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Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c39: Chapter XXXIII. Mahadji Sindhia Regent of Delhi

Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c39

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Chapter XXXIII. Mahadji Sindhia Regent of Delhi

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§ 1. *Emperor takes refuge with Mahadji.*

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In the desolate plain of Sayyidpurā Mahadji Sindhia gave peace and safety to the helpless imperialists. What was he to do next? Every step had to be taken cautiously and after feeling the ground. The next move lay with the Emperor, and Sindhia was bound to fashion his course in accordance with the royal decision.

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The news of Afrasiyab's fatal wound reached the Emperor at Agra at half past four the same afternoon, and his death was reported the next morning. The Sovereign found none who could fill the dead regent's place. Of the four lieutenants left behind by Mirzā Najaf Khan, two were dead, one was in open rebellion, and the last, Najaf Quli, was hopelessly sunk in debauchery at Delhi. The only great noble now surviving was Abdul Ahad Khan, a captive in Aligarh fort, but a man after the Emperor's own heart. Major James Browne, the English envoy with him, like William Kirkpatrick three years later, bore an inveterate hatred to Mahadji Sindhia. He now lost no time in pressing his anti-Maratha policy on the helpless distracted Shah Alam through his Persian secretary, Sālihuddin (the brother of our valued historian Faqir Khairuddin), and urged him to reinstate Abdul Ahad (a friend of the English) as regent, dismiss the Marathas and govern the realm, as Oudh was being governed, under British protection. The Emperor wrote to the qiladar of Aligarh to send Ahad to his Presence. The order was carried out. The age-worn favourite, on arriving at Agra (5th November), first paid a visit to his old acquaintance Rajah Dayaram, who informed Shujādil Khan, the qiladar of Agra, and that officer at once placed Ahad in confinement again without asking for the Emperor’s orders.

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Shah Alam was highly offended at this disappointment and public exposure of his own impotence. He announced that he would take refuge with Mahadji Sindhia, as the only loyal subject left to him, and deputed two of his trusted personal attendants to the Maratha camp with robes of honour and letters for Sindhia, who replied (7th) through them advising the Sovereign to come to Fathpur Sikri. Next day the Maratha chief despatched 50 camels, four elephants and other transport for the Emperor’s journey from Agra and promised him an escort of 5,000 horse and four battalions of sepoys under Apa Khandé Rao. Leaving Agra on the 10th and passing the next day at Fathpur-Sikri, the Emperor reached Afrāsiyāb’s camping ground at Khanuā on the 12th, and found hospitable gifts and articles for his comfort from Mahadji waiting for him there.

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The fourteenth of November, being the first of the sacred month of Muharram, was fixed upon as a most auspicious day for Sindhia’s presentation to his Sovereign.

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Mahādji, from his camp some three miles west of the imperial halting-place, came to the audience, being welcomed in advance by the Emperor’s favourite son and destined heir Prince Akbar Shah. The Maratha chief offered a tribute of 101 gold *mohars* and laid his head down on his Sovereign’s feet. Shah Alam graciously patted him on the back, raised him up, gave him the royal embrace, and bade him sit down on the carpet face to face with him in consideration of Sindhia’s lameness, a relic of Panipat. By oriental custom, this first audience was devoted solely to formalities.

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Sindhia undertook the protection of the Emperor. So, Shah Alam on the 15th marched from Khanuā to the Maratha camp. All the Deccani and Hindustani soldiers lined the route for miles to welcome him, by Sindhia’s order. After inspecting the troops and witnessing their parade, the Emperor retired to the tented quarters prepared for him between the camps of Mahādji and Ambaji Inglé.

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On the 17th Shah Alam held the eagerly awaited secret conference with Sindhia which was to shape the destiny of the Delhi empire for the next two decades. He began by urging Mahadji, “You must undertake the regency of my house and regulate my empire.” Sindhia replied, “How can I administer the realm unless I hold some office in the State?” The Emperor then offered him the Mir Bakhshi-ship with the still higher post of Regent, but Sindhia begged for a few days’ delay before giving his answer, as the sacred month of Muharram had commenced (on 14th November) and the first ten days of it (‘ashura) were devoted to religious observances in honour of the death of the Prophet’s grandson.

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But Mahadji’s hands were forced by the pressure of events. There was no wazir, no commander-in-chief, no vicegerent in that moving capital and centre of an empire’s government. The Emperor was present, no doubt; but he was a man who had never led an army or transacted a single piece of business personally since his re-entry into Delhi thirteen years ago. Anarchy under a crowned shadow threatened total dissolution to the heritage of Akbar and Shah Jahan. The soldiers were grumbling for their long-standing arrears of pay and their utter failure to raise loans anywhere for their daily food; their future looked utterly gloomy; there was no lawfully constituted authority, no known commander for enforcing order in that vast assemblage of armed men, estimated at 30,000, even excluding Sindhia’s own troops. Disorder might break out any day; and one, attended by murder, did break out on the 15th, when Kush-hālī Rām Haldia, the Jaipur general (bakhshi)

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and peace-envoy in this camp, was murdered by a Rajput soldier in his tent. The crime was imputed to the Macheri Rajah, whose diwān Haldia had at first been and whom he had next deserted and plundered in concert with Mirza Najaf. The Kachhwa contingent under him dispersed from the imperial camp in confusion like sheep without a shepherd. [Dy. i. 116—120. HP. 606. Ibr. ii. 92.]

