Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c47.s1.2

v4.c47.s1.2

Towards the close of the year 1790, Patan and Mertā had been won and Mahādji was master again. Being himself engaged in the campaign in Rajputana, he arranged that Najaf Quli Khan and the Rajah of Alwar should undertake the suppression of Munim Beg with their own contingents. Najaf Quli who was now anxious to conciliate Sindhia, arrived at Bhārawās, 10 miles from Rewāri, with a contingent of 4,000 men under the Alwar diwān Rāmsevak, about the middle of December. Gulāb Singh who offered them battle was defeated and driven back into Gokulgarh. The siege of this fort, however, was protracted for more than six months, partly because a personal quarrel between the Alwar diwān Rāmsevak and commander-in-chief Hushdār Khan paralysed the forces of that State, but mainly by reason of Najaf Quli not really wishing to see Gokulgarh taken by Sindhia. At the end of February 1791 it was reported that the siege was going on, but there was no food in the fort and parties of its defenders were coming out in despair; the garrison had sunk to a thousand Mughalia and five hundred men of Gulāb Singh, but "the roads were unsafe, as the peasants were up in arms on all sides."