Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c44.s2.15

v4.c44.s2.15

A more material injury soon followed. Like a vulture who sees a dying cow from afar, Tukoji Holkar who had been hovering close to the Mathurā border without coming to Mahādji’s side in spite of orders from Punā, now hastened to that city in order to stiffen Ali Bahādur’s defiance of Sindhia’s authority. Fully two years earlier, immediately after his reverse at Lālsot, Mahādji had sent urgent appeals to Punā for armed aid. Nānā Fadnis, after long and fruitless palavers, had ordered Tukoji Holkar and Ali Bahādur to march to Mahādji’s side as soon as possible. But the two generals delayed, and started from Punā only in the December of that year (1787). Then they idled away six months at Indore, after which, instead of proceeding to Mathurā, they diverted their course to Rajputana, where Tukoji continued for twelve months squeezing the Rajput Rajas. At last, when the pressure from Punā became too strong, he detached Ali Bahādur alone with a small force to Mathurā in October 1788, but himself lingered in Rajputana. In the first week of June 1789 he was at Brahmanābās, only 80 miles west of Mathurā, but did not stir from that place for a month and a half, till he heard of Mahādji’s open discomfiture in the attempt to cut Himmat Bahādur out of Ali Bahādur’s camp. He now hastened to Mathurā and had his first, formal interview with Sindhia on 31st July. He immediately demanded an equal sharing of the Maratha territorial gains and spoils between the two houses, as arranged by the Peshwā in the days of their fathers. Mahādji replied that his gains were more nominal than real, and his inflated army bill had swallowed up all his income from the North-Indian conquests and still left him owing 34 months’ salary to his troops. Moreover, these districts were too unsettled by war and too much desolated by drought to yield more than a tenth of their standard revenue. But Holkar would not listen, he insisted on an immediate partition on paper, and joined the other malcontent, Ali Bahādur. Mahādji had the whip hand of Ali Bahādur, as the latter enjoyed no independent source of income, but depended entirely on Mahādji’s favour for the expenses of his household and troops. He demanded a vast jāgir and a large cash payment, and on Mahādji’s making a much lower offer, he went away and joined his forces with Tukoji Holkar’s.