Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c44.s1.3

v4.c44.s1.3

Mahādji again and again wrote to Nānā Fadnis at Punā, pointing out how the general interests of the Marathas and the Peshwā’s position in the North were being endangered by the recalcitrancy of Ali Bahādur and the hostility of Tukoji Holkar. But his appeals remained unheeded. In fact, Nānā Fadnis, the dictator of the Central Government of the Marathas, was jealous of Mahādji Sindhia’s rise to the first place in the political world of India and suspected that this general was carving out an empire for his own family in the north, and throwing his master into the shade with the help of the troops and authority supplied by the Peshwā. Nānā, therefore, deliberately kept the Holkar-Sindhia quarrel open, in order to weaken Mahādji and apply a brake to his rise. (PRC. i. 249.)