Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c39.s2: § 3. Mahadji Sindhia is created Commander-in-chief and Supreme Regent of the Empire. The difficulties of his position
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c39.s2
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§ 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.*