge of his guns. At last Najaf Khan succeeded in hunting out a number of his plundering artillerymen and turned a gun upon the enemy, the second shot of which killed this gallant Frenchman. Then all resistance ceased; but there was no pursuit; discipline and European leadership saved Samru's sepoys even in the midst of such a complete defeat.

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The Mughal army now marched on to Nawal Singh's camp which had been left standing with its "wealth beyond imagination". The spoils included all the Jat artillery, elephants, horses and camels, besides money and apparel. The newly built city of Barsānā was sacked and reduced to a state of ruin which continued for more than a century. "The famished Mughalia troopers appeased their hunger no longer with the growing crops, but with good cooked meals." The imperialists halted at Barsānā for some days in order to attend to the many hundreds of their wounded comrades and to secure the unmanageably immense spoils of victory.

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In the strategic moves before this battle, the imperialists had marched southwards along the eastern route from Hodal by Chhata and Sahar, leaving Kotban untaken behind them. But after the utter wreck of the Jat field force at Barsānā, Mirzā Najaf's first care was to secure his rear by sending a detachment under Rahim-dād against Kotban which was held by Sitārām, the father-in-law of Nawal Singh. Strong reinforcements arrived under Najaf Quli to assist in the siege. The place was now completely invested and its provision supply cut off. After 19 days, Sitārām silently evacuated it one night (end of November), and next morning the imperialists gained possession of it with all its guns and "immense quantities of provisions powder and shot, tents, &c." [*Ibrat*, i. 240-'2. *Ch. Gulz.* 493b.]

§ 7. Najaf Khan captures Agra fort

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Thereafter the Mughal generalissimo gave up the plan of pursuing Nawal Singh and wasting months in the siege of his impregnable forts. He made a sharp turn to the east and arrived before Agra on 11th December. The city gave him peaceful possession as his firmness saved its people from plunder and molestation. He owed several months' pay to his army, but he nobly rejected the proposal of his lieutenant to wipe off his heavy debt by giving his soldiers licence to sack the city. The fort of Agra,* however, held out under its Jat commandant, a brother of Dān Shāh. But even this great fortress of Akbar could make no prolonged defence, thanks to Najaf Khan's good fortune. This needs explanation.

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By the treaty of Benares (7th Sept. 1773) Shujāuddaulah had secured from Warren Hastings an assurance of British armed aid in the defence of his own territory and in his projected annexation of Rohilkhand. The news of the murder of the Peshwa Narayan Rao whetted his appetite for extending his own dominions in the Doab by seizing the now defenceless Maratha possessions there. [CPC. iv. 584 & 626.] No interference was to be feared from the Deccanis, now entangled in their homeland for years to come. The Jat Rajah, left half dead by the Maratha expedition of 1770, was going to be crushed by Mirza Najaf Khan from Delhi. As the imperial attack developed, Nawal Singh made frantic appeals to Shujā—as he did to Zābita and every other enemy of Najaf—to save him. But the loyal service of Suraj Mal to Safdar Jang was forgotten; Shujā’s one aim was to fish in these troubled waters and embark on a career of annexation, now that he was secure about his own realm. The Jat Rajah even offered to cede the fort of Agra to Shujā as the price of his aid in saving the rest of his kingdom from Najaf Khan. So, Shujā marched into the Doab with a large army and began to approach towards Agra, after wresting Etawa from its weak Maratha garrison (circa 15 Dec.) by a siege of four days.

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∗ Najaf's siege of Agra.—DC. Muna Lal 152. G. Ali. iii. 45-51. *Ibrat*. i. 245-249. *Ch. Gulzar* 493b. CPC. iv. 904. 907 (11) Etawa.—CPC. iv. 731, 736. SPD. xxix. 263.