§ 2. Intrigues against Mahadji Sindhia

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At the same time the most confused and intricate intrigues were going on for the succession to Afrāsiyāb Khan and the control of the weak Emperor. The dead Mir Bakhshi’s diwān Nārāyandās and his ally the unscrupulous Gosāin Himmat Bahadur planned to bribe the Emperor with twelve lakhs of Rupees and thus induce him to create Afrāsiyāb’s son, a boy of three, commander-in-chief, and then govern the realm themselves as this infant’s guardians and devour the revenues of his jagirs and the Crownlands customarily administered by the Mir Bakhshi! Another widow of Afrāsiyāb, not this boy’s passive mother, but an imperious Afghan lady, whose father and uncle then held the key-positions of commandant of Agra fort and chief of the imperial artillery,—sought permission to adopt a son and manage Afrāsiyāb’s vast property in the name of her nominee. Major Browne was working desperately to revive Warren Hastings’s abandoned plan of turning the Emperor into an English puppet and governing the empire through some Muslim regent who would be under the dictation of the British Resident at the capital, as the Nawab of Oudh already was. Those two masters of low cunning and underground intrigue which always ends in futility, Nārāyandās and Himmat Bahadur, even imagined that they could get rid of Sindhia by throwing to him a few crumbs of territory and a few thousand Rupees worth of jewellery from Afrāsiyāb’s legacy, and thus clear the path of their ambition to rule the realm as Najib-ud-daulah or Mirzā Najaf had done before! They even tried to buy Sindhia’s ministers over to these views.

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All this reached Mahādji’s ears and he took his measures with marvellous patience, secrecy and exactness in timing his blows. He first crushed Muhammad Beg Hamadāni and removed that source of danger and distraction from his neighbourhood (c. 10 Nov.) Then, when the Emperor removed to the circuit of the Maratha camp (15 Nov.), he took over the control of the Emperor’s and Afrāsiyāb’s camps by posting his own disciplined battalions around them. “Without his permit none can go from one camp to the other, none can visit the Emperor, none can leave the Emperor’s camp.” [DY. i. 120, 117.] The Mughalia sardars, lately under Hamadāni, were similarly isolated by Maratha guards.

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Sindhia held many private conferences with the Emperor, some on the problems facing that helmless Government, some on the persistent English request to recall the fugitive Prince Jawan Bakht to Delhi at the head of five trained sepoy battalions and give him a vast appanage. Above all, there was the urgent question of finding the large sums necessary for maintaining the Emperor’s household and regularly paying the enormous army assembled in his name. [HP. 369. Ibr. ii. 99, PRC. i. 7.]

§ 3. Mahadji Sindhia is created Commander-in-chief and Supreme Regent of the Empire. The difficulties of his position

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The money so badly needed could come only if pressure was put on the richest vassal of the State, the long-defaulting Rajah of Jaipur. So, on 30th November Sindhia with the Emperor and all the assembled troops, as well as the English envoys Anderson and Browne and their staff, made one march of ten miles from Sayyidpurā westwards to Pingora. Here, on the 1st of December, the Emperor at a public darbar appointed the Peshwa as his Deputy (Nāib-i-Munāib) as well as Commander-in-chief (Bakhshi-ul-mamālik), subject to the written condition that Mahadji Sindhia and none else should be the permanent agent of the Peshwa in discharging the actual functions of these exalted offices. The *khilats* and many kinds of rich presents bestowed by the Emperor on the Peshwa as the adjuncts of his new office, as well as complimentary robes for the Peshwa’s regent Nānā Fadnis, were made over to Sindhia for despatch to Poona.

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On the 3rd of the month another march of ten miles was made to Halena, a place five miles north of Wer fort. Here next day another darbar was held at which Shah Alam conferred on Mahadji Sindhia the highest possible post in the imperial Government, namely that of Regent Plenipotentiary (Wakil-i-mutlaq) direct from himself, without any reference to the Peshwa. This post was so rarely filled that only three previous instances of it are known in the long annals of the Timurids, once under Akbar, once under Shah Jahan and the last time under Bahadur Shah I. As Mahadji returned to his tent after being appointed dictator of the Delhi Empire, his troops lined the entire route and fired salutes, while all the officers presented nazars in his tent. Thus at one stroke all the machinations of the great Maratha’s puny rivals were reduced to nullity. [Dy. i. 133, 106. HP. 342, 343. PRC. i. 9. Ibr. ii. 95.]

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Halena belonged to Lakhidhar Singh, a vassal of Jaipur. Its fortalice was stormed in three days. Before this, Ranjit Singh Jat and Pratāp Singh Narukā had settled their tributes with the new imperial Regent and taken leave for their homes. On the 11th of December, Mahadji advanced to Mahewā (22 miles due east of Bandikui railway junction) and the fort of Rāmgarh lying two miles to its west. This fort held out for a week, and then the garrison capitulated (18th Dec.) Envoys now came from Jaipur with proposals of tribute which were accepted, and the Emperor, led by Sindhia, moved (c. 28 Dec.) towards Dig, where his camp was pitched outside the fort on 3rd January, 1785. Here a two months' halt was enforced by the pressing and complicated questions of State which could no longer be left unattended to.

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Mahadji Sindhia was now Regent of the Empire and Captain General of the Forces, but what he had obtained was only two sheets of paper signed by a titular Sovereign. He did not yet hold a single inch of the imperial domains beyond the ground his camp stood on. The two royal seats of Delhi and Agra were occupied by his dead predecessor's men. The royal treasuries and even the revenue records were in their possession. If Mahadji was to be the Emperor's deputy in anything more than the name, he must get possession of the royal forts, the official treasures and the land still subject to the Crown. At first he hoped that the mere order of the Sovereign would transfer these adjuncts of the Mir Bakhshi's office to him, as they had been smoothly transferred to Shafi and Afrāsiyāb or to Mirzā Najaf before them. So, he waited for some time; but at last the bitter truth dawned on his mind that in the troubled politics of Delhi force alone could win for him what was his due by law.

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By the close of the year 1784 he had run into a debt of eighty lakhs in consequence of his campaigning against the English and later in Malwa and Hindustan. His own force of 30,000 men with their powerful artillery was costing him seven lakhs of Rupees a month, and the contigents of Afrāsiyāb and Himmat Bahadur that he had now taken over added about three lakhs to his monthly army bill. The Emperor's maintenance burdened his keeper with an expenditure of one lakh and thirty thousand Rupees every month. The Regent must find this money regularly or his new dignity would vanish like smoke. As Wakil-i-mutlaq and Mir Bakhshi, Sindhia was officially entitled to occupy all the royal forts, to receive payment of the fixed tributes from the vassal princes, and to take over the revenue collection of the Crownlands. The custodians of the royal treasuries and stores also were bound to account to him for what they held on behalf of the State.

