Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36: Chapter XXIX. Last Struggles of Zabita Khan, 1776-1778. Sikh Occupation of Cis-Satlaj

Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36

Language
English

Contents

Chapter XXIX. Last Struggles of Zabita Khan, 1776-1778. Sikh Occupation of Cis-Satlaj

§ 1. Court intrigues for setting up Zābita Khan against Mirzā Najaf

v3.c36.s1.1

While Mirzā Najaf Khan was engaged in war with the Jats from May 1775 to January 1777, his rivals at the imperial Court were busy plotting his overthrow. But so despicable was the character of these intriguers, that their plans proved utterly futile, and the natural reaction of their failure was to leave the Emperor even more dependent upon the Mirzā than ever before. We have seen how Hisām-ud-daulah, envying the rise of a mere youth and new-comer like Najaf, had induced the Emperor (in January 1773) to reject Najaf’s advice and appoint Zābita Khan Mir Bakhshi. By this single stroke of policy he hoped to placate Zābita’s patron Tukoji Holkar and also to baulk Najaf of the second highest office in the Empire.

v3.c36.s1.2

But Zābita Khan was now the mere shadow of a great name. The sack of Shakartāl and Pathargarh in 1772 had robbed him of all his wealth and prestige and broken up his father’s famous veteran corps. The son of Najib-ud-daulah had acted as the henchman of the Marathas in Holkar’s Rohilkhand raid of March 1773. Instead of being, as Najib had been in his lifetime, the acknowledged leader and protector of all the Afghans settled anywhere in North India, Zābita used to make frantic and futile appeals for aid to the trans-Ganges Ruhelas everytime that the least danger threatened him. The consciousness of his own military impotence also kept him back from siding with these Ruhelas in their fatal war with Shujā in 1774. And yet his weak and inconstant character led him to listen secretly to proposals for a pan-Afghan coalition against Shujā. The secret leaked out, and after Shujā had crushed the Ruhelas at Miran Katra (April 1774) he kicked away the timid double-dealer and coolly annexed all the trans-Ganges dominions of Najib's house, including Najibabad itself. Thereafter Zābita Khan's possessions were confined to the Saharanpur district and certain places in the Mirat district, which he held as jagirs from the Emperor and for which he had to promise regular tribute like any ordinary mansabdār. Though he still retained the title of Imperial Paymaster-General, the functions of that high office were performed by Mirzā Najaf, so that Zābita had absolutely no share in the actual administration of the Empire.

v3.c36.s1.3

In May 1773, Hisām fell, and his place as the regent and keeper of the Emperor was taken by Abdul Ahad Khan, who at first pretended to be an ally of Najaf Khan, but soon followed Hisām's example by secretly trying to thwart and weaken Najaf. While that general was absent on the Jat war, Ahad brought Zābita to Court, entertained him in his own house, and presented him to Shāh Alam, exerting his boundless influence in favour of the Ruhela. Ahad counselled Zābita to unite all the Afghans under himself and put down the upstart Persian adventurer and his Mughalia clientele, who had become supreme in the State. Zābita was thus to be the sword-arm of the cowardly Kashmiri intriguer in removing his rival. But Zābita had suffered many a blow of adversity in his short life. He knew his own weakness. The veteran Afghan armies, both of Ali Muhammad Ruhela’s colony and of his late father, had by now been completely broken up and dispersed, and a wholesale transplantation of the respectable families from Rohilkhand to the south beyond the Jamuna had been carried out by Shujā, while the remnant of the male fighters of this race had entered Najaf Khan’s service for a living. The dreaded Durrāni conqueror was dead; and even the magic of Najib-ud-daulah’s name could no longer call up an Afghan horde. Zābita’s sole defence now was the hired sword of the Sikhs and he stooped to every humiliation to secure their aid. He, therefore, declined to become Abdul Ahad’s cat’s paw. This disappointment made the omnipotent favourite furious; his former patronage of the Ruhela chief turned into a deadly hatred, and he schemed to ruin him.

v3.c36.s1.4

§ 2. *Zābita defeats imperial army under Abul Qāsim and persists in contumacy.*

v3.c36.s1.5

As Zābita had obstinately defaulted in paying the annual revenue of his jagirs (most of them former Crownlands), Abdul Ahad easily persuaded the Emperor to send a force against him. The leader chosen was Abul Qāsim Khan* (surnamed Azam-ud-daulah), the younger brother of Ahad. He was endowed with great administrative capacity, personal bravery, and political wisdom. In spite of his reluctance and repeated protests, he was appointed faujdar of Saharanpur district, and sent from Delhi in October 1775, "to regulate the crownlands and other mahals there" now in Zābita's possession. His force consisted of a body of Mughalia horse and two battalions of disciplined sepoys under Gangarām and Bhawāni Singh commandants. Qāsim left the Court prophesying "My brother is sending me to my death." Arrived in the upper Doab he gained unopposed possession of Mirat and some other forts as the Ruhela agents withdrew before him; but for four months he carefully avoided an armed conflict and kept negotiating with Zābita for a peaceful settlement by the payment of tribute. Qāsim knew that his Mughalia mercenaries were traitors at heart and not dependable in action.

v3.c36.s1.6

∗ *DC.* Ghulam Ali iii. 62-71, Muna Lal 169-171. *Ibrat.* i. 298-299. *CPC.* v. 87, 280. Bihari Lal (tr. by me in *I.H.Q.* 1935.)

v3.c36.s1.7

But Abdul Ahad would not listen to reason; he goaded his brother on to a fight. So, on 4th March 1776, Qāsim began his offensive, though fully convinced of its futility. In the meantime, Zābita had hired a strong Sikh force. The fatal encounter took place at Amirnagar, eight miles north-west of Muzaffarnagar, on the 11th of the month. Zābita Khan had placed the Sikh horse in his van and his Ruhela clansmen in the second line, while he discreetly kept himself unseen far in the rear. The Sikhs began the combat in the Parthian fashion, making a show of attack on the imperialists and then falling back in pretended flight before the warm artillery and musket fire with which they were greeted by the Mughals. The two sepoy battalions of Qāsim advanced in thoughtless pursuit of the fleeing enemy and became far separated from the main division of their comrades. But the wily Sikh horse made a rapid wheel and fell upon the rear of the imperial army, dispersing the Mughalia troops who made a mere show of defence. Thus, a great confusion fell upon the Delhi army; Abul Qāsim was left alone in the field with only 50 followers round him; the Ruhelas encircled him completely; he scorned to flee and kept discharging arrows kneeling on the ground (for he was lame of both legs) till a musket shot killed him. His head was cut off and carried to Zābita.

