Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s3: § 3. Causes of the decline of the Jat military power
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s3
- Language
- English
§ 3. Causes of the decline of the Jat military power
v3.c35.s3.1
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.
v3.c35.s3.2
∗ Miskin 283. Ibrat. i. 229.
v3.c35.s3.3
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.
v3.c35.s3.4
§ 4. Dān Shāh Jāt and Chandu Gujar defeated in the Doab, Sep. 1773.
v3.c35.s3.5
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.
v3.c35.s3.6
∗ 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.
v3.c35.s3.7
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.
v3.c35.s3.8
§ 5. Mirza Najaf invades Jat country; successful advance.
v3.c35.s3.9
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.*
v3.c35.s3.10
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.]
v3.c35.s3.11
∗ 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.
v3.c35.s3.12
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.
v3.c35.s3.13
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.