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§ 4. Mahadji Sindhia gains Dig and Agra forts, Jan.—March, 1785.

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The wealth accumulated in their days of power by Abdul Ahad, Mirzā Najaf, Latāfat Ali and Md. Shafi had all passed by successive forcible appropriations into the hands of Afrāsiyāb Khan, the last of the Mir Bakhshis. These had been lodged in the fort of Aligarh, the stronghold of the personal jagir of the last-named chief. Rumour swelled their value to a kror and a half, though what Sindhia afterwards actually realised proved to be only forty-thousand Rupees. [HP. 446.] Afrāsiyāb Khan had three wives; the first of whom had borne him a son named Khādim Husain Khān, now three years old, whom the family diwān Narayandas was plotting to get appointed as Mir Bakhshi under the nominal guardianship of his mother, so that he himself might rule the realm as her agent. But this widow had neither any wealth in her hands, nor the spirit of ruling. The second wife was an imperious Afghan lady, who controlled all the forts, treasures and other property of the late Mir Bakhshi and was strong in the strength and position of her father Shujā-dil Khan (the custodian of Agra fort) and his two cousins Bayazid (the Chief of the imperial artillery) and Mihrbān Khan. This dowager's ambition was to set Khādim Husain aside, adopt another boy, and herself rule the family estates in his name. All the wealth of Afrāsiyāb Khan was stored in Aligarh, which this lady held in conjunction with her husband's brother Jahāngir Khan. [HP. 363, 373.]

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Afrāsiyāb Khan had placed the fort of Dig and the lands appertaining to it in charge of Malik Muhammad Khan. Sindhia, carrying the Emperor with himself, arrived near the place and called upon this man through Narayandas to relinquish the fort and lands in exchange for a jagir elsewhere. The garrison (mere sebandi troops) on being paid their arrears (Rs. 15,000) by Mahadji, evacuated the fort on 16th January, and he occupied it by his own troops under Devji Patil [Anderson's letter. DY. i. 127. Ibr. ii. 96.] But he had to stop for two months at Dig because of the contumacy of Shujā-dil Khan who held Agra fort. This man refused to admit Rāyāji Patil who had arrived with a royal letter appointing him qiladar of it. Fighting ensued. Rayaji easily drove in the outlying piquets, established his own rule in the city and its markets, and opened trenches against the fort. His fire demolished the retaining wall of the fosse in many places. Mahadji himself, with the rest of his army and the Emperor, moved up to Rajghat on the Jamunā, about four miles north of Agra (2nd March), and the siege was then brought to a speedy conclusion.

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One battalion of sepoys, under Bhawāni Singh, was included in the garrison of the fort. Their salary having been long in arrears, this commandant visited Rayaji and made a pact for coming over with his men if their dues were paid and they were enrolled in the imperial army. Other troops in the fort followed his example. Shujā-dil, deserted by his followers, had no help but to make the best terms he could.

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He was promised jagirs worth Rs. 52,000 a year, and vacated the fort on 27th March. Sindhia's flag was unfurled on the second throne-city of the Mughal Emperors. The *subahdari* of Agra province was now (30th March) conferred on Mahadji, as deputy of the nominal viceroy, Prince Akbar Shah.*

§ 5. Mahadji's attitude towards Afrasiyab's family: their duplicity and hostility

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The next step was to gain Aligarh fort. In order to be nearer to this place, Sindhia marched up the river to Mathura (arrival 11th April.) At this holy city, and later at Chir-ghat, 20 miles north of it, he was detained for the next eight months by the long-drawn contest for Aligarh. His hope of securing this place smoothly by persuasion was doomed to a still more cruel disappointment than in the case of Agra. He had from the first treated Afrasiyab's widows and orphan with every consideration. Shortly after the murder of the Khan he had publicly declared to Narayandas, "I intend to plant Afrasiyab's son on the *masnad*, persuade the Emperor to take the boy into his favour, collect the subsidy promised to me, and then go back to the Deccan". [Or. 25,021 *f.* 33a. *HP.* 606]

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This was his design till the middle of November. All his acts showed that he valued his solid new conquests in Malwa more than the empty dignity of the regency of an insolvent empire. Even when the Emperor threw himself upon Mahadji’s neck and entreated him to save the State by undertaking to be its helmsman, the Maratha general hesitated for a full fortnight, till the hopeless disruption around forced his hands and he at last realised that the guidance of such a realm could not be left to an infant of three, with the Kashmiri servants of his household acting vicariously for him. Such a step would complete the downfall of the imperial power and at once bring the English to Delhi as keepers of the Emperor’s person and entitle them to exercise the *de facto* suzerainty of the empire of India in his name,—a policy which was then being openly pursued under Mahadji’s eyes by Major Browne, the British agent accredited to the Delhi Court. But that was the very danger which the Peshwa had been urging Sindhia in letter after letter for three years past to do his best to avert.

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∗ Capture of Agra fort.—*DC.* *HP.* 354, 359, 365, *DY.* i. 128, 130, *Ibr.* ii. 105. Browne's letter. *PRC.* i. 10-12.

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The regency of Delhi was, therefore, forced upon Sindhia, but he manfully shouldered the burden. He had no wish to ill-treat Afrāsiyāb’s family if they acted honestly by the State and delivered without concealment or theft the public property in the late Regent’s keeping. Immediately after his first conference with the Emperor (on 17th November 1784), he had caused the title of Husain-ud-daulah Khādim Husain Khan Bahādur Ghālib Jang to be bestowed on Afrāsiyāb’s son. Next, from Halena (middle of December) he detached an escort to bring this child to the imperial camp with due care and honour. On his arrival, Mahadji paid a formal visit to his tent to offer condolences for his father’s death (18th January 1785.) A little later on the next coronation anniversary (3rd April) the boy was raised by the Emperor at Mahadji’s prayer, to the dignity of Ashraf-ud-daulah II (his father’s title) and granted fiefs worth four lakhs a year. He expected that the child’s guardians would, in return, deal with him in a fair and friendly manner. But they were determined to grasp at everything and cheat the infidel from the South. [DC. Ibr. ii. 96.]