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But Najaf Khan’s rapid and decisive success against the Jats foiled the Oudh Nawab's plans. His siege of Agra at first made no progress owing to his want of breaching guns, and he called on Shujā for help in the name of their common master and religion. In response, Shujā detached a large force with many sepoy battalions and heavy artillery in charge of Major Polier (a Swiss engineer of high capacity) and the eunuch Basant Ali Khan, from the Doab. Taking over the siege trenches opposite the Shāh-burj, Polier heavily bombarded the fort. By the 8th of February 1774, five thousand balls had been fired on the walls. "The wall of the Bangala-burj was soon cracked and the stones began to roll down like tulip petals during a strong wind." The garrison lost heart, though they had already inflicted a loss of 300 men on the Mughal side. On 13th February the Jat commandant came out and interviewed Mirzā Najaf. Terms were quickly arranged and he agreed to vacate the fort in return for safety to life and property. He took back with himself a guard from Razā Beg's battalion, who set up the Emperor's flag and outpost at the fort gate. Safety was proclaimed to the inmates. In five days the fort was completely evacuated and Mirzā Najaf entered it, on 18th February. Shujā was baulked of his prey just in time.

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At Shujā's request to the Emperor to join him in the expedition against the Pār Ruhelas and divide the conquest equally with him, the Emperor sent Najaf Khan to the Nawab of Oudh for settling the terms and removing a certain misunderstanding created between Najaf and the Nawab by mischief-makers. The Mirzā met Shujā at Etawa on 27th Feb. and received a royal welcome, with gifts worth a lakh of Rupees and the offer of the deputy wazirship at the royal Court on his behalf. He was pressed to induce the Emperor to join the Rohilkhand expedition in person and thus give the royal sanction to this war of aggression. Najaf hurried back to Delhi in the company of Shujā's agent Elich Khan (28 March.) The Emperor set out from his palace on 5th April, and proceeded as far as Ghāziabad when his own weak health and the severe illness of his favourite son Akbar Shah made him give up the journey and return (16 April.) Najaf Khan, however, was given congee for the Oudh Nawab's camp and actually set out from Shāhdara on the 22nd. But he was too late to be of any use to Shujā, who had crushed the Ruhelas at Mirān Katra on the 23rd of this very month. Najaf, after interviewing Shujā, came back to Delhi with empty hands (12 June.) The Emperor had done nothing for Shujā and could expect nothing from the spoils of Rohilkhand, though the imperial band in Delhi palace played joyous notes for this victory of his wazir over rebels to his throne!

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We may here note other Jat losses at this time. The fort of Ballabhgarh was captured from the Jat Rajah's garrison on 20th April 1774, and Farrukhnagar on 6th May. Worst of all, Sombre deserted the Jat service with his trained battalions and well-equipped artillery and came over to the Emperor on 20th May. He was sent to bring the Panipat district back to obedience. Next month René Madec joined Najaf Khan. [CPC. iv. 1184.]

§ 8. How Abdul Ahad set the Emperor against Mirza Najaf

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Meantime, Abdul Ahad Khan, after gaining unrivalled sway over the Emperor's mind, was playing a double game. He pointed out that all the conquests made by Mirza Najaf had merely aggrandised him without bringing the least gain in territory or revenue to the Emperor, though the Emperor's personal troops had cooperated with Najaf's in making these acquisitions. The Emperor's poverty had, in fact, only deepened in consequence of Najaf's adventures.* The districts round Delhi, north and west, which had formerly belonged to the privy purse, as well as the recent conquests from the Jats, namely south and south-west of Delhi and in the middle Doab, had all been appropriated by the Mirzā's officers on the plea of providing their soldiers' pay. At the same time the rapid growth of Najaf's armed forces and military prestige, after his brilliant victory over Zābita and Nawal Singh, constituted a serious danger to the Emperor's security. What if this Persian adventurer should imitate Najibdaulah, appropriate all the forces and revenue of what still remained of the Empire, and reduce the Emperor to the position of an impotent beggar dependent on his vassal's charity? Then Shah Alam would be even worse off than he had been under the regency of Najib-ud-daulah,—because he had now broken with the English, destroyed the bridge for his return to their shelter, and lost the annual tribute of 26 lakhs promised by them. Mirzā Najaf was a Shia and a kinsman of the Nawab of Oudh. Oudh was now insured against all danger by British bayonets, its territory had expanded northwards up to the Himalayas by the recent annexation of Rohilkhand and westwards across the Ganges into the Etawa district of the Doab, within easy reach of Agra. Mirza Najaf, though once threatened with death by Shujā, had now made up with him and become his favourite. What was more natural than for these two Shias to join forces together, march upon Delhi, and reduce the Emperor to bondage as the Sayyid brothers,—Shias like them—had done sixty years earlier?

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∗ In June 1774 the Emperor wrote to Col. Champion that during the last three years the income from his territories had shrunk to 12 or 14 lakhs annually, and that the recent Sikh raids and drought had reduced the collection of revenue still further. [CPC. iv. 1152.] His household expenses were Rs. 1½ lakhs and that of his guards &c. over 2½ lakhs a month. [Ibid. 913.]

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Abdul Ahad fomented these suspicions of the timid Emperor. He suggested, as a counterpoise to Najaf, the raising of Zābita Khan to the imperial Paymastership and actual control of the Delhi army. He forgot that Zābita was a broken reed, as the utter extinction of his power by the Marathas in 1772 had proved. Zābita was presented to the Emperor by Abdul Ahad on 9th October 1773 and kept at Court for some time during Najaf Khan’s absence on the Jat war. But he realised that he could do nothing to counteract Mirzā Najaf or spoil his Jat enterprise; so he retired to his jagir on 22nd November, leaving his son behind as his agent. Soon afterwards (January 1774) the Ruhela chief was kept busy by the Sikh raids into the upper Doab, and could return to the Court only on the same day as Najaf Khan (12th June).

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§ 9. Najaf stays in Delhi, counteracting Court intrigues.

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From 12th June 1774 to 21st April 1775 Mirza Najaf remained in Delhi; all his energy paralysed by Court intrigues, and the utmost he could do was to keep his head above the water. The Emperor demanded from him (i) a division of his new conquests with his sovereign, (ii) the delivery of Agra fort to the Emperor’s nominee, and (iii) the reduction of his army to a number consistent with his rank as a servant. The other causes of friction were (iv) Najaf Khan’s wilful use of the Chancellor’s seal (entrusted to him by Shujā who had made him Deputy Wazir) and granting sanads for lands and offices without consulting the sovereign, and (v) his seduction of Sombre from the Emperor’s service to his own.

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Throughout August 1774 discussions on these points went on between the two sides, without any result. Early in September the Mughalia captains made a friendly intervention; Najaf agreed to give up a share of the conquered lands and the keys of Agra fort to the Emperor, who promised in return to confirm him in the post of Deputy Wazir; these captains stood security for Najaf’s fulfilment of his conditions. But this settlement proved a hollow truce; the quarrel broke out afresh as Abdul Ahad taxed his hated rival with breach of faith and usurpation of Crownlands, seduction of the royal troops and the raising of inordinate forces.* One day (circa 15 Oct.) Mirzā Najaf was insulted by the imperial guards, who under Ahad’s general orders refused him admission into the fort of Delhi when he came to attend the darbār. [CPC. iv. 1359.] For two months after this the Mirzā sulked in his mansion, keeping away from the Court altogether. At last (22 Dec.) the Emperor brought the two ministers together and reconciled them in his presence. They exchanged visits; but the agreement was merely superficial and the mutual bickerings broke out again. Abdul Ahad had brought Zābita to Court once more on 18th November, and sent imperial letters inviting the Sikhs and the Marathas to the Presence for entering the royal service and reconquering the lost dominions. All these plots failed through the Kashmiri's weakness of nerve and lack of political insight. If the Mirzā was to be crushed it could be done only by a rival capable of taking the field at the head of a superior army. Abdul Ahad had no stomach for warfare; he could not leave Delhi and Waziran, a professional dancing-girl whom he had married and who was the only solace of his grey beards; so, he went on weaving very fine cobwebs of intrigue and moving his pawns like Zābita and the Sikhs on the political chess-board for checkmating his martial rival, who merely laughed when these plots were reported to him by his spies. Zābita left the Court on 16 Jan. 1775, and the Sikhs employed that winter in raiding the lands of loyal subjects of the Empire and rebellious vassals with equal vigour.

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∗ Long list of charges against Najaf. CPC. iv. 1360. Also 973, 912, 1184 (has raised too vast an army.) Shuja defends Najaf, 1362.

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Early in the year 1775 Mirzā Najaf fell ill and was confined to bed for months together. The Emperor paid him a visit of consolation on 4th April. On the 21st of the same month, Najaf, being somewhat recovered, left Delhi on his second Jat campaign. He had already drawn to his side Sombre and Madec with their regular battalions and improved artillery, and soon afterwards received the adhesion of the Comte de Modave, though this last partisan leader could raise no force of his own.*

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§ 10. Najaf invades Jat-land again, 1775. First stage of campaign : capture of Kama ; victory and reverse.

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Mirzā Najaf’s second Jat campaign (1775-1776) need not be described in detail, though we possess full accounts of it, unequalled by any other Indian war, from the pens of two eyewitnesses,—the graphic memoir-writer Tahmāsp Khan Miskin and that highly cultured keenly observant and marvellously acute European critic the Comte de Modave.

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From his sick bed in Delhi Mirzā Najaf had sent his trusted lieutenants Afrāsiyāb Khan and Najaf Quli Khan into the middle Doab and Mewāt respectively for attacking the Jat possessions there. The former conquered parganahs Sadabad, Jewar &c., and after a three months’ siege secured the capitulation of Rāmgarh, the strongest Jat fort in the Doab, by a money composition (April 1775), and named it Aligarh after the patron saint of these Shias. At exactly the same time, on the south-western front Najaf Quli captured the fort of Kāmā belonging to Jaipur, by a reckless assault under his subordinate Mullā Rahim-dād and other Ruhelas. At the latter place a contribution of 25 lakhs was exacted from the rich traders who had taken shelter there.

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∗ *DC. Ibrat.* i. 250-251. G. Ali iii. 50-58. Muna Lal 158-162. *CPC.* iv. 1241, 1267, 1277, 1291 (besides those cited before.)

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The loss of Kāmā roused the Rajah of Jaipur; he formed an alliance with the Jat Rajah and hired a few thousand Maratha horse who had been left in Hindustan to collect tribute, and directed this vast force to recover Kāmā at any cost. The danger brought Mirza Najaf from Delhi to the scene; he recalled his detachments from the Doab and encamped near Barsānā. The Jats, on their part, advanced from Dig and entrenched a position some miles south of the imperialists. After petty skirmishes for some days, a battle on a larger scale took place on 18th May, when some 3,000 Mughal horse advanced without their commander too far into a defile near the enemy's position and were heavily outnumbered and hard pressed by the enemy. After some exchange of musket fire they effected a safe retreat, though pursued by the Marathas and Rajputs. The total loss on the two sides mounted up to a thousand men, besides hundreds of horses. However, the Jat army was eventually forced to take refuge in the fort of Dig and could not be tempted to come out.*

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∗ Najaf's second Jat campaign—Modave (tr. by me in *Bengal Past & Present*, 1936.) Madec's *Mémoire*. DC. G. Ali iii. 59-60, 87-92. Miskin 303-314, 317-320. Muna Lal 162-165, 172. *Ibrat*. i. 261-274, 276-285. CPC. iv. 1886. v. 306, 370.