v3.c36.s1.8

Then the sepoy battalions found that the day had been lost and they were utterly unsupported

§ 3. Ghausgarh fortifications and environs described

v3.c36.s2.1

Thirteen miles north-east of the city of Shamli in the Muzaffarnagar district, and close to the boundary between that district and Saharanpur, stands the fort of Ghausgarh built by Najib-ud-daulah, in the midst of a predominantly Afghan population in the upper Doab. It is located within a triangle formed by the three cities of Thana Bhawan (in the west) Luhari( in the east) and Jalalabad (at the northern apex.) Each side of the triangle is about three miles in length. A little river named the Krishni drains the tract, running through the trangle roughly parallel to its western side and separating Ghausgarh and Luhari from Jalalabad and Thana Bhawan. There are some extensive marshes west of Jalalabad and south of Luhari, and the country is full of ups and downs so that any heavy shower' creates deep pools here and there, expands the swamps into the fields around and turns every lane into a streamlet and every stream into a torrent. Today this region presents a doleful picture of decay, depopulation, poverty and epidemics ; malaria and insanitary conditions of living have completed the work of desolation begun by the ruin of the house of Najib-ud-daulah in the 18th century. But in 1777 it was the home of a dense and prosperous Afghan population,—Jalalabad being an Orakzai Pathan colony, Luhari an Afridi and Ghausgarh an Umarkhel Ruhela settlement; cultivation extended for a considerable distance outside the above four cities, and there were besides many villages thickly dotting the surrounding district. In 1777, after the loss of Najibabad, Ghausgarh was the last refuge of the proud Ruhelas whom Najib had raised to supreme glory in the realm, and here were concentrated the last remnant of that hero’s army led by the elders of his tribe, especially his brother Sultān Khan; here were lodged the wives and children of all the leading men of the tribe. Here in 1777 the Ruhelas fought with their backs to the wall, and it is no wonder that their conduct in this war has extorted the admiration of every eulogist of the imperial Court whose memoir has come down to us.

v3.c36.s2.2

The Afghan defence was materially aided by the condition of their enemies. The terrain was full of hollows and mounds and overspread with swamps, which admirably favoured the Afghan tactics of ambuscade and night attack. Therefore, the imperialists had to avoid any advance close to the forts and rash assaults on them, especially as the Emperor’s person had to be safeguarded. But their weakness, in spite of their superior numbers and powerful artillery, lay in their divided command and the determination of Abdul Ahad to cross every plan of Najaf Khan so as to rob him of the credit of victory. Najaf Khan was no doubt the Mir Bakhshi or supreme head of the army, but Abdul Ahad,—the grey beard, broken in health, broken in heart by the death of his dancing girl wife Waziran, and a Kashmiri by blood,—had got himself nominated as second Bakhshi! His absolute sway over Shah Alam’s mind turned him into the defacto commander-in-chief, over the head of Mirzā Najaf. The open wrangles between these two chiefs and their mutual recriminations after every reverse stiffened the Ruhela resistance and damaged the imperial prestige, so that everywhere lawless men began to raise their heads and plunder the highways without fear. Hence, a decisive issue was unduly delayed, and the coming of the rainy season inflicted unspeakable hardship on the royal army in that low swampy region, especially as the rainfall that year was abnormally heavy. The end came very quickly only after Najaf Khan had called up his able lieutenant Afrāsiyāb with his powerful contingent from the middle Doab and conducted the war on his sole initiative.

v3.c36.s2.3

§ 4. Siege of Ghausgarh ; constant indecisive fighting.

v3.c36.s2.4

The Emperor at first halted at the village of Rāipur (4½ miles south of Ghausgarh), his left protected by the Krishni, his right by a large swamp, and his front by a branch of the same river. Najaf Khan led the vanguard with his own contingent. On 8th June he advanced in full force and attacked Luhari, the eastern corner of the triangle, easily occupying the gardens south of that village. The Ruhela patrol fell back after a little skirmishing; the Mughals followed in reckless chase "driving the villagers away like droves of sheep" and thus fell into the ambush prepared by the Afghans with their customary skill in the broken ground outside the village. Two hundred of the imperialists were shot down; the rest broke and fled away. Najaf Khan, coming up with his artillery, arrested the counter pursuit, rescued the fugitives, and held his own trenches. On Zābita's side the brunt of the fighting fell upon the Sikhs, and on the imperial side upon 2,000 mounted Maratha spearmen under Wāgh Rāo, who formed the respective vanguards. The attack was repeated on the 11th. The Sikh horse made a detour and turned the right flank of the imperial trenches; but they were repulsed by the steady fire of Latāfat Ali's *najib* battalions and field artillery. The engagement was mutually broken off at sunset, after the Ruhelas had lost a thousand men.

v3.c36.s2.5

Najaf Khan's spirit was now up. The small Afghan rustic militia had successfully repulsed the entire imperial army, four or five times their own number and led by the Commander-in-chief of the Empire, acting under the eyes of the Emperor himself. The enterprise promised to be even more disgraceful than Muhammad Shah's Bangarh campaign against Ali Muhammad Ruhela. In the race against the approaching rainy season it was essential for the imperialists to win a decision before this month was over. So a third attack was launched, on 13th June. This time the defences on the Thana Bhawan side, or the western corner of the triangle, were probed, but with no better result; "about two hundred of the imperialists were slain; the Afghans fought well, but were finally driven back to their trenches, and the engagement broke off at 2 p.m."

v3.c36.s2.6

Thereafter the imperialists used to ride up daily and waste their powder by firing at the Ruhela trenches, without being able to tempt the enemy to come out into the open. Nine days passed in this kind of inaction, and then on 23rd June, both sides engaged in a a regular battle, which raged with greater obstinacy and heavier slaughter than usual till some hours after sunset. But again the Ruhela trenches were not carried and Najaf Khan had to fall back without victory. This fourth repulse within sixteen days led to bitter public wrangling in the Emperor's presence: Mirzā Najaf taunted Abdul Ahad with enjoying the spectacle of the battle from a house-top safe in the rear, and wilfully causing the defeat by holding back the reinforcements which might have turned the drawn battle into a victory for the imperialists. The Kashmiri retorted by charging the Commander-in-chief with blindly leading his men into a useless butchery. The Emperor sided with his favourite, and Najaf Khan in disgust retired to his tent to sulk in idleness for some time.

