Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c40.s3.12

v3.c40.s3.12

The public administration was utterly neglected. The State was ruled by officers who were their own masters and selfishly quarrelled among themselves. The young Rajah gave his personal favour with supreme power over his Government to a tailor named Rodā Rām (popularly called Rodoji,) because this man was in charge of the Rajah's food and drink and thus guarded him against poisoning. The second office in the State, though the first in theory, alternated between the old Brahman diwān Khush-hāli Rām Bohra (whom the Rajah disliked) and Daulat Rām Haldiā, a trader by caste. As a Maratha envoy truly reported, "I hear that the Jaipur Government has no money and no man in its royal family. The regent is a tailor, the second minister is a Brahman, the ex-purveyor of Ganges water. The rest are *baniās*. Thus is the Rajah's administration conducted! He has no troops." [DY. i. 165.]