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Nawal Singh lay dying of a long illness and the Jat defence was conducted by his younger brother Ranjit Singh. During this interval Sombre’s diplomacy succeeded; he had opened negotiations with the Jaipur leaders and very quickly effected a settlement, the Rajputs agreeing to abandon the cause of the Jats and march away on condition of Kāmā being restored to them in return for Rupees seven lakhs to be paid down and a promise of eleven lakhs of tribute to the imperial Government every year. [Modave 256.] The fort of Kāmā with its environs had been promised by the Mughal general to Rahim-dād Khan as an incentive to his efforts for its capture, but after the conquest the promise was not kept and the fort was handed back to the Rajputs. Rahim-dād in disgust went over to the Jats with his veteran Ruhela corps.

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On 10th June the imperialists got a fine opportunity and promptly seized it. It was a holy day of the Hindus, being the tenth of the new moon in the month of Jyaishtha, and the Jat Rajah went from Dig to the sacred city of Govardhan for a ritual bath. His forces were strung out north of his route in order to guard against any enemy attack. Najaf Khan, who had got intelligence of this design, marched south from Barsānā in two divisions,—Madec with two battalions on the extreme right (i.e., west) bearing down upon Dig, and Najaf himself in the extreme left (east) bound for Govardhan, some seven miles separating the two. The encounter took place at Guhāna, five miles north north-east of Dig. The hordes of Jat and Ruhela horse attacked Madec, but Afrāsiyāb Khan, detached from the Mughal left with reinforcements to Madec's corps, made a counter charge; the enemy broke and fled, and the imperialists reunited and returned to their camp. Near Govardhan Najaf Khan too had achieved a victory, routing the enemy and capturing many horses, camels and carts from them. After this Nawal Singh's Rajput and Maratha allies totally forsook his sinking cause.

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Mirzā Najaf Khan had arrived before Kāmā at the beginning of May. Here he had been joined by three battalions of trained sepoys from Oudh; but these aids were recalled by their master after a short while. Mirzā Najaf, weakened by this loss, fell back some sixteen miles to Hodal. His soldiers, starving from their pay being in arrears, supported themselves by plundering the villages around, and "thus gained strength". Then he moved forward again and made Barsānā his permanent camp, sending out raiding parties towards Dig every day, as "there was not one Rupee in his coffers". In August he shifted his camp to Govardhan.

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The rainy season had arrived already and put an end to active operations. But during this interval, René Madec was overwhelmed by disaster. He had gone to defend his jagir of Bāri, which had been invaded by Mullā Rahimdād in the Jat interest. Some ten miles from Fathpur-Sikri his rain-drenched troops were surprised by the Ruhelas (29th July) and routed with the loss of all their artillery, camp and equipage, and half his Europeans and 1,000 sepoys killed. The next two months he had to spend in building up and training a new contingent at Agra. [Barbé 231. Modave. Ibr.]

§ 11. Ranjit Singh Jat recovers Dig from Rahim-dād’s Ruhelas

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Nawal Singh died on 10th August 1775, in the fort of Dig, while his brother was absent at Kumbher. The faithless Ruhela Rahim-dād, encamped under the walls of Dig, took advantage of the garrison being distracted by mourning for their late king, to seize the gate nearest to his camp and thus easily possessed himself of the whole city. Taking the infant Kesari Singh out of the royal harem he placed him on the throne, proclaimed himself regent, and appropriated all the stores and royal property in the capital. Nawal Singh’s agents were driven out of their offices.

