Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s6: § 8. How Abdul Ahad set the Emperor against Mirza Najaf
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c35.s6
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§ 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.]