§ 5. Rainy season; sufferings of the imperial camp

v3.c36.s3.1

And now the rains set in with more than usual violence, turning the camping ground on the eastern bank of the Krishni into a vast quagmire and causing indescribable distress to the royal officers bred up in long years of ease and luxury. The enemy took advantage of the internal dissensions among the Mughals and their water-logged position, and one night in the midst of a shower the Sikh horsemen forded the river near Thana Bhawan and broke into the Mughal camp, penetrating close to the Emperor's own tents. It was only the guns of the Red Paltan (imperial guards) that repulsed them.

v3.c36.s3.2

But the locality was untenable. So, Shah Alam moved (4th—13th July) on to the western bank of the Krishni, to the higher ground south-west of Jalalabad, that is, facing the western side of the triangle instead of the southern, with two marshes guarding his rear and right flank. Day after day the exultant Afghans used to make sorties and engage the Mughals without any result except that of harassing the invaders and denying them rest, though with heavy slaughter to their own side whenever they ventured within too close a range of the well-served Mughal artillery.

v3.c36.s3.3

Najaf on his part made one night attack, sacking an Afghan village and returning without loss.

v3.c36.s3.4

The war had now reached the point of stalemate, and peace parleys were opened from the imperial side. But though Zābita himself was ready to make terms, his uncles and their veteran followers, intoxicated by their recent successes, refused to yield an inch and sent the envoys back with defiance to a combat à l'outrance.

v3.c36.s3.5

The invaders were now themselves beleaguered. Their sufferings from the monsoon were so great and their supply of provisions was so reduced by the Afghan roving bands and private highwaymen that many old officials and hereditary servants of State began to sneak away to Delhi. Imperial authority collapsed with the fall of the military prestige of the Government, and public disturbances broke out throughout the country. A large convoy of grain, loaded on pack-oxen, when coming from Delhi was hemmed round by the Sikh allies of Zābita Khan, but on the news reaching the Emperor in good time he detached his Maratha auxiliaries (under Wāgh Rāo) to rescue them, and at the same time sent a strong force under Najaf Quli and Latāfat Ali to raid the Sikh camp below Thana Bhawan which was now defenceless in consequence of the march of the men to intercept the convoy. The perfect timing of these two enterprises led to their complete success; Wāgh Rāo safely escorted the grain porters to camp, while the other detachment looted and burnt the Sikh tents without opposition (circa 3rd August.) The Sikhs, after losing all their camp and property, abandoned the south-western corner and moved further north towards Jalalabad. Then Zābita sued for peace (12th August), but his uncles again overbore him.

v3.c36.s3.6

Meantime Mirzā Najaf had been utilising the monsoon respite to seduce Zābita’s allies and to call up heavy reinforcements to his own side. The Sikhs refused to break their faith to the Ruhela chief for money, but the Orakzai Pathan zamindars of Jalalabad,—Dilāwar Ali and Qalandar Ali,—who feared the annexation of their city by Zābita, yielded to Mughal gold and secretly promised to come over to Mirzā Najaf if he attacked the trenches near Jalalabad (the northern end), of which they were the guardians.

§ 6. Final attack on Ruhela lines, 14 Sept. 1777. Fall of Ghausgarh

v3.c36.s4.1

The rainy season was drawing to a close. At the end of August Afrāsiyāb Khan arrived from Aligarh and Dāud Beg Khan Kurji from Agra with their fresh troops and copious supply of munitions. Everything being now ready on his side, Mirzā Najaf sought the decision, with every confidence and in full strength, on 14th September. His vanguard (under Afrāsiyāb) was formed by the sepoy battalions, no less than 10,000 bayonets, marching in four columns and enclosing an empty space in their midst where the cavalry was stationed. They carried their artillery with them. The Mughal line stretched for over two miles and moved slowly against the entire western face of the triangle. While the other divisions merely detained the enemy forces at the southern end (Thana Bhawan) and centre of this face, the real attack was delivered by Afrāsiyāb on the trenches at Jalalabad at the northern extremity. Zābita Khan, with all the effective garrison of Ghausgarh, came up crossing the river to the aid of this hard pressed sector of the defences and soon became entangled with the assailants. Then the treacherous chiefs of Jalalabad played their agreed part; they came over to the Mughals, guided them through the trenches and the town and even turned their artillery on Zābita's right flank and rear. The Ruhelas fought with desperate valour, regardless of heavy losses, and even made a counter-charge, scattering the foremost battalions of the imperialists and the cavalry of that division and seizing their guns. Afrāsiyāb's horse was killed, but he immediately jumped up, took another mount and galloped forward to cheer his men. Rai Na'mat Singh (the son of Mirzā Najaf's officer Bakhtāwar Singh Kāyath) charged from the line of guns but was shot down. Miskin (now a noble and a Daulah) was wounded and fell down senseless. But at last numbers and discipline triumphed, and the resistance of the small Ruhela band was quenched in blood. Zābita and his comrades, finding their rear cut off and unable to return to Ghausgarh, were driven further away from that fort into the Sikh force holding the Thana Bhawan sector against which only a feint had been made. The Afghan line was pierced at several points; the battle was lost beyond hope, and Zābita galloped away with his Sikh protectors, abandoning his family and citadel.