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§ 6. Siege of Aligarh. Surrender on 20 Nov. 1785.

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Arrived near Agra, Mahadji called upon Afrāsiyāb’s family in Aligarh to surrender that fort with the Government property in it. They outwardly professed readiness to comply and demanded another strong place and a jagir for their support, but secretly prepared for resistance.* The qiladar Jahangir Khan (the late Mir Bakhshi’s brother) was receiving secret letters of encouragement and promises of aid from the

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[^ *]: Siege of Aligarh.—PRC. i. 12-19. HP. 363, 373, 381, 407, 411, 446. Ibr. ii. 105-106, 148. DY. i. 140, 141, 112. DC. G. Ali, iii. 215.

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Mughal officers now under Sindhia and even from Himmat Bahadur, which stiffened his back, and he sent frantic appeals for help to the Nawab of Oudh and Sir John Cummings, the general commanding the English brigade at Anupshahar. To the Nawab Wazir he wrote, "If this strong fort on the Oudh frontier is secured by the Deccanis, it would be a standing menace to your dominions, as it would be very easy for them to raid Oudh territory from it. If you help me to keep this fort and the little territory now held by me, I shall give you half of the hoards within it accumulated by Najaf and Shafi, Afrāsiyāb and others during their lifetime. I shall also pay your military expenses. If you wish for it, I shall deliver this fort to the English and live as a mere zamindar of this tract paying you revenue." [Ibr. DY. i. 171, 140.]

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Sir John Cummings, on his own initiative, marched from his cantonment (1 April) and took post at Atrauli, sixteen miles north-east of Aligarh, to watch the Maratha movements. He even admitted Jahangir Khan to an interview and thus backed him in his defiance of his master's authority. This unexpected and unjustifiable threat of British intervention caused the greatest alarm and perplexity to Sindhia and correspondingly emboldened his enemies on all sides. He protested to his Resident James Anderson, who secured an order from the Governor-General recalling Cummings to his own station. Cummings withdrew to Karanbās (21st April), and thus one threatening cloud blew over.

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Mahadji had at first sent Mirzā Anwār Beg (the brother of his favourite confidant Mirzā Rahim Beg) to the Doab to see if Aligarh would be peacefully vacated; but this officer's escort, a thousand horse only, was too small even to protect him, and his fears grew tenfold when he heard of the English brigade coming to the aid of Jahangir Khan. So, he did not venture to approach even within 20 miles of that fort (early April 1785.) Meantime Agra had fallen. Sindhia now conciliated Shujā-dil Khān and his cousin Bayazid with costly gifts and sent them to Aligarh to try their influence on their kinsman Jahangir Khan. They returned unsuccessful. Next, the fear of embroilment with the British troops being then over, he detached a force of 5000 horse under Rayaji Patil to attack Aligarh. But by this time the summer was well advanced, there was a great scarcity of water for ten miles round Aligarh. In May a severe epidemic of cholera desolated the country, "men fell down dead while walking on the roads." Worst of all, Sindhia had exhausted his funds and could not discharge the heavy arrear salaries of his army; "no soldier who was not paid his dues would agree to march across the Jamuna on this campaign."

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However, Rayaji at last arrived on the scene and opened the siege. Jahangir Khan boldly assumed the offensive, as the best form of defence ; he made repeated sorties and attacked the Marathas. On 20th July he sallied forth from the walled city of Koil,—three miles distant from the fort of Aligarh,—and fell upon the Maratha army. Rayaji, after a desperate hand to hand fight, in which he lost 400 men in killed and wounded, repulsed the attack and advancing stormed Koil, from which the disheartened garrison fled away, abandoning all of their forty pieces of cannon and other war material. This city now became the besiegers' base and they advanced closer to Aligarh, running trenches towards its walls. The situation in early August is thus described in a Marathi despatch, "The fort is blockaded ; our piquets are posted one kos off all around it. But it is a strong place and can hold out for a long time." The exceptionally heavy and ceaseless rain of this year's monsoon troubled the besiegers worse than the summer heat had done before. The Jamuna rose in high flood, interrupting the boat traffic between Mahadji's camp and the besieging army. Jahangir Khan continued to make sallies and raid the siege trenches. Sindhia retaliated by confiscating his property and imprisoning his relatives wherever found. [Ibr. ii. 148.]

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As the siege of Aligarh dragged on into winter and Sindhia's prestige suffered in consequence, he decided to bring the Emperor out of Delhi and try the effect of his personal appearance before the defiant fort. So, on 12th October, he left Mathura and on 10th November met the Emperor, who had come from Delhi at his entreaty, at Banchari (five miles north of Hodal). On the 17th of that month the two together came to the camp at Chirghat, 20 miles north of Mathura, and there halted for nearly two months.

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Jahangir Khan now found resistance useless. He made terms through Lachhman Rao and vacated Aligarh fort, which Sindhia’s men occupied on 20th November. The spoils found there included 65 large pieces of artillery, one mortar (for throwing shells), 1,600 maunds of powder and 1,000 maunds of lead, besides a few sacks of grain,—but only Rs. 40,000 in cash and jewels (which sum was divided equally between the Emperor and his regent.)