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Ranjit Singh heard of the usurpation from his castle of Kumbher. He gathered his own retainers and the loyal Jat captains together, and hiring a body of 2,000 Maratha horse under Jaswant Rao Bāblé and some Nāgā monks, made a secret night march to Dig. He himself with his personal friends entered that fort by stealth and hid himself. His Maratha and other troops from outside attacked the Ruhela camp under the fort walls early at dawn. Here the families and property of all the Ruhelas were lodged, and therefore Rahimdād naturally hastened there from the city to defend them. Then "Ranjit Singh showed himself to the public like the Sun rising above the horizon, and called all the Government officials in the city to his side. The Jat soldiers also came out of their hiding places, attacked the Afghans and drove them in groups, beating them with sticks like oxen or sheep." For, during their short ascendancy Rahim-dād's men had treated the local people with the usual Afghan insolence and rapacity, molesting even the women. Before the rising *en masse* of the people of Dig, the Ruhelas were ultimately overwhelmed, though they at first defended themselves with courage. At least four thousand men perished in the fight and the remnant of the Ruhela mercenaries escaped through the city gate nearest to them. But they left their general's son a prisoner and abandoned all their property to the Jats. Rahim-dād, too, had to sacrifice much of his camp baggage, and took the road to Delhi, where he was enlisted by Abdul Ahad Khan as a valuable instrument and sent to wrest the Crownlands in the Hansi-Hisar district which Mirzā Najaf's men held as fiefs, but which the Emperor wanted to resume. Here the faithless mercenary chief met with his deserts while besieging Gohāna (18 miles north of Rohtak), being shot dead by the troops of Amar Singh of Pātiāla, who had been set against him by Najaf (circa 30th December, 1775.)

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The rainy season concluded with Mirzā Najaf encamped near Farāh, midway between Agra and Mathura. Recalling his lieutenant Afrāsiyāb Khan from the Doab, at its end, he marched in full strength to Dig and laid siege to that fort (beginning of December).

§ 12. Fort of Dig described

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The fortified city of Dig,* which was the favourite residence of the Jat Rajahs at this time, stands eight miles west of Govardhan. Excluding its south-western off-shoot, the sharp salient called Shāhburj, it forms a rough pentagon 1½ miles across. It is surrounded by a rampart of beaten earth of a considerable width, rising to a height of nearly thirty feet. The entire northern and eastern and half the western faces are protected by a deep ditch. But the southern face does not need this artificial defence as it is naturally protected by a very wide morass, extending south-east for miles towards Govardhan. A few hundred feet west of it is a large and deep tank, running from the middle of the southern face of the fort for miles towards the south-west and skirted on its left by a range of low hills at the northernmost point of which stands the separate fort of Gopālgarh.

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∗ Thorn, Memoir of the War in India, 413-414. Pester, War and Sport in India, 369. A fine plan in Martin's Wellesley Despatches.

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This Shāhburj crowns a rocky height at the northern end of a ridge, and is joined to the south-west corner of Dig by prolongations of the southern and western walls of the fort, enclosing a long and narrow angle. The Shāhburj is almost a fortress in itself, with a small area of about 50 yards square on the inside, and presenting four lofty bastions facing the four cardinal points. About one-third of a mile south of the Shāhburj, at the other end of the same ridge stands Gopālgarh, another square mud-fort with round bastions at the four corners. Between these two works lie the extensive royal gardens with a profusion of shady trees, oranges, myrtles and mangoes. Inside the fort are the Rajah’s palace—“a very noble structure containing a fine hall of audience and other State apartments in a similar style of elegance,” and a large and beautiful tank full of protected fish, a romantic garden, besides the usual crypts for burying the royal treasure,—a square citadel (a quarter of a mile across) surrounded by high and thick ramparts, three bastions on each face and a deep ditch faced with masonry and massy gateways and towers of considerable height. There were also the mansions of nobles and rich men, and a crowded bazar (Jawāhir-ganj) necessary for supplying the needs of such a vast population.

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§ 13. Najaf Khan's siege of Dig.

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From its situation Dig could be attacked only from the plain south-west of it, as the English found out in 1804. Najaf Khan, anticipating Lord Lake's siege of exactly 29 years later, cut his first trenches in the same month and week as the British conqueror (the middle of December), opposite Gopālgarh and the Shāhburj.

