Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c37.s4: § 7. Futility of the Maratha plots in the North
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c37.s4
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§ 7. Futility of the Maratha plots in the North
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Throughout the years 1780 and 1781, down to the very signing of a treaty of peace by Mahadji Sindhia with the English (October 1781), we witness a scene of futile plotting at Delhi* which would be exquisitely comic were it not unspeakably sad to every reflective Indian. The Peshwa, hard pressed by the enemy in the Deccan, was, for his own safety, urging the Emperor to take the plunge and openly join him in the war then raging with the English,—who had swallowed Bengal and Oudh, and now taken Bundelkhand, Gwalior and the Carnatic, and were intriguing with the Rajput Rajahs for a joint drive to conquer the Jat country and Malwa, so that the capture of Delhi would be most easy to them. [Raj. xii. 5.] The Emperor, through Najaf Khan, gave repeated assurances to the Maratha envoy and promised to set out at the head of his army openly against the English "after the rainy season"; but he rightly stipulated that before he could do so the Peshwa himself or his best generals must come to Northern India with a vast army, lest the English should anticipate them by making a forced march from Oudh territory and capturing defenceless Delhi! [Raj. xii. 7, 55, 56. DY. i. 14, 34, 37.]
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∗ Dilli-yethil M. Rajkaranen, i. (partly repeats and mostly supplements Rajwade, xii.) Also (echoes) in Gwalior Papers, 5 vols.
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It was a case of one drowning man clutching the neck of a still more helpless swimmer in the expectation that both would be saved thereby. Neither ally could really trust the other. Hingané very early discovered, what required no great acumen to guess, that Najaf Khan did not mean business and was only putting him off with smooth words; "he is really waiting to see which side proves stronger." [DY. 35.] He noticed how the imperial Court was mortally afraid of the English, especially after the capture of Gwalior, —a feat hitherto believed to be impossible and for which Najaf Khan rightly condemned the Maratha generals, asking "How could you lose such a fort?" The Maratha ambassador at Delhi, as a gentleman sent to lie abroad for the benefit of his country, had been trying to suppress every news of Maratha defeat at the hands of the English; but alas, a sort of freelance news-writer at Puna by his secret letters betrayed everything to the Delhi Court. [DY. i. 31 and 43.] The Mughal Government was also startled at every rumour of peace feelers having been sent out by the Peshwa to the English and roundly taxed Hingané with his master's planning to lure the Emperor into the anti-English coalition and then to leave him in the lurch. [Raj. xii. 8. *DY.* i. 34.]
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Mahadji Sindhia was for some time confident of the success of such a coalition,—with a confidence born of ignorance. He asserted again and again that the pressure on Western India by Colonel Goddard,, and later on Malwa by Camac, could be relieved and the English driven into a corner by Holkar and Sindhia from Central India and Bhonsla from Nagpur sweeping into Bengal with their countless horse and practising their light foray tactics (*qazzaqi*), which were sure of success. "The Emperor's artillery fires slowly, the English guns fire more quickly; but this advantage of the latter would be neutralized by *qazzaqi* and even their guns would be captured"! [*DY.* i. 6 & 9.] What the Maratha moss-troopers could do by the raiding tactics so dear to the hearts of their old-style leaders was found out by the best exponent of that school of warfare, Malhar Rao Holkar, once against the Abdali and twice when opposed to English discipline. Mahadji had not yet seen the work of De Boigne and his disciplined organisation, and he naturally shared the same illusion. A vast Maratha army for this North Indian campaign was expected to be fitted out by that hereditary insolvent the Peshwa, who could not even pay his Delhi envoy's salary, so that Hingané was driven to live in a beggarly style shameful to the foreign representative of a great Power and even to starve; as a fellow-sufferer bitterly put it, "Owing to my indebtedness every day is an *ekādashi* or *Shiva-rātri* to me!" [*DY.* i. 10, 81.]
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The confabulations at Delhi ultimately ended in nothing. But at one stage of them, in June 1781, Mirza Najaf very wisely decided on preparing for the great enterprise by reducing the number of his enemies; he chose to make friends with the Sikhs by recognising their possession of the lands in the Cis-Satlaj tract. By ending the state of war in that country the large imperial division under Shafi quartered near Karnal could be released and transferred to the upper Doab (at Saharanpur) and maintained there with a body of Sikh auxiliaries and the retainers of Zābita Khan, in order to suppress the local rebels and restore the imperial administration. [*DY.* i. 35.]
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But the grand plan died of itself when the First Maratha War was practically concluded by Sindhia’s making peace with the English (13th October 1781.) The result of the plotting, however, was that the two years before this peace were spent by the Delhi Government in suspense and inactivity, except for the two campaigns against Jaipur and Sarhind which we have already described.
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The respite was used in marrying the Emperor’s favourite son, Prince Akbar Shah, (on 2nd May 1781) with the most lavish pomp and ceremony, which involved months of preparation. Only four days later, a severe blow fell on the royal family, Prince Farkhunda Bakht (Mirzā Jahān Shah), a quiet lover of books, died after a short illness, and his baby daughter followed him the same night. Great natural calamities darkened men's look into the future: on 11th June 1781 the capital was swept by an abnormally violent dust-storm; later in the year came a severe earth-quake and a meteor fall near Jhajhar. [Muna Lal 233. DC.] Before the end of the year the cause of the imperial Government became hopeless: Najaf Khan was stricken down by a disease which no doctor could cure, and after lingering in bed for months the regent passed away on 6th April. With him departed the last hope of the Mughals in India.