v3.c36.s4.2

On the field of battle Zābita’s son Ghulām Qādir and Sultān Khan’s son were made prisoners. Not a soul was now left to defend Ghausgarh. Mirzā Najaf immediately pressed forward across the river and blockaded that fort. It capitulated on the 23rd; the garrison was assured of life and freedom, but all the property within it was attached. Ten elephants, 73 camels, about 250 horses, and forty cart-loads of tents copper-pots &c. were escheated to the State, and the rest of the spoils left to Mirzā Najaf. Worst of all, the entire family of Zābita Khan and those of all the Ruhela leaders and military officers were captured in Ghausgarh. “The braggart Afzal Khan had hidden himself among the women in fear of death. The Qalmaq female slaves sent to search the Ruhela harem discovered him and dragged him before the public with insult”. The captive women and children were sent to Agra fort for detention. The treasure hunt in the fallen city being concluded, the Emperor set out on his return on 11th October and entered Delhi on 20th November, 1777.

v3.c36.s4.3

The branch of the Ruhela power created by Najib-ud-daulah was thus crushed as completely as Ali Muhammad's section had been by Shujā-ud-daulah's campaign of 1774.

§ 7. Survey of Delhi Government's foreign relations 1772—1788

v3.c36.s5.1

Within six years of Shah Alam's coming to Delhi his Government was relieved of the menace of the overgrown vassals who had usurped the lands round Delhi and so long successfully defied imperial authority. The Ruhela who had seized the upper Doab was crushed, partially in March 1772 and completely in September 1777; his fellow-clansmen of the trans-Ganges colonies had been extirpated in April 1774 and rendered incapable of joining any pan-Afghan revolt against the Delhi throne; the Jat Rajah had been shorn of all his enormous new acquisitions and turned into a petty zamindar worth only nine lakhs a year, (April 1776.) From 1775 to 1782 the dreaded Marathas were so heavily entangled in a contested succession at home and a war with the English abroad that they could not spare a single soldier for Hindustan. Even after the Peshwa's Government had made peace with the English in 1782, it did not find itself left with enough strength to repeat the large-scale northern enterprises of Raghunāth Dādā and Sadāshiv Bhāu, or even the attempt of Ramchandra Ganesh and Visāji Krishna. After 1782 the Maratha revival that took place in the north was not the work of the Puna Government but the private undertaking of one of its semi-independent generals, Māhādji Sindhiā, and even the early efforts of this Māhādji were thwarted by the indigenous forces of the Delhi Government or its nobles till the end of 1788. It was only after De Boigne had shaped for Sindhia a weapon stronger than any in India outside the British army that Mahadji was able to make himself master of Delhi beyond challenge.

v3.c36.s5.2

Thus, from 1777 to 1788 Shah Alam could have been reasonably expected to utilise this freedom from external danger in re-establishing his authority from the Satlaj to the Ganges and from the Himalayas to the Chambal, and even in asserting his suzerainty over his vassals in Oudh and Rajputana. But it was not to be. On one side was his weakness of character and lack of able and loyal instruments; on the other there was a new factor which made itself increasingly felt in North Indian politics from 1763 onwards and came to dominate the entire country north and west of Delhi from the Indus to the Ganges throughout the "Great Anarchy" which was ended only by the British conquest of the early Nineteenth century.

v3.c36.s5.3

§ 8. The Sikhs: their military organisation and efficiency.

v3.c36.s5.4

These were the Sikhs. That sect was mostly recruited from the sturdy Jat peasantry with large additions in the form of converts from other castes. They carried to perfection the work which Suraj Mal Jat had begun on the same ethnic basis, but which had been undone by his worthless descendants. The Sikhs owed their success to their religion of full brotherhood and the democratic organisation of their society, while the Jats of Bharatpur were caste-ridden Hindus, living under an oligarchy of the heads of family groups. The strength of the Sikh army before it was Europeanised by Ranjit Singh lay in its predominance of cavalry and preference for offensive tactics, while the Jat soldiery were mostly infantry and excelled in the defence of fortified positions.*

v3.c36.s5.5

The Panjab is a vast breeding ground of the best horses found in India, and the blood of their Scythian ancestors made the Sikh horsemen the best skirmishers and guerilla-fighters after the Turks. As a Swiss officer wrote after observing them in May 1776, "Five hundred of Najaf Khan's horse dare not encounter fifty Sikh horsemen".

v3.c36.s5.6

∗ Sikhs.—*Asiatic Annual Register* for 1800, Mis. Tracts, p.

v3.c36.s5.7

³⁴ G. Forster, *Journey*, i. 285-291 (containing a quotation from Polier.) Cunningham's *History*, 2nd. ed.

v3.c36.s5.8

¹⁰⁴ Williams in *Calcutta Review* Vol. 60 (1875), pp. 28-29. Forrest's *Selections...Foreign Dept.* iii. 1123-1124 (W. Hastings's views.) Francklin *Shah Aulum*, ch. 5.

v3.c36.s5.9

This astounding superiority, man for man, over all the other fighting forces of India was due to the Sikh character, training and organisation. As the same European observer remarks: —

v3.c36.s5.10

"The Sikhs are in general strong and well-made; accustomed from their infancy to the most laborious life and hardest fare, they make marches and undergo fatigues that really appear astonishing. In their excursions they carry no tents or baggage, except perhaps a small tent for the principal officer: the rest shelter themselves under blankets, which serve them also in the cold weather to wrap themselves in, and which on a march cover their saddles.

v3.c36.s5.11

"They have commonly two, some of them three, horses each, of the middle size, strong, active, and mild-tempered. The provinces of Lahor and Multan, noted for a breed of the best horses in Hindustan, afford them an ample supply . . . Though they make merry on the demise of any of their brethren, they mourn for the death of a horse.

v3.c36.s5.12

"The food of the Sikhs is of the coarsest kind, and such as the poorest people in Hindustan use from necessity. Bread baked in ashes and soaked in a mash made of different sorts of pulse, is the best dish, and such as they never indulge in but when at full leisure; otherwise vetches and tares, hastily parched, are all they care for . . . Their dress is extremely scanty: a pair of long blue drawers, and a kind of chequered

v3.c36.s5.13

plaid . . . with a mean turban, form their clothing and equipage.

