Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c52.s3: § 3. Puna Government's settlement with Mahādji
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c52.s3
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§ 3. Puna Government's settlement with Mahādji
v4.c52.s3.1
Mahādji took with himself to Punā full and detailed accounts of the public income and expenditure in the Marātha sphere of influence in Northern India during his administration there from 1783 to 1791. These he produced in support of his claim to seven krores of rupees as due from the Peshwā. The Punā ministers, instigated by Holkar's local agents, raised the cry that the accounts were faked. The long and angry discussions were ended and a settlement agreed to only after Lākheri (June 1793) had shown that it was a dangerous game to shilly-shally with the victor in that battle. The Punā Court admitted that five krores were due to Sindhiā as excess expenditure justly incurred in doing his master's work.
v4.c52.s3.2
∗ Aiti. Tip. iii. No.
v4.c52.s3.3
³⁹ This letter was written on 2nd May 1790. On its being read out to Mahādji, he remarked in anger, "What is written here is very nice! We too have been out on campaign for six years. Nānā Fadnis has not inquired into what each of us has achieved and the amounts of our gain and loss. . . . Let him depute an officer here to hold an investigation. I will welcome such an inquiry, it will be to my interest. Reward or punish me or Holkar after pursuing such an inquest to its conclusion, and not after hearing one side only."
v4.c52.s3.4
¹⁴⁷ Discussion of Sindhiā's claims, PRC. ii. 150, 153, 157, 194 (imp.); Kharé, ix. pp. 4601, 4632. Sātārā, i. 368, 288. Holkar's objection—Hingané Daftar, ii. No. 93.
v4.c52.s3.5
The next question was how to pay him this sum. Mahādji Sindhiā suggested an easy method: In the nine years since 1783 he had won territories in Northern India with a nominal rent-roll of one krore or a krore and a half of rupees. In this territory the revenue was shared and collected by Sindhia, Holkar and the Peshwā (the last through the agency of Ali Bahādur, Vinchurkar, Pawār, &c.) in certain fixed proportions. Mahādji did not demand the repayment of his admitted loan of five krores now in cash, but proposed that the North Indian territories belonging to the Peshwā's share should be placed in his (i.e., Mahādji's) charge and he would gradually recover the total amount from their annual surplus.
v4.c52.s3.6
But Nānā Fadnis would not agree to handing over Hindustan to Sindhiā's undivided control; his whole policy was to keep other generals, like Holkar and Ali Bahādur, there as a check on Sindhiā, and he only made futile counter-proposals for paying Sindhiā's dues from Punā as the Peshwā's Government would find it convenient.
v4.c52.s3.7
The total exclusion of the Holkar family from the Delhi sphere of influence was a bitter pill for Tukoji Holkar to swallow; he refused to give up his jāgirs and rights in the Doāb and Rajputana and seek compensation by invading Cutch-Bhuj or the Cis-Satlaj Sikh country as was proposed by Sindhiā. And Nānā had not the force to effect Holkar's removal from Hindustan even if he had the wish for it.
v4.c52.s3.8
Thus, the long negotiations came to nothing tangible, and at the beginning of 1794 Sindhiā was still pursuing the mirage of an amicable settlement with Nānā Fadnis, when his dreams and worries alike were ended by a short four days' fever, on 12th February. In the ashes of his funeral pyre outside Punā perished also the hope of a Marātha empire in Hindustan, but the grouping of Powers on the political chess-board in Europe and India concealed this fact for ten years.