Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c38.s4: § 5. Afrasiyab counteracts Shafi's rivalry
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c38.s4
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§ 5. Afrasiyab counteracts Shafi's rivalry
v3.c38.s4.1
At the report of his rival's approach Afrāsiyāb Khan was filled with despair. His first patron, the sister of Mirzā Najaf, had now become his enemy and he must look out for support elsewhere. He publicly renounced all his former connection with Najaf Khan's family and interests and prayed to the Emperor to be regarded as an imperial officer in future. Still further pursuing the policy of placating the Emperor, he gave up the control of the palace fort; Najaf's battalions which had so long garrisoned it were withdrawn (29th June), and the gates were placed in charge of the Emperor's own guards 'the Red Battalion', under Ahmad Ali Khan. Rightly suspecting that Shafi's march upon the capital was due to a secret call from Shah Alam and Begam Khadija, Afrāsiyāb Khan took prompt measures for self-defence. On 16th June he left the Mir Bakhshi's official residence, where he had so long been living with Najaf's sister and family, and removed to Abdul Ahad Khan's house, then under official escheat, taking with himself that deposed old regent from his prison in Najaf's mansion. This was the first step on the path of regaining the Emperor's favour, because every one knew that Shah Alam's heart was unalterably fixed on Ahad. The next step was to restore Ahad to the regency* and his position at the right hand of the Emperor, so that Afrāsiyāb could always have the strongest friend at Court. But such a political resurrection took time. Ahad, knowing himself powerless to effect anything in that stormy world, long refused to take office again. Everything was in confusion in the central Government. The Exchequer was empty, the Emperor and his household were starving. As the Maratha envoy in Delhi wrote at this time, "The soldiers get no money for buying food. Even Najaf Khan's personal guards are fasting; their horses and elephants are dying for lack of fodder. Even the Begam (Khadija Sultan)'s household cannot procure their food every day; at present they have been fasting for three days." [Or. 25,021 f. 112-115. DY. i. 84.]
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∗ Taking advantage of Afrāsiyāb's difficulties, the Emperor succeeded (29 June) in making him withdraw the Mir Bakhshi's guards and gunners from the palace-fort and give up the control of it to the imperial guards (the Lāl Paltan) under the Emperor's own agent Ahmad Ali Kh. DY. i. 84. DC.
v3.c38.s4.3
While Afrāsiyāb was busy weaving his web, Shafi arrived near Delhi. Hitherto his position had been irregular: he was a captain who had left his post without orders, and was trying to make an unauthorised entrance into the capital. But the unprincipled wavering character of Shah Alam came to Shafi's rescue. The Emperor rejoiced to see this internecine war among Najaf Khan's lieutenants and expected that it would weaken them all so much that in the end he would be left supreme. Encouraged by a friendly message from his sovereign, Shafi entered Delhi, visited Khadija Begam, who took him into her arms as a son, and promised to marry Najaf's daughter to him, place him at the head of the household and troops of the late commander-in-chief, and secure the Mir Bakhshi's office for him.
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§ 6. The rival generals assemble forces in Delhi city; riots threatened.
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On 14th July Shafi was formally received in audience.* But no post was given to him for a month, as he would not agree to the high price at which the Court had put the regency up to sale. The other two lieutenants of Mirzā Najaf had been summoned to the capital. One of them, Muhammad Beg Hamadāni, was a partisan of Shafi, and had at a hint from Shafi, patched up a truce with the Jat Rajah and then crossed into the middle Doab for plundering Gosāin Himmat Bahadur’s jagirs. This Gosāin was Afrāsiyāb’s right hand man, and Afrāsiyāb’s own jagir in Aligarh was now threatened with invasion. The other, Najaf Quli Khan, marched from the Jaipur border towards Delhi, apparently to join Shafi; but Afrāsiyāb intercepted him at Gurgāon (17 July), won him over by personal entreaty, and brought him to Delhi the next day. The rival forces were thus marshalled:—Afrāsiyāb, Najaf Quli and Latāfat Ali, with the helpless Abdul Ahad in one camp; Shafi, Khadija Begam and all the personal retainers of Mirzā Najaf, with the absent Muhammad Beg Hamadāni in the other. The capital was once more threatened with a civil war to be fought out in its streets. All this time the soldiers were starving and distracted, not knowing who was the lawful authority and not caring to follow any general with fidelity. "Every one wishes to make himself dominant, and great disturbance prevails." [Hingane's report, *DY.* i. 84.]
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∗ DC. G. Ali iii. 154-156. Muna Lal 244-253. Ibrat. ii. 36-43. DY. i. 71.
v3.c38.s4.7
But the threatening storm did not burst at once. Two months more were to pass in alarms and excursions, plotting and counterplotting at Court, before the contest was put to the arbitrament of the sword. After long negotiations, in which the harem superintendent Nāzir Manzur Ali warmly backed Shafi, the Emperor decided to appoint him Mir Bakhshi, for a fee of five lakhs, on the next auspicious day, which was the first of the sacred month of Ramzān (10th August.) This was a crushing blow to Afrāsiyāb; but he promptly countered it by begging the Emperor to restore Abdul Ahad to the head of his administration. Shah Alam jumped at the prospect of getting his bosom friend back after three years of enforced separation. The appointment of a new Mir Bakhshi was put off, and instead of it Abdul Ahad was received again at Court and reappointed to all his former posts (11th August.)
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Shafi was furious on meeting with this sudden reverse. "He felt that without a fight Afrāsiyāb could not be made to tread the right path; but out of respect for the throne he did not wish to engage in hostilities at the capital." [ML. 252.] With huge rival armies scowling and growling at each other in the same city, and that city without any magistrate or police guard, a conflict could not be long averted. On 21st August, a personal altercation between Jamāl Khan of Afrāsiyāb’s army and Pauli a German mercenary captain on Shafi’s side, spread to their respective followers like a wildfire. They flew to arms and dragging out their artillery barricaded the streets of Delhi, facing each other along a long line from the Kashmiri gate to the Jāmi‘ Masjid, as well as the Tripolia and the neighbourhood of the Kābuli gate. But the Emperor sent his chief eunuch to forbid fighting and the two sides withdrew. So, Delhi knew peace again, but it was for that day only. On the 24th the rival hosts again came out and dug trenches across the city, but again went back to their quarters at the Emperor’s appeal.