v3.c36.s5.14

“Their success and conquests have largely originated from an activity unparalleled by other Indian nations, from their endurance of excessive fatigue, and a keen resentment of injuries. The personal endowments of the Sikhs are derived from a temperance of diet, and a forbearance from many of those sensual pleasures which have enervated the Indian Muhammadans. A body of their cavalry has been known to make marches of 40 or 50 miles, and to continue the exertion for many successive days.

v3.c36.s5.15

“Their military force may be said to consist essentially of cavalry; . . . their infantry, held in low estimation, usually garrison the forts . . . A Sikh horseman is armed with a matchlock [of large bore] and sabre of excellent metal, [and also a spear], and his horse is strong and well formed.

v3.c36.s5.16

“Their manner of attack: a party from forty to fifty, advance in a quick pace to the distance of a carabine shot from the enemy, and then, that the fire may be given with greater certainty, the horses are drawn up, and their pieces discharged; when, speedily retiring about a hundred paces, they load and repeat the same mode of annoying the enemy. The horses have been so expertly trained to the performance of this operation, that on receiving a stroke of the hand, they stop from a full career.”

§ 9. Sikh polity and society

v3.c36.s6.1

Major Polier designates the Sikh political system "an aristocratical republic. It is properly the snake with many heads. Every zamindar [i.e., yeoman farmer] who, from the Attock to Hansi Hisar, and to the gates of Delhi, lets his beard grow, cries wah guru, eats pork, wears an iron bracelet, drinks bhang, abominates the smoking of tobacco, and can command from ten followers on horseback to upwards,—sets up immediately for a Sikh sardar ; and, as far as is in his power, aggrandises himself at the expense of his weaker neighbours, . . . Hindu or Musalman, and even among his own fraternity."

v3.c36.s6.2

"A large vein of popular power branches through many parts of the Sikh Government. No honorary or titular distinction is conferred on any member of the State . . . The chiefs, who often command parties of not more than 50 men, being numerous, the motions of a Sikh army are tumultuous and irregular. An equality of rank is maintained in their civil society, which no class of men, however wealthy or powerful, is suffered to break down."

v3.c36.s6.3

But it was the equality of the savage state of Nature. "From the spirit of independence so invariably infused amongst them, their mutual jealousy and a rapacious roving temper, the Sikhs this day are seldom seen cooperating in national concert," but they are actuated by the influence of personal ambition only.

v3.c36.s6.4

Such was the great weapon which Guru Govind's martial creed had forged and which long years of injustice and oppression under the dissolving Mughal Government had beaten hard and at last turned against their oppressors.

v3.c36.s6.5

The chance of the Sikhs came during the eclipse of the Delhi monarchy which began in 1760 in consequence of the murder of Alamgir II by his wazir, the prolonged Durrāni invasion, and the knocking out of the Marathas from the North Indian political ring at Pānipat in January 1761; and they were most prompt in seizing it. While the Panjab proper remained for a generation afterwards a debateable ground between the Durrāni governors and the Sikh sardars, the Cis-Satlaj country came, soon after that battle, to be dotted with Sikh principalities, large and small, which swept away all other local proprietors and Governmental authorities from the Satlaj in the west to the Jamuna in the east, and from the foot of the Himalayas to the southern border of the modern Karnal district (the 29th degree of North latitude.) And even beyond this region the Sikh power overflowed fitfully into the upper Doab and the north Delhi portion of the Rohtak district, and through Hariana to Narnaul on the Shekhawati frontier.

v3.c36.s6.6

We have seen (Ch. 24 §§ 4-5) how at the end of 1763 the great conqueror Ahmad Shah Durrānī had practically to admit defeat at the hands of the Sikhs, and their national rising reached its crowning success in the capture of Sarhind (Dec. 1763) and Lahor (April 1764.) The fall of Sarhind, which was the capital of the Cis-Satlaj country in the geography of the Mughal empire, was followed by a rapid and complete transformation of the political map of this tract. Mughal administration disappeared and Sikh rule set in, though it took the Khālsa nebulæ some years to solidify into regular States and baronies in this region. As soon as Zain Khan, the last Muslim governor of Sarhind, had fallen in battle and his city had been sacked, the victorious Sikh confederates seized the country round. "Tradition still describes (as Cunningham wrote in 1849) how the Sikhs dispersed as soon as the battle was won ; and how, riding night and day, each horseman hurled his belt, his scabbard, his articles of dress, his accoutrements, till he was almost naked, into successive villages to mark them as his."

v3.c36.s6.7

§ 10. Sikhs overspread the Cis-Satlaj country; names of their chiefs and their seats.

v3.c36.s6.8

Less than a decade after the fall of Sarhind we find a new political order* that has replaced the old in Cis-Satlaj Panjab:—Amar Singh Jat (a Phulkia Sikh) had been recognised by Abdali as ruler of Patiala and faujdar of Sarhind with the title of "Rajah over Rajahs" in 1767. Before his death fourteen years later, he had systematically extended and consolidated his territories, acquired Sirsa and Fathabad (i.e., the western side of the Hisar district) and made himself the greatest Sikh potentate in this tract. A lesser Phulkia Sikh, Gajpat Singh, founded in 1764 the State of Jhind (capital 42 miles west of Panipat), and seized Karnal for a time. On his death in 1786 he was succeeded by his son Rajah Bhāg Singh, who continued to rule till 1819. Thirty-five miles north of Jhind and the same distance south of Patiala, lies Kaithal, where another Phulkia, Bhāi Desu Singh, founded a kingdom in 1767. On his death in 1780 his son Lāl Singh succeeded, dying in 1818.

v3.c36.s6.9

∗ Ambala Dist. Gazetteer (1883), 16-18, 40, also Ch. VI. Karnal D. Gaz. (1883), 33-46. My list differs in a few points from that given by Browne in his India Tracts (quoted in Dr. N. K. Sinha's Rise, 104.)