§ 7. Punishment of the treacherous partisans of Afrāsiyāb Khan

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On 28th November, Jahangir Khan came to Mahadji’s camp and was presented to the Emperor. The fort of Mursan was assigned to Afrāsiyāb’s widows and son with a jagir worth Rs. 1,10,000 per annum. Jahangir Khan was given a jagir of half a lakh, but no fort. The total revenue of the lands now granted to this family was 2½ lakhs. It was a clear condition of the terms granted to him that he “should retain possession of all his private property, but must give an account of all the property belonging to the late Amir-ul-umara." [Anderson, in *PRC.* i. p. 31.] It was admitted on all hands that the accumulations of four successive regents had gone to form the treasure of Afrāsiyāb and had been deposited by him in Aligarh. But now the victors found only Rs. 40,000 there. Jewels of known description which the Emperor had formerly entrusted to Najaf* and Afrāsiyāb for raising money could not be traced among these. The only answer which Jahangir Khan and the Begams gave was to profess their own ignorance and throw the entire responsibility on the late Mir Bakhshi's diwan Narayandas and lieutenant Shujā-dil Khan. [Ibr. ii. 151, *DY*, i. 141.] But it was proved that during the late siege of Aligarh, Jahangir Khan had been constantly smuggling out of the fort all portable valuables to Oudh territory through the trusty old servants of the house,—the maid Annāji, Saif Khan and a Hindu clerk named Bhawāni Prasād.

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Sindhia was exasperated by this faithlessness; moreover, failure to recover the Emperor's jewels exposed him to disgrace before his sovereign and the suspicion that he had himself secreted the richer spoils instead of sharing them with the Emperor. This was the very charge made against the Marathas after the capture of Pathargarh 13 years earlier. Persuasion having failed, Sindhia on 17th December placed Jahangir Khan in confinement and (on the 25th) brought Afrasiyab Khan’s widows under arrest from Mursan to his camp. Their persons and tents were searched by female servants, and some jewels were recovered, (which Sindhia divided with the Emperor.) The captives now delivered to Mahadji the secret letters of Narayandas and Himmat Bahadur urging Jahangir Khan to hold Aligarh and resist Sindhia to the utmost. The late Mir Bakhshi’s diwan was therefore imprisoned, his family, living in Agra city, was arrested, and their property attached [c. 1 January, 1786. DC. Ibr. ii. 151-154.]

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∗ Anderson in his letter of 19th Dec. imagined that it was a "pretence" on the part of Shah Alam; but the contemporary records of Najaf Khan's regency [Br. Mus. Or. 25, 021, *f.* 204 *b*] prove that it was a fact. *H.P.* 446.

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§ 8. Sindhia’s first dealings with the Sikhs, 1785.

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At the beginning of 1785, while Sindhia was trying to secure the peaceful possession of Agra, he had to think also of Delhi and its defence. On 19th January he got his lieutenant Ambaji Inglé appointed faujdar of the district north of the capital and collector of customs, and sent him off with a strong force and the Macheri chief to establish the new regent’s authority in Delhi and protect it from the Sikhs who were expected to make a swoop upon that kingless city. Najaf Quli Khan, who was governing Delhi for Afrāsiyāb, now gave peaceful possession (11th February), and Ambaji posted his own guards at the gates. [DC. DY. i. 128.] The Gujars had been plundering the environs of the capital during the anarchy following the death of Najaf Khan and they had redoubled their disturbances after the murder of Afrāsiyāb. Ambaji subdued them by his rapid and ruthless blows. Surrounding a party of them in a village near Surajpurā, he slew 200 of the men and dragged the rest to Delhi to be executed by the police in public. Then he blockaded a hill near Kālikā, but most of its Gujar population escaped through the cordon at night. After four or five Gujar villages had been sacked and their male population slaughtered, the predatory tribe took to a more peaceful life.

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Then Ambāji marched north on his main mission which was to make a settlement with the Sikhs. He halted at Bakhtāwarpur, 13 miles north of Delhi. Nine Sikh sardars of the Panipat region with whom he had already opened parleys, came and visited him here (27th March).

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It was agreed that two of their leaders,—Dulcha Singh and Mohan Singh—should visit Sindhia and confirm the alliance. The terms of Najaf Khan's pact with them were that they would levy their blackmail (rākhi) from the villages where it had been customary before, but should not raid any imperial territory. [Ch. 31 § 5.] Mahadji demanded that they should give up levying rākhi on any Crownland, but must take possession of the jagirs that he offered them at the expense of the Jaipur Rajah, and that they should serve with 5,000 horse in the wars of the Empire. [*HP.* 373, 381, *contra DY.* i. 111, 134, 135. *Raj.* xii. 41.] This arrangement did not touch the Doab, but provided for the safety of the district from Delhi northwards to Panipat. With these two sardars and a light escort Ambaji made a rapid march to Mathura and interviewed his master (on 10th April.) The Sikh chiefs lived in that camp for some time and were given their *congee* about the 10th of June. [*PRC.* i. 14, 15.]

§ 9. Campaign against the Khichis of Rāghogarh

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The whole of the year 1785 was a period of anxiety and distraction to Mahadji. As Hingané wrote on 15th October, “Our troops are entangled at four places: Rāmgarh (= Aligarh), Rāghogarh, Jaipur and the Pānipat district.” Of these the Raghogarh business had to be immediately attended to for assuring a vital line of communications.

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The great road from Agra to the South runs, about 150 miles south of Gwalior, through Sironj, the capital of the Ahir country. Forty miles north west of Sironj is Rāghogarh, where the Emperor Akbar had created a small State for a Khichi Chauhan prince. In the next century this family extended its sway from the Betwā river beyond Sironj in the east, to the Andheri (a tributary of the Pārvati river) in the west, by subduing the numberless petty local chieftains.

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With the coming of the Marathas into Malwa in the second quarter of the 18th century began a conflict between them which ended in the Khichis becoming tributaries to the new overlords of that province. The tribute, as usual, fell into arrears, and in 1760 we even find the Khichis rising in the rear of the Maratha army during Sadāshiv Bhāu's march to Pānipat. With the expansion of Maratha rule over Malwa, a shorter route to the Deccan was opened, leaving the royal highway at Shivapuri, 65 miles s.w. of Gwalior, and turning south-westwards to Ujjain and Indore. This road traversed the Khichi country, entering it near the Gunā railway station,—only a few miles south of which is Bajrang-garh, the later capital of Khichi-wada. The Marathas were bound to keep order there.

