Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c48.s3.4

v4.c48.s3.4

Each of the rival camps had its peace party. Mahadji Sindhia regarded an armed rupture with Holkar as a political blunder fatal to his far-ranging ambitious projects. Tukoji Holkar was too fond of drink to stir himself for anything else in the world; “a flask of wine under a shady bough,” by the side of a cool brook or lake, was “Paradise enow” to him, provided that the needed money came regularly either from Ahalyā Bāi or from the tributary States. The older ministers of each,—like Jivvā Dādā under Sindhia and Parāshar Dādāji under Holkar,—favoured peace like their masters. But a rupture could not be averted when the young and hot-headed Gopāl Bhāu, in the pride of his position as Sindhia’s viceroy in the North, over-rode the sober counsels of the patient and diplomatic Jivvā Dādā and adopted a hustling policy towards Holkar’s generals in the disputed areas. I reject as an enemy fabrication the story in the Holkar family chronicle that it was Gopāl Bhāu’s proud ambition to seize Tukoji Holkar and present him in chains as a captive of war before his master. But it cannot be denied that Gopāl Bhāu had no patience with Holkar’s agents and acted in a downright thrustful manner towards them. On Holkar’s side the peace party failed only when Gopāl Bhāu’s unwise attack on Tukoji at Surauli (8 October, 1792) wrecked their policy and left the field open to the young fire-eater Malhar Holkar II.