v3.c36.s6.10

Twenty-eight miles north-east of Kaithal and in the same latitude as Saharanpur lies the city of Thāneshwar, seized in 1764 by Mith Singh, a Manjha Jat of the Dallewala misl. On his death in 1777 his heritage was divided between his two nephews,—Bhangā Singh described as "the savage master of Thāneshwar" or "the greatest robber among the little chiefs" (d. 1815), and Bhāg Singh (distinct from his namesake the Jhind Rajah.) Both of them increased the family estates by force. Ladwa, 12 miles east of Thāneshwar, and Babain, 7 miles north-west of Ladwa, were respectively the seats of Gurdat Singh and Sāhib Singh of the Dallewala *misl*. They also seized Shāmgarh Karnal and some villages of the Panipat district. Sāhib Singh, nicknamed Khonda and killed in a battle near Saharanpur in 1781, was one of the foremost warriors of that age.

v3.c36.s6.11

The natural leader of the Krora Singhia *misl* during the last 35 years of the 18th century was Bāghel Singh, one of the most active and renowned chieftains of this race. His seat was Chalaundhi, three miles to the east of Ladwa. His comrade in many an adventure was Rāi Singh Bhangi, the master of Buriā and Jagādhri (21 and 23 miles north-east of Ladwa, and close to the west bank of the Jamuna), who was another most notable Sikh sardar of the Cis-Satlaj region. But the nominal head of the Krora Singhias had his seat at Chhachrauli, (26 miles north-east of Ladwa); here ruled Guru-Bakhsh Singh, the founder of the Kalsia State, and after him his son Jodhā Singh. A fourth Phulkia State was Nābhā (with its capital 15 miles west of Patiala) which Hamir Singh founded in 1755. Here Jaswant Singh succeeded his father Hamir about 1772.

v3.c36.s6.12

The historian of Delhi during this period is not so intimately concerned with the Sikh principalities of the Ambala district, such as Ambala town, founded by Guru-Bakhsh Singh of the Shāhid *misl* (died without issue in 1783),— Malodh, 8 miles north of Maler Kotla, founded about 1750 by a nephew of Ala Singh, who was succeeded by his sons Dalel and Bhāg Singh,—Radaur, seven miles north-east of Ladwa, held by Dalja Singh Krora Singhia,—Shāhābād, 13 miles north of Thāneshwar, founded by Karam Singh Nirmala, and far off places like Mani Majra, Ropar and Rahoon (the last two bordering on the Satlaj.)* But the State of Kapurthala, though lying on the western edge of the Jalandhar Doab beyond the Satlaj, deserves mention, as its founder, the ex-brewer Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, was one of the greatest Sikh leaders of his time.

§ 11. Sikh disunion and weakness; effect of their rule

v3.c36.s7.1

Besides these founders of ruling houses, the Sikh captains who took the title of sardar were beyond count, because any one of them might "command not more than 20 or 30 horsemen" and still be called a sardar. They combined only on the occasion of forays, and even their *misls* were not patriarchally ruled clans, but merely confederacies formed for joint enterprises of profit without any affinity of blood. The Sikh sardars, when not engaged in foreign wars and raids, spent all their energy and resources in ceaseless mutual hostility. As Captain Francklin noted in 1793, the Sikh forces, "from want of union among themselves, are not much to be dreaded by their neighbours. Divided into distinct districts, each chief rules over the portion appropriated to him with uncontrolled sway; and tenacious of his authority, and jealous of his brethren, it seldom happens that this nation makes an united effort . . . The discordant and clashing interests of the respective Sikh chiefs prevent almost the possibility of a general union.” But Warren Hastings in 1784 had predicted the rise of a Ranjit Singh to unite the sect. [Forrest, iii. 1124.]

v3.c36.s7.2

∗ In the Ambala district in 1882 the Sikhs held 35 out of its 38 jagirs.

v3.c36.s7.3

But in spite of these internal quarrels, Sikh rule was not without a beneficial effect. It did not escape the observation of Polier, who wrote, “In their intestine divisions, there is this difference from what is seen everywhere else, that the husbandman and labourer, in their own districts are perfectly safe and unmolested, let what will happen round about them.” They also gave absolute protection and security to bankers and traders who preferred to seek asylum in their territories in that troubled age.

v3.c36.s7.4

Outside their own possessions, the Sikhs used to go forth for exacting blackmail exactly in imitation of the Maratha mulkgiri or chauth-collecting expeditions. “As regularly as the crops were cut, the border Sikh chieftains crossed over [into the imperial territory in the Upper Doab] and levied blackmail from almost every village, in the most systematic manner. Their requisitions were termed rākhi [i.e., price of protection.]* Each of them had a certain well-known beat or circle, well recognised and clearly defined . . . The collections varied with the ability of the people to pay, averaging from two to five Rupees a head. Two or three horsemen generally sufficed to collect them, for 2,000 or 3,000 more were never very far off . . . Refusal was fatal."

v3.c36.s7.5

§ 12. Zabita Khan turns Sikh, raids the Doab (1778), is defeated by Afrasiyab and Najaf Quli. His complete submission.

v3.c36.s7.6

When in the last fight before Ghausgarh Zābita Khan was cut off from his fort by the advance of Afrāsiyāb Khan's column and driven into the Sikh camp, he found himself possessed of nothing except the clothes he stood in. All his property and treasures, all his wives and sons had been left behind in Ghausgarh, and these passed into the hands of the imperialists in the course of a week. The destitute Ruhela chief and his vanquished Sikh allies fled fast from the Doab and retired to the Sikh settlements in the Karnal district west of the Jamuna. Here Zābita Khan lived for many months after, on the bounty of his former allies. He had no money or follower and no landed possession now; but the Sikhs had enjoyed subsidies from his father year after year, as his munshi Mansukh Rāi reminded them, and they generously took up the cause of the penniless friendless exile. To cement their alliance, Zābita made a public profession of the Sikh religion, being baptised as Dharam Singh. To such a depth had fallen the heir of the champion who had held aloft the banner of Islam in Northern India for thirteen years!*

v3.c36.s7.7

∗ Forster reported in 1786 that the rakhi seldom exceeded 4 or 5 p.c. on the produce. (Poona Res. Corr. i. No. 95.) This tax was two annas per Rupee of the fixed revenue [DY. i. 108] in the north of Delhi region.

