Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36.s1.3

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.