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The Khichi Rajah (who had taken the title of Rānā) had ceded Chhabrā (30 miles west of Gunā) and Gugar in lieu of tribute to Holkar. But in 1784 he demanded the restoration of these lands, promising to pay the tribute in cash. Ahalyā Bāi, the regent of Holkar's State, asked for the full clearance of arrears before relinquishing the two districts. The Rānā then forcibly seized these two towns and some other Maratha posts there (March 1785). On hearing of this, Mahadji Sindhia detached Khandoji Inglé (the brother of Ambāji) and Muhammad Beg Hamadāni from Agra with a strong force against him (April.) They recovered Gugar, Chhabrā and some smaller places, and reached Raghogarh, where they took the village (peth) and laid siege to the fort (early June.) The Rānā Balwant Singh (son of Balbhadra) sent his brother to negotiate with Sindhia directly; but near Mathura this agent was attacked and imprisoned by order of Mahadji (June. HP. 407.) Balwant resumed the offensive, defeated some Maratha bodies dispersed for plunder, and forced the invaders to fall back (early July.) The news of these reverses roused Mahadji, who pushed up reinforcements from all sides and raised the invaders' strength to 40,000 men. Balwant then left the open field and shut himself up in Raghogarh (August 1785); the inefficient siege of that fort by the Marathas dragged on for several months. At the end of next winter the Maratha generals, being eager to end the business and go elsewhere and also distracted by their mutual quarrels, clinched their long negotiations with the Rānā and agreed to let him go away from his fort with life and honour (Feb. 1786.) Mahadji was highly incensed on hearing of this poor result of an expedition on which he had spent lakhs of Rupees. He superseded the generals there, and sent Ambāji Inglé with orders to kill or imprison Balwant and confiscate his entire State. This was promptly done. Maratha rule was established in the Khichi country, Balwant was fettered and confined in Gwalior, while his wife and two of his sons were sent as captives to Bhilsā, and all his property confiscated.

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The expeditionary force returned to Mahadji’s side in April.

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This attempt to extinguish a two hundred years old Rajput State produced bitter fruits in the end. Though Balwant Singh was kept in prison, one of his sons Jai Singh remained free, and by carrying on a ceaseless guerilla war in the company of local Robin Hoods and with the secret backing of the Muslim Nawab of Bhopal, he made the Deccan road more unsafe than before and covered Sindhia with humiliation by capturing one of his wives.*

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§ 10. The Gosains Umrao-gir and Himmat Bahadur: their early history.

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By March 1786, Mahadji Sindhia had freed himself from most of the entanglements that had beset him in the first year of his regency; but just at this time a perpetual thorn was planted on his eastern flank which defied all his efforts to remove it and long continued to embolden his enemies elsewhere. We have met with the Nāgā Gosāin (or Hindu fighting abbot) Rājendra-gir in Safdar Jang’s wars with the Bangash (1750) and Imad-ul-mulk (1753.) This monk had adopted as his successors two Brahman boys who had been sold to him by their widowed mother during a famine. These were Umrāo-gir and Anup-gir (the latter being entitled Himmat Bahadur.) They continued after his death to command the Nāgā force in the Oudh service. On behalf of Shujā-ud-daulah, Himmat Bahadur waged war against Hindupat, Rajah of Bundelkhand, but was signally defeated (1762.) He also fought on his master's side on the disastrous field of Buxar (1764), which turned Shujā into a landless fugitive. Then the Gosāins sought for their livelihood by joining Jawāhir Singh Jat (Ch. 23 § 16), but faithlessly deserted him for Raghunāth Dādā's side (at the end of Dec. 1766.) Next year, when the Marathas retired from their north Indian enterprises, the Gosāins came back to Shujā, who had been now restored and strengthened by his English alliance and was entering on a career of annexation. But after Shujā's death (1775) his son Asafuddaulah had to reduce his army in order to fill the gaping void of his debt to the English. The Gosains being again turned out of employment, joined Najaf Khan at the siege of Dig (1776) and continued to work under him and his successors till Mahadji's rise to the regency of Delhi. [Imad., 64, 87, 102, 143.]

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∗ Raghogarh campaigns.—MD. ii. 94, 98, 101, 105, 114, 139, 124. DY. i. 134, 151, 182. HP. 412, 407. Aiti. Tip. vi. 41. Satara i. 101. Selections from Asiatic Journal, pp. 599-600.

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Himmat Bahadur lacked personal courage and bore a low character for his faithlessness and love of secret intrigue. He had risen very high in Najaf Khan's favour and become that regent's principal adviser and agent in dealing with the Hindu princes. After Najaf’s death, he took Afrāsiyāb’s side in the struggle for the regency, and hence during Afrāsiyāb’s period of power (Oct. 1783—Oct. 1784), Himmat Bahadur was all in all as the manager of the new regent’s policy and foreign relations. Working hand in glove with Nārāyandās, the diwan of Afrāsiyāb’s private estates and household, Himmat Bahadur became the real power behind the throne, without holding any office of State. He bore a deadly hostility to Mirzā Md. Shafi and also to Md. Beg Hamadāni, because these two blocked his patron’s path, and so he contrived the conspiracy for the murder of Shafi (1783). Thereafter, with the object of suppressing the last remaining rival of Afrāsiyāb, he patiently wove his web and induced Mahadji Sindhia to come to Rupbās in support of the Khan.

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Afrāsiyāb’s unexpected murder merely forced a change of direction on the Gosāin’s selfish plans: he now moved heaven and earth to get Afrāsiyāb’s infant son created Mir Bakhshi, hoping thus to rule the Delhi empire himself as the minor’s *de facto* guardian and pack Mahadji off to the Deccan by paying a small hire for his help! Sindhia who had the greatest contempt for the character of the entire official class of Delhi, and particularly for the Gosāin,—at first professed with masterly tact and diplomacy, to be entirely guided by Himmat Bahadur, because he was as yet without any personal knowledge of the men and affairs of the imperial Government and had to rely on some old officer of it. The Gosāin had hoped that even under Sindhia as regent, he would be all in all in the actual administration and in the southern stranger's relations with the Emperor.