v3.c36.s7.8

The winter of 1777-’78 passed away without Zābita Khan venturing on any attempt to recover his Doab possessions. After the capture of Ghausgarh, Najaf Quli Khan had been placed in charge of that Ruhela stronghold and the government of the Saharanpur district, while Afrāsiyāb Khan had been posted further south in the Doab as governor of Aligarh and the surrounding district. Here the two continued to strengthen their hold for some months after, by suppressing the rebel landlords.

v3.c36.s7.9

But by February 1778 Mirzā Najaf Khan had become deeply entangled in a contest with the Rao Rajah of Alwar then in league with the Rajahs of Jaipur and Bharatpur. His position was rendered still more difficult by his jealous rival Abdul Ahad Khan, who swayed the policy of the pliant Emperor and secretly encouraged the Mirzā's enemies and promoted defection among his retainers. Thus was the Rajput resistance stiffened, and a large body of Mughalia horse (under Murād Beg Khan and others) tempted to leave the Mirzā's camp and go to Delhi, where they arrived on 25th March. The Mir Bakhshi's troubles were Zābita Khan's opportunity. In the company of his Sikh allies—who had been pining at missing their annual raid into the Doab this winter,—he crossed into the Doab. His name acted as a rallying cry for the local enemies of the imperial Government and his knowledge and influence helped the progress of the raiders.

v3.c36.s7.10

∗ Bihari Lal in *I.H.Q.* (1935), p. 651. Miskin 336-338. *Ibrat.* i. 324-342 (full details of the Doab campaign.) *DC.* G. Ali iii. 130-131.

v3.c36.s7.11

They swept through the upper Doab with scarcely any opposition and their advanced detachments penetrated to Sikandrabad and even further south. At Khurja they were repulsed by Afrāsiyāb Khan with his abundant fire arms. They then invested Najaf Quli in Ghausgarh for some time. Afrāsiyāb could not come promptly to the rescue of his colleague, as he had to visit the Court and try to remove the hostility of Abdul Ahad by personal suasion (8-20 April.) But when he at last joined Najaf Quli, the invaders fled away and the two imperial generals crossed the Jamuna on their heels and defeated the Sikhs in a running fight up to Karnal and Budakhera. Then Gajpat Singh, Rajah of Karnal, who was harbouring Zābita, opened peace parleys. But while he and Dalel Singh (of Malodh) favoured submission to the empire, Bāgh Singh (the Thāneshwar chieftain) remained defiant. So, the imperialists marched four miles north of Budakhera and captured the fortified village of Barāgāon* where the Sikh sardars had lodged most of their baggage. Then only did all these chiefs come to terms: they gave their word not to shelter the Emperor's enemies in their territories, nor to raid Mirzā Najaf's jagirs in future. Zābita Khan came over to the Mughal generals and with them crossed back into the Doab at Jhanjhana. Here a letter was received from the Mirzā ratifying the peace with Zābita Khan and promising him a high post with jagirs and the release of his family as soon as he would sue for the Emperor's pardon in person. The three Khans decided to set off for Agra and meet Mirzā Najaf there.

v3.c36.s7.12

On their way down the Doab they spent a long time in reducing many refractory Jat and Gujar zamindars and laying heavy fines on them, —at Doghāt (15 miles north-west of Saharanpur), Parichhatgarh (the home of Gulāb Singh Gujar, 14 miles east of Mirat), Rohāna and Sāinpur (the strongholds of Makni Rām Jat, 8 miles north of Muzaffarnagar) and Kutesra (the seat of Sarāpā Gujar, 6 miles west of Rohāna.)

v3.c36.s7.13

∗ Budakhera, 4 m. north-east of Karnal city. Barāgāon, 4 m. north of Budakhera.

v3.c36.s7.14

The campaign having been brought to a most successful issue, the three generals crossed the Jamuna at Mathura and hastened to Agra, where they met with a most cordial welcome from Mirzā Najaf. Zābita Khan was given back every article of his property seized at Ghausgarh and now stored in Agra fort; his wives and children as well as the families of his officers were freed from captivity, and he received a rescript for his seven mahals in Saharanpur along with the fort of Ghausgarh. In gratitude, the Ruhela chieftain offered the hand of his daughter to his generous patron. (20 Sept. 1778.)

v3.c36.s7.15

This settlement finely illustrates the far-sighted statesmanship of Mirzā Najaf. He set up Zābita Khan as a buffer against the Sikhs in the upper Doab and also as his own *protege* and partisan for counteracting the intrigues of Abdul Ahad at Court, so that while he himself was fighting the Jats and the Rajputs west of the Jamuna, his trans-Jamuna possessions in the middle Doab would be safe and he would be free from any anxiety about that quarter. The peace was completed by Zābita Khan’s visit to the Court, where the Emperor pardoned him and gave him a robe of honour and a letter patent for the district of Saharanpur, (30 January, 1779.)

v3.c36.s7.16

CHAPTER XXX

v3.c36.s7.17

FALL OF ABDUL AHAD KHAN ; EVENTS OF 1778 AND 1779.

