Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s7: § 2. Jaswant Holkar invades the Deccan—Fath Singh Māné's campaign
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s7
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§ 2. Jaswant Holkar invades the Deccan—Fath Singh Māné's campaign
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Leaving Shendhwā on 4th May 1802, Jaswant crossed the Tapti into West Khāndesh, and here we find him halting at Chalisgāon on the 20th of that month. At Malégāon, Pārolé, Ner (18 miles west of Dhuliā), and other places in this region, he spent the next two months, June and July. But his advanced division of light cavalry with guns, under Fath Singh Māné, crossed the Godāvari, and after plundering the north Ahmadnagar district arrived near that fort on 25th June. About the same time (c. 21st June) Shahāmat Khan with his Pathān horse, in Holkar's pay, burst into the Nāsik district, robbing the people with ruthless vigour. Early next month the Khan turned from Nāsik south-eastwards to Sinnar (70 miles north-west of Ahmadnagar) in order to be nearer to Māné for concerted action. On 2nd August, Jaswant himself reached Sangamner, about midway on the road from Nāsik to Ahmadnagar, and assumed direct control of the operations for carrying the war into the Peshwā’s homeland.*
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∗ PRC. vi.
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⁴⁰⁵ Kharé, xiii. No. 6027. Thākur, ii. 32, 34.
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The course of events will become clearer if we follow the campaign of each division separately. The first on the scene was Fath Singh Māné. Arrived at Dongargāon, 11 miles north of Ahmadnagar on 25th June, he sent a cavalry force on to raid the environs of that city. The country round was pillaged by his vanguard under Jagan-nāth Rām Shenvi, but the famous fort held out under its Sindhian commandant. Soon afterwards Māné removed to Farhā Bāgh, six miles s.e. of Ahmadnagar, with his whole army, killed a few hundred Arab defenders and plundered half of the town (peth) lying outside the fort walls (c. 7th July). A week earlier he had detached a force under Abāji Lakshman who occupied Sindhia’s ancestral village of Jāmgāon, 16 miles south-west of Ahmadnagar and began to dig up the floors of the houses for concealed treasure.
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From Farhā Bāgh, Māné sent another detachment of 3000 horse, towards the north bank of the Bhimā river opposite Gār-Dond, 44 miles due east of Punā (c. 10th July). His baggage and stores in following this corps were opposed by a sortie from Ahmadnagar, but Māné himself came up in support and cleared the way after a stiff fight (18 July). Shahāmat Khan by way of Nāsik, Sinnar and Rāhuri (20 m.n. of Ahmadnagar) now joined Māné, whose total strength was thus raised to 25,000 horse and foot and 30 guns. He next raided the entire country south of Ahmadnagar down to the Bhīmā river at Pedgāon. The monsoon rains and flooded rivers forced Māné to halt during the whole month of August, some twenty miles north of Dond, unable to cross the Bhīmā and reach the country on the south bank east of Punā.
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∗ This campaign is best described in PRC. ix. Kharé xiv, Gulgulé Daft. Purandarē D. vol. ii. Thakur, i. Occasional light from Bhāgwat’s Holkarshāhi Patra-vyāvahār, First half, pt.
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¹ Mohan S. and the traditional Holkarānchi Kaifiyat. H. Compton and As. Annual Reg. for 1803.
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In the meantime, the Peshwā had got together a scratch force of 2500 men, slowly and in driblets, and sent them under Pāndoji Kunjar with his gold-embroidered banner to Gār-Dond, to block the eastern approach to Punā. No fighting was expected, as he hoped that the prestige of his State banner would awe the rebel into retreat, because all this time Jaswant Holkar had been writing to him, professing that he was a loyal subject and had come not to fight his master but to wait on him and secure his order for the restoration of the House of Holkar to its former dignity and estates. To this the Peshwā had replied by ordering him to go back beyond the Tapti, and promising to make a settlement of his feud with Sindhiā. But a clash could not be long avoided. In the night between 20th and 21st August, Māné's troops from the north bank opened fire on the sleeping camp of Pāndoji Kunjar at Gār, and threw it into a wild consternation.
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Next morning some Pindhāris of Holkar whom Māné had sent across the Bhīmā in boats, seized the ponies and some other property of Kunjar's army in the open plain between Gār and Dond. The heroic defenders of the Peshwā's capital deserted their post and made a panic flight from Gār to Pātas, six miles to the south-west. Even here Kunjar could not keep all of his men. Owing to the Peshwa's parsimony, these ill-fed, ill-clad, unpaid soldiers, unable to bear the rain and starvation of the Gār-camp, had been drifting back to Punā in batches for some time before; even Pātas was evacuated in a few days and the detachment recalled to Punā.
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But it was not Holkar's policy to push Māné's thrust home at this stage. Under his new orders Māné also fell back. On 31st August, his infantry patrol in Dond, following the usual Marātha tactics, set fire to the houses of the village they had so long occupied and crossed back to the north bank; and Māné after collecting his forces together, marched south-east into the Pandhārpur district. Looting the country on the way he reached Kārkomb, 12 miles north of Pandhārpur, about 10th September and in that region kept roving far and wide till the 28th of that month. Though he squeezed money out of the rich and the public officers, he allowed no sacrilege or oppression within the holy precincts of Pandhārpur. The Brāhman reporter from Punā gratefully admits, "Māné came to Pandhārpur district, and strictly forbade his troops to do any harm to anybody. There were many Muslims under him, but none misbehaved himself. Māné performed pujā and tarpan (worship and oblation). The god (Vitobā) has saved the holy tirtha."
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§ 3. The plunder of the Nāsik district : Sindhiā's troops arrive, September 1802
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But before the month of September ended, the military balance was upset and a complete change of strategy was forced on Jaswant Rao. After his arrival at Sangamner, on 2nd August, he had employed himself for three weeks in capturing Gālnā, Chāndor, and some other forts in the Chāndor range, and levying contributions from the North Nāsik district. Then on 11th September, he moved south and west to Nāsik city and demanded a ranson of thirty lakhs from that holy place. His detachments under Māné and Shahāmat Khan were ordered to unite ten kos east of Rāhuri (a road centre 20 miles north of Ahmadnagar), to bar the approach of Sindhiā's reinforcements to their great military depot at Ahmadnagar. A large detachment of Daulat Rao's army, consisting of paltan and fauj under Sadāshiv Bhāskar, starting from Burhānpur, had already crossed the Godāvari and was marching to the relief of Ahmadnagar. It reached the environs of that fort on 16th September and next day set out for Kātrābād-Māndavgāon, eighteen miles south of it, to expel Māné's raiding bands from the region of Rāsin, Bhose and Kārