Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s4: § 6. Daulat Rao Sindhia ruins Malwa by his wrong policy and dilatoriness
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s4
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§ 6. Daulat Rao Sindhia ruins Malwa by his wrong policy and dilatoriness
v4.c54.s4.1
When on 3rd May 1801, Lakhwā Dādā and Mahādji’s widows were driven out of Seondhā, the civil war in Daulat Rao’s family ended, but within two months of that date another war burst upon him which was destined to shatter his power and destroy Maratha hegemony. Jaswant Rao Holkar after withdrawing from Ujjain on 15th November 1800 had taken to plundering Sindhia’s possessions north of that city, especially Bhansodā and the Mandesor district, in reprisal for the exactions of Daulat Rao’s troops from the Holkar villages in Malwa and Khandesh. Daulat Rao had opened negotiations with him for a compromise, but as Jaswant demanded the handing over to him of Khandé Rao (the heir of Malhar Holkar II) and the freeing of every village ever held by the Holkar family from Sindhia’s control, peace between them proved unattainable. Jaswant then swiftly turned to show what he was capable of doing.
v4.c54.s4.2
∗ James Skinner, from personal service under Lakhwā speaks highly of him as "the best Maratha general of his time", and again, "Lakhwa Dada was, by Daulat Rao's orders, proclaimed commander-in-chief, a measure which pleased all the troops, both Marathas and Europeans, for they all knew him to be an able, generous, and excellent soldier." [Fraser, i. 124 and 131.]
v4.c54.s4.3
What was the head of the Sindhian State doing all this time? His dream of controlling the Puna Government as Regent of a puppet Peshwa had now vanished, and so also had all his hopes of ever realising any portion of the five krores promised to Mahādji in 1793 and the 47 lakhs promised to himself by Baji Rao in 1796 and 1798. And yet he would not leave Puna to save his northern dominions from which the most alarming reports of plunder and piteous appeals for armed protection were reaching him. The evil of the master's imbecility could not be corrected because of his capricious change of ministers and refusal to trust even the ablest minister with full power. The natural effect of Daulat Rao's rule was the unspeakable suffering of his subjects and the ruin of the political edifice which Mahādji had raised.
v4.c54.s4.4
Leaving Puna finally on 5th December 1800, after repeated delays due to his hesitating policy and the chronic mutiny of his long unpaid soldiery, Daulat Rao Sindhia reached his ancestral village of Jāmgāon (64 miles north-east of Puna) on the 23rd of that month. After a four weeks' halt here, he resumed his march on 19th January 1801 and reached Burhānpur on the Tāpti on 15th February. He then dawdled away full four months in its environments, in tiger shooting, attending dance and singing, and even kite flying. The 140 miles between the Tāpti and the Narmadā were crossed in 18 days, and he arrived at Hāndiā on the south bank of the latter river on 3rd July. And then followed another halt of four months and a half, partly owing to the necessity of calling in all his detachments from far and near in fear of Jaswant Holkar's military strength, and partly because the heavy rains had made the river unfordable and the roads impassable. These fatuous delays ruined his military position in Malwa. [PRC. vi. 386, 389. Gulgulé D.]
v4.c54.s4.5
For the protection of his agents in Malwa from Holkar's myriads of predatory horse, stiffened by European-led infantry and Mir Khan's doughty Pathan mercenaries, Daulat Rao adopted the incredibly foolish policy of sending up reinforcements from the south in driblets at such intervals that co-operation or junction among them was impossible. On 2nd May 1801 from Burhānpur he had detached George Hessing with five battalions, and this force had reached Ujjain in safety about the 28th of that month. "A few days later Sindhia detached Lieut. MacIntyre with the fourth battalion from Hessing's brigade and a second from Filoze's, to follow and support the advanced column. Three days later he detached two of Sutherland's battalions from the First Brigade, under Capt. Gautier, to further strengthen Hessing, and finally crowned his imbecility by closing up the rear, after another interval, with two more of Sutherland's battalions and a park of artillery under Captain Brownrigg. There was thus an *echelle* of small isolated detachments with twenty, thirty, and forty miles between each, marching against an enemy whose entire strength was concentrated on the objective point." (H. Compton, 254.)