Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c37.s5.5

v3.c37.s5.5

Even more fatal was his policy, born of indolence and timidity, of parcelling out the portion of the realm still obedient to the Crown among his lieutenants, each one of whom became a subahdar in his own district without the legal status, however, of that high functionary. Below these great semi-independent barons there were petty leaders of bands,—Mughalia Baluch and Afghan,—whom Najaf Khan paid by the grant of small estates, so that the remnant of the Delhi empire was dismembered into a vast number of feudal baronies which no weaker hand could control. These sucked up the yield of the land and impoverished the Emperor and the army of national defence. This legacy of trouble bequeathed by Mirzā Najaf all but crushed Māhādji Sindhiā and certainly delayed his reconstruction of the imperial administration by four years, a delay which wrought a momentous change in India's destiny.