Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36.s5: § 7. Survey of Delhi Government's foreign relations 1772—1788
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36.s5
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§ 7. Survey of Delhi Government's foreign relations 1772—1788
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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.
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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.
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§ 8. The Sikhs: their military organisation and efficiency.
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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.*
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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".
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∗ Sikhs.—*Asiatic Annual Register* for 1800, Mis. Tracts, p.
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³⁴ G. Forster, *Journey*, i. 285-291 (containing a quotation from Polier.) Cunningham's *History*, 2nd. ed.
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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.
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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: —
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"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.
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"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.
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"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
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plaid . . . with a mean turban, form their clothing and equipage.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.”