§ 1. Najaf Khan's last Jat campaign

v3.c36.s8.1

During the four months in the middle of 1777, when Mirzā Najaf was involved in the Ghausgarh campaign and exaggerated rumours were flying round that the imperial army had been reduced to its last gasp, all over the country rebels began to raise their heads once more. Chief among them was Ranjit Singh, the Jat Rajah of Bharatpur, who now tried to win back his father's vast domains snatched away from him by the Mirzā a year ago. In this work he found a great helper in Pratap Singh, the aspiring chief of Macheri, who had just entered on the threshold of his career of independence and begun to fish in the ever-troubled waters of Mewāt and Shekhāwati.

v3.c36.s8.2

This Rao Pratap Singh, a Jaipur vassal of the Nāroka branch of the Kachhwa clan, had at first been banished by his overlord Mādho Singh of Jaipur, but had soon afterwards won his sovereign's pardon and restoration to his fiefs by his patriotic assistance in the battles with Jawahir Singh Jat in February 1768. During the next ten years (the reign of Prithi Singh, 1768-'78) he remained loyal. But when on 15th April 1778 the throne of Jaipur passed on to Sawai Pratāp Singh, an imbecile and feeble lad, the new sovereign's weakness and folly and the consequent confusion in his State roused his Nāroka vassal's dreams of territorial aggression and independence. The Macheri chief had already begun to fight for his own hand in the Agra-Mathura districts and Mewāt, now as the ally of the Jat Rajah and now as a partisan of the imperial general, as he found profitable.

v3.c36.s8.3

Hiring the aid of the Macheri chief and Ambāji Inglé (a Maratha captain posted in the Gwalior district), the Jat Rajah tried to recover Dig, then held by Najaf Khan's agent, but without success. His threat to Agra city also failed through the skilful defence measures of Muhammad Beg Hamadāni, Mirzā Najaf's local deputy. But the rebels made a successful night-raid on Farāh (15 miles north-west of Agra), slew the Mughal collector, looted the city, and turned the country up to the walls of Agra into a "lampless desolation" (July-August 1777.) No relief could be sent at that time to the hard pressed imperial agents in this region.

v3.c36.s8.4

This revival of Jat disturbances in the newly conquered Agra-Mathura district recalled Mirzā Najaf to the scene as soon as he was freed from the siege of Ghausgarh. Leaving Delhi on 25th November, 1777, only five days after his return to the capital from the Ruhela campaign, he pushed rapidly on towards Agra, putting the rebels down and setting up his own authority again. He stormed and demolished the mud fort of Sonkh (midway between Mathura and Kumbher), massacring three thousand of its Kuntel Jat defenders and selling their women and children into slavery. This one act of frightfulness had immediate effect, and his further advance was scarcely opposed. Kumbher, that famous stronghold of the Jats, was captured in a few days. Ranjit Singh and his step-mother Rāni Kishori fled to Bharatpur, which was next invested. In two months they were brought down to their knees. The Rāni personally waited on Mirzā Najaf and humbly appealed for mercy to her husband's house. The Mirzā had the statesmanship to convert a vanquished foe into a friend by restoring the Bharatpur region, with a revenue of seven lakhs of Rupees, to Ranjit Singh and leaving the fort of Kumbher to Kishori as a personal gift (c. February 1778)*

v3.c36.s8.5

§2. Rao Rajah of Macheri (Alwar), his war and peace with Najaf Khan.

v3.c36.s8.6

Meantime, while the Jat Rajah was invested in Bharatpur, Najaf had turned to settle accounts with the Macheri chief. This noble had utilised the recent eclipse of the Jat power to make himself master of Alwar and Lachmangarh by corrupting their Jat custodians. Mirzā Najaf advanced to Lachmangarh, 20 miles south-east of Alwar, and laid a regular siege to it.* His lieutenant, Himmat Bahādur Gosain, lured away the Maratha mercenary Ambāji by a higher bid. The Macheri chief became helpless, and sent to beg for peace, but the Mirzā rejected his offer. In the midst of these operations, the Rajah of Jaipur, Prithi Singh, had died, on 15th April, and a new scene opened at the imperial Court where the favourite Abdul Ahad Khan tried to thwart Najaf's work by making terms with Macheri and Jaipur over the Mir Bakhshi's head. Tempting the Emperor with the hope of getting the tributes of these two Rajahs himself without having to give a share to the Mir Bakhshi, he announced that the sovereign would march to that region in person. The Jaipur and Macheri chiefs sent envoys to Delhi and tried to secure easier terms than Mirzā Najaf's. They were welcomed at Court and promised royal orders extending protection over their masters and repudiating the action of the Mirzā. The slothful Shah Alam was forced by his overbearing favourite into making a formal start for this expedition by entering into marching tents at Tālkatorā outside Delhi (24th May.) The mere report of this step stiffened the Rajahs' resistance to Najaf.

v3.c36.s8.7

∗ Mirza Najaf's third Jat campaign.—DC. Ibrat. i. 317, 345-347. G. Ali iii. 118-120. Miskin 335.

v3.c36.s8.8

∗ On 20 May 1778, Mons. Visage writes that Najaf Khan was still besieging Lachmangarh. (Barbé, 247.)

v3.c36.s8.9

The commander-in-chief had to attend to this new danger first. He wrote to Abdul Ahad entreating him not to ruin their common master's cause by this interference at the moment of success; but the letter only misled the Kashmiri into thinking that Najaf was now helplessly at his mercy and could be easily squeezed out of his wealth and lands! Afrāsiyāb Khan who went to Delhi on a mission for smoothing the relations between these two chiefs, returned after twelve days of wasted efforts (21 April.) The Mirzā now took quick and decided action; he sent orders to his lieutenants Najaf Quli and Afrāsiyāb to march from their posts to Delhi and awe the Emperor into dismissing his marplot favourite. The news of this move at once cowed the cowardly Kashmiri intriguer; he dismissed the Jaipur and Macheri envoys with empty hands and made the puppet Emperor sneak back into his palace (29th May), saving his face by the pretext that he had delayed stepping out of the fort on the 24th so long that the auspicious hour had expired and an evil star had risen to the ascendant in the meantime, so that this journey must be cancelled for his safety!

v3.c36.s8.10

The Macheri envoys, cursing the spineless double-dealing minister, went back to their master, who had no help but to seek peace at Mirzā Najaf's hands by agreeing to pay an indemnity of 33 lakhs in three years,—out of which three lakhs were paid down and security given for the balance of the first instalment (c. 6 July 1778.) The three lakhs with which the Macheri chief had bought off the imperial generalissimo, were a loan from the Jaipur treasury, and the Nāroka now tried to evade repayment of it.* Therefore, the Jaipur diwān Khushhāli Rām Bohrā called in the aid of Mirzā Najaf.

First 78 of 135 passages. Read on