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But his eyes began to be opened when he was firmly prevented from having pre-audience of the Emperor on the day of Mahadji's first conference with his Sovereign (17 Nov. 1784.) He had fondly hoped to convert the pliant Emperor to his own policy by anticipating Sindhia at his ears. On the contrary, the Emperor privately urged Mahadji to dismiss Himmat Bahādur and his ally Nārāyandās as a pair of rogues. Himmat Bahādur's credit with Sindhia, and therefore his position in Delhi politics, sank lower still when he failed to secure the peaceful surrender of Agra fort by his boasted influence with its commandant. And when he saw himself being more and more ignored by the new regent and place after place coming under Mahadji's control without his assistance, the Gosāin felt that Sindhia had made himself independent of the remnant of the Najaf Khan party. He began to spit venom in his rage and vexation and tried his sole weapon of treachery and intrigue for regaining his ascendancy in the State by spiting Sindhia. He wrote secretly to the qiladar of Aligarh to stiffen his opposition. Last of all, when Afrāsiyāb's family reported that all the dead Khan's fabled wealth had been in the keeping of Narayandas and Himmat Bahadur and yet no part of it could be recovered from these two agents, their downfall became inevitable. Himmat Bahadur's treasonable letters to Jahangir Khan were discovered among the escheated property of the latter and they proved beyond a doubt what Mahadji had long suspected. [Ibr. ii. 153. DY. i. 147. HP. 365, 408.]

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But Sindhia at first shrank from striking at a Brahman. He called upon Himmat Bahadur to give up all the jagirs he held (worth about 20 lakhs a year for the two brothers together) and leave his camp. For one month after this order, Himmat Bahadur whined before Sindhia, pointing out that he had no place to live in. So, in February 1786 he was assigned the Mot taluq (30 m. north-east of Jhānsi) and another jagir at Vrindāvan for his maintenance, but on condition that he must bear the cost of his contingent (Rs. five lakhs annually) and this force must serve under Sindhia's banners, while Himmat himself would live in monastic retreat at Vrindāvan. [HP. 351, 432, DY. i. 149.]

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§ 11. The two Gosāins rise against Sindhia in the Doab.

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After the arrest of Nārāyandās (c. 16 January 1786), Himmat Bahadur grew alarmed about his own safety and gave up attending Sindhia's darbar lest he should share his late colleague's fate. But Mahadji paid him Rs. 20,000 as his subsistence allowance for two months and bade him remove from the camp at Dig to his estate in Vrindāvan alone, leaving all his troops, horses etc. behind, who would be paid by Sindhia after taking their muster. But the Gosāin would not agree to part with his army, his sole defence against attack. So, when Mahadji marched away from Dig towards Jaipur (16th February), he gave Himmat Bahadur leave for Vrindāvan with his contingent, on his promising to go and smooth the transfer of his jagirs to Sindhia's agents. [Ibr. ii. 154. HP. 432.]

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Kesho Pant, an officer of Ābā Chitnis, had been deputed with letters of authorisation from Himmat Bahadur to take over charge of the Gosains' Doab possessions. He at first gained undisputed delivery of a number of villages, but none of the forts and larger towns. Then Himmat's elder brother Umrao-gir, who had so long been administering the family jagirs there, began to attack the new Maratha posts, in concert with the local zamindars (esp. the Jat owners of Hathras and Mursan); Sindhia's collectors were imprisoned or expelled, and Keso Pant himself was slain and his war equipment plundered. [Ibr. ii. ASB. 474, HP. 415.]

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Seizing the opportunity of this collapse of the Maratha power in the Doab, Himmat Bahadur crossed over from Vrindāvan (c. 8 March) and joined his brother's rising. They seized the thanah of Firuzabad and applied to the Nawab of Oudh for re-entering his service. From Makanpur, Umraogir went over to Khwājah Almas Ali Khan, the Oudh governor of Etawa. An English brigade which happened to advance from Cawnpur at this time, was rumoured to have made this movement for supporting the rebel brothers in case Mahadji marched against them.

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This was a most treacherous stab in Sindhia's back, while he was engaged in front with the recalcitrant Rajah of Jaipur in the distant west. The whole of the Doab threatened to be up in arms against the Marathas, with the Nawab Wazir and the English standing behind the rising. Even the newly planted Maratha garrison in Aligarh quaked with fear. Mahadji acted promptly; his scattered detachments in the Doab were hurriedly united under Abhaji (a son of Jaswant Bablé) to strengthen Aligarh. But this force was too small; and Umraogir, after driving out the Maratha collectors of Atrauli, Chharra Bhamauri and other mahals, attacked Abhaji and routed two of his sepoy battalions, capturing their guns. [Ibr. ii. 151 and ASB., 474. HP. 373.]

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On receiving this alarming news, Mahadji ordered Ambaji Inglé, then returning from the Rāghogarh expedition with the large force set free by the conquest of that State, to reinforce Abhaji. This general sent a detachment of 3,000 horse, two sepoy battalions, and 12 guns under Devji Golé, to attack the Gosāins, but to be careful not to cross the Oudh frontier lest they should provoke a clash with the British troops. At his approach Umrao-gir fled away to Kāsganj on the Ganges, wishing to take refuge in Rohilkhand which was now Oudh territory. Devji gave up the pursuit (end of April) and turned aside to lay siege to the fort near Khurja (in Bulandshahar) which had been usurped by Yaqub Khan.

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We may here conclude this narrative by saying that the two Gosains remained quiet in their Oudh asylum for a year after, in consequence of Lord Cornwallis's warning to the Nawab Wazir to observe strict neutrality towards Mahadji. But the convulsion of Maratha authority after his retreat from Lalsot in August, 1787, emboldened them to lead forces for disturbing Sindhia's possessions again and adding to his troubles. [PRC. i. 29, 39, and (after Lalsot) 140, 143-176, 210—234. DY. i. 170, 184, Ibr. ASB. ii. 474-476.]

