Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c52.s1: § 1. What Mahādji Sindhia sought at the Peshwā's Court
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c52.s1
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§ 1. What Mahādji Sindhia sought at the Peshwā's Court
v4.c52.s1.1
When in February 1792 Mahādji Sindhiā left Ujjain on return to Punā, he had been an exile from his native land for eleven years. These long years had been filled for him with ceaseless striving. He had fought in many a field and planted the Maratha banner on many a historic place. He had risen to unimaginable heights of glory, and had also, at times, seemed to touch the lowest depth of ruin; but he had not once left the northern theatre of his activity. And now that he had made himself the supreme dominator of Indian politics, what sort of reception would he find from his master? With many hopes and no little misgiving too, did he contemplate his coming audience with the Peshwā and the Peshwā's masterful minister Nānā Fadnis.
v4.c52.s1.2
During Mahādji's absence from Mahārāshtra his fame had filled the country. A generation had grown up from boyhood to manhood in the Southern land who were eager to see the face of the man who had made the Marātha name great as never before. His home-coming reminded men of the tales they had heard from their grandfathers of the splendour and national exultation at Bāji Rao I's return to Punā after humbling Asaf Jāh at Bhopāl (1738), or Chimnāji Apā's triumphal entry after the conquest of Mālwā (1729). But Sindhiā had raised the Marātha State to greater heights than these two military conquerors could do. They had brought back only treasure and trophies; he had created a Marātha Empire; he had made the Peshwā—through his vicar—the dictator of the Mughal Empire and also the protector of the noblest Rajput royal house, marriage into which was the supreme dream of every aspiring Kshatriya prince. And behind these political gains of Sindhiā stood an invincible army, which was sorely needed at home for a rough settling of accounts with that eternally defaulting debtor the Subahdār of Mughal Deccan, and for checking the ambition of the English to "thrust their feet into Mahārāshtra". The report of Mahādji's coming sent a thrill of pride and expectancy throughout his native land. The curious longed to gaze at him and his soldiers who had tamed the pride of Mughaliā and Ruhelā, Kachhwā and Rāthor alike. The oppressed looked up to Mahādji's intervention as the only means of redressing their wrongs at the hands of the Punā Government.
v4.c52.s1.3
But quite other feelings animated the breast of the man who conducted the Government of Punā. Nānā Fadnis quaked in fear lest the victor of Patan and Mertā should push him away from the control of the Marātha Central Government which he had exercised for fourteen years now. Nānā was extremely unpopular on account of his parsimony and greed of power and wealth, and the rigid control and joyless decorum of his administrative policy. His miserliness in expenditure prevented the ambitious and the violent from "feeding themselves" at the public expense. But the economy of Nānā Fadnis was not the unselfish guardianship of the public funds that marked the administration of John De Witt (the Grand Pensionary of Holland) or of William Pitt (the Prime Minister of George III.) The Chitpāvan Machiavel (as his modern admirers in Punā love to call him) practised stringency in public expenditure only to increase his private hoard, which had in Oct. 1792 reached two krores of rupees by his own admission. No part of it was spent in strengthening the national defence or improving the people's lot. At the same time his grasping at all authority in the State and his personal vices (pandered to by Ghāsirām the Police Prefect of Punā) had raised against him a host of enemies, who fretted in impotent rage. Hence Nānā rightly feared a gathering of his enemies around Mahādji with a view to overwhelming him.
v4.c52.s1.4
Or, what would be equally ruinous to him, the glamour of Sindhia's military triumphs in the North and the imperial titles and decorations that he had brought from Delhi for his master, added to the personal charm of that genial man of action would enchant the heart of the Peshwā, now about to step out of his minority—and incline him to discard the morose, stingy, ever-censorious old minister and give the ministry to the great soldier.
v4.c52.s1.5
At the first reports of Mahādji's march to the south, Nānā Fadnis was shaken by a wild fear that he would be treated by Mahādji as he himself had treated Sakhārām Bāpu. So, the minister for a time contemplated safety by retirement to Benares as a religious recluse and sounded the British Resident for a passport. Next he formed the infamous scheme of hiring the hereditary enemy of his nation by surrendering the Marātha claims on the Nizām in return for his armed aid against Sindhia. In the meantime he hastily called up his generals Hari Pant Fādké and Parashurām Bhāu Patwardhan to his side. But Mahādji's honesty of purpose was transparent; wiser counsels prevailed with Nānā Fadnis; and Mahādji was received at the Peshwā's Court with apparent cordiality and due ceremony, on 22nd July, 1792.
v4.c52.s1.6
The first and formal interview being over, Mahādji turned to the serious business that had brought him to Punā. He had come there not to receive his master's plaudits nor to read his history in his nation's eyes, but to ensure the durability of his life's work. The subjects of his discussions with the Punā Government were two:—
v4.c52.s1.7
First, he had to prove his claim to seven krores of rupees spent by him in the Peshwā's work in Hindustan, and secure payment of the amount so that he might discharge his own debt to the bankers.
v4.c52.s1.8
Secondly, for the smooth working and permanence of the Marātha overlordship in Hindustan, Holkar must be excluded from that country and its charge placed exclusively in Sindhia's hands, with no rival agent of Punā to question his orders or thwart his policy. When these two points had been gained he wished to return to North India and resume his rule there in peace of mind.