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The Mughals were singularly inept in conducting sieges by sap and breaching, and "the bizarreness and ignorance displayed in the Delhi army's operations" justly moved the cultivated French captain to a sneer: when they asked for his opinion, Modave "frankly replied that if apes attacked each other they would undoubtedly construct such siege-works." Half the Mughal army faced the Shāhburj, and the other half (under the supreme General himself) the outwork Gopālgarh.

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A regular blockade of such a vast circle by his small force being impossible, Najaf Khan at first tried a *coup de main*. A body of Hindu warrior monks in the Jat service occupied the garden between the Shāhburj and Gopālgarh, from which position they used to make sallies, raid the siege-trenches or cut off grain convoys. Hence scarcity of provisions raged in the Mughal camp. One day Mirzā Najaf attacked them in person. After a long and obstinate fight, in which many imperialists (including Najaf’s favourite slave Khusrau Beg) were slain, these Nāgās were defeated. They removed themselves to within the fort, their deserted post was occupied by the Mughals, and Gopālgarh was thus isolated from the parent fort. “This victory struck such terror among the Jats that the garrison gave up coming out of the fort into the open country for bathing and other necessary purposes.”

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About the middle of January 1776 a night attack was attempted. René Madec was sent at midnight with seven companies of sepoys and three French officers to surprise a bastion flanking the Kāmā gate on the western face of the fort, north of the Shāhburj. Spies had reported to the Mughal general that this gate was negligently guarded by the defenders. A part of the assailants scaled the tower unperceived. But Gallic impetuosity and Persian lethargy robbed them of the promised success. Madec, without waiting for the rest of his detachment to ascend, fired a volley which was the pre-arranged signal for supports being pushed up to him from Najaf’s trenches. No ramp had been made in the escarpment of the bastion to enable the rest of the sepoys to mount in column formation and extend right and left on the ramparts, so as to secure a lodgement on the walls and hold them till the supports should arrive. “The defenders being thus wakened, crowded from all sides upon the men who had gained the bastion, killing and wounding most of them, while the rest leaped down from the ramparts. By the time Najaf Khan arrived below, the Sun had risen; the garrison, throwing open the Kāmā gate, rushed out in thousands and attacked the Mughals in their turn, while the fort guns created havoc among the imperialists crowded on the plain below. Men and horses began to fall fast, and the Mughals took to flight in groups in such panic that one pursuing Jat infantryman overcame ten fleeing Mughal cavaliers." [*Ibrat*, i. 281.] At this crisis, Sombre arrived "with lightning speed" at the head of one battalion and two guns and dispersing the exultant Jats by his accurate fire saved Najaf Khan who was standing alone, deserted by his own troops.

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Two other attempts at escalade also failed because the plans became known to the garrison beforehand and they concentrated heavy forces at the threatened points. As the siege dragged its weary length along without success seeming any nearer, Najaf Khan's position grew more intolerable day by day. He owed nine months' salary to his troops; the scarcity of provisions in his camp drove them to the verge of starvation; and they frequently broke out in mutiny against him or his officers, or refused to go out on the service ordered in the hope of thereby forcing him to pay them. At the same time, as difficulties thickened round him and he became more and more tied to Dig for the sake of his prestige, his enemies at the Delhi Court became more and more jubilant and active in weaving plots against him and raising a rival to his power by caressing Zābita Khan. But nothing could exceed the coolness and composure of mind of this Persian soldier-statesman; he pursued his operations without showing the least distraction or anxiety, as the French Count in his camp noted with admiration. On the other hand, there was no union, no leadership, no intelligent selfishness even, among the Jats. "There were many factions within the city, where the uncles of the Rajah disputed his authority, and on some occasions even made war on him...If the Jats had been united among themselves, I do not think that the Nawab would even have been in a condition to approach their capital, much less to lay siege to it." [Modave, 295.] The Jat Government as then conducted had not even the sense to employ a part of their vast wealth in retaining their tried mercenaries for defence.

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