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§ 12. Bundelkhand adventure, 1785-86.

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Chhatra Sal, the son of Champat Rai Bundela, had carved out for himself a large kingdom in eastern Bundelkhand during a long life of strenuous warfare. His crowning success was the final expulsion of the imperial viceroy, in alliance with the Marathas in 1729. As the price of this decisive aid, he ceded to his patron, the Peshwa, one-third of his realm with a revenue of 30 lakhs of Rupees. The aged and war-worn chief died on 14th December 1731, leaving the remaining two-thirds of his dominions to his two elder sons, Harde Sah of Panna (revenue 38 lakhs) and Jagat-raj of Banda (revenue 30 lakhs). The younger sons among his numerous progeny (27 sons according to one account, and 52 according to another) received small appanages for their support. The next Peshwa, Balaji Rao, made further acquisitions in western Bundelkhand, yielding 16½ lakhs of Rupees per annum (covering much of the Jhansi district and parts of the Urchha and Datia States),—the whole of which was placed under a Maratha viceroy. Raghunath Hari filled this almost royal post from 1770 to 1794. But with this region we are not concerned here.

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A war for the throne broke out in Panna at the time of Mahadji's elevation to the regency. On the death of Hindupat, the grandson of Harde Sah (in 1778), his minor son Anurudh had been enthroned by his powerful ministers Beni Chaube (*Huzuri* and *Diwan*) and Khemrāj Chaube (Treasurer and commandant of the stronghold of Kalinjar.) The boy-prince died (in 1780) and the ministers placed on the throne Dhokal Singh the youngest son of Hindupat, setting aside the rights of his elder brother Sarnet Singh. But the two Chaube King-makers, who were brothers, soon quarrelled over the division of power and profit: Khemrāj took up the cause of Sarnet Singh and sheltered him in Kalinjar. Beni, calling Bijai Bahadur of Charkhari to his aid, advanced in force and laid siege to Kalinjar. Sarnet and his patron appealed to Noné Arjun Singh, the Banda regent, and also to Mahadji Sindhia. The Maratha leader seized this chance of enriching himself and sent his general Khanderao Hari (popularly called Apa Khanderao) towards Kalinjar (April 1785.)

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In Banda, too, there was a minority with disputed succession and ministerial domination. The heritage of Jagat-rāj (who died in 1758) was now divided among his numerous grandsons, two of whom named Guman and Khuman held Banda and Charkhari respectively. There was constant fighting between them as indeed among all the brood of Chhatra Sal, due to earth-hunger. When Guman died childless, his ministers Noné Arjun Singh Pawar, Sardul Singh and Hakim Bu Ali gave the succession to Madhukar Sah, an infant adopted by the late Rajah. Khuman Singh immediately declared the adoption as spurious and claimed the throne on behalf of his own son as next of kin to his dead brother. The ministerial party, paying Mahadji Sindhia Rs. 1,20,000* induced him to undertake the defence of their puppet against his uncle. Thus two dynastic quarrels among near cousins became closely mingled together and drew into their vortex all the other Bundela princelings, whose sole occupation was internecine war for grabbing their kinsmen's lands.

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∗ *Ibr.* ii. 121. "Noné Arjun and others sent Md. Taqi to Sindhia to beg his aid. He presented a *hundi* for Rs. 1,20,000 on condition of his defending Madhukar Sah." The Poona agent in Mahadji's camp wrote in Aug. 1785 : "Khuman S. sent a wakil to Mahadji asking him to punish the minister of the recently deceased Guman and offered a *nazar*. The Banda Rajah, on hearing of it, sent his wakil and won Sindhia over by promising four lakhs, a

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Apa Khanderao was Mahadji's viceroy (*sar subahdar*) of Gwalior and Panch Mahal. He was deputed to the Bundela expedition as the scene adjoined his charge. He knew the difficulty of his task and augmented his contingent by new enlistment, especially five trained battalions of sepoys under De Boigne, Taylor, Lesteneau and Rāmru. [*Ibr.* ii. 122-123.] But Khuman Singh forestalled the Maratha general by promptly attacking Arjun near Pandori. He was killed by the second shot fired from the Banda artillery, and the two sides separated after waging a most

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portion of which was assessed on Khuman. The latter did not pay it, but the Banda Rajah paid his share. Hence Khanderao Hari has been sent there" [*HP.* 411.] Next July the same agent wrote: "Guman Singh's diwan was a strong and masterful man. He sought Mahadji's aid, promising to pay Rs. 50,000 as *nazar* for the *tika* [of his nominee] and bankers' bills for five lakhs for the territory of the Jetpur Rajah Gaj Singh, which Guman and Khuman had conquered, besides douceurs to his ministers (*darbar kharch.*) And so he obtained the *tika* [=recognition of succession] in the name of Madhukar. But Khuman would not pay his share of the money. Sindhia therefore sent a clerk with 100 troopers to realise the amount. Khuman befooled his man for one year without paying anything." [*HP.* 478.]

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ruthless battle till nightfall. Next day Apa arrived on the scene; Bijay Bahadur, the son of Khuman, retreated to his capital at Charkhari and appealed to the regent of Panna for aid.

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As soon as Apa crossed the Betwa river and entered Banda territory, most of the Bundela chiefs saw him and offered their adhesion. Beni Huzuri alone kept aloof. Abandoning the siege of Kalinjar, the Panna regent retired to his capital and put it in a posture of defence, blocking the passes by which the invaders must come. By this time it was August, and the monsoon that year was unusually heavy, with floods everywhere. The campaign was therefore stopped by Nature. During the interval, Beni Huzuri continued to negotiate for peace in return for an indemnity, but his offers were insincere and meant only for gaining time. When the rains ceased, Apa laid siege to Panna, heavily defeated a sortie in full force led by Beni, and coming closer to the walls bombarded the fort for five days. The assault was fixed for the 8th of December 1785, but the night before Beni evacuated the fort with Dhokal Singh and all his men under cover of the darkness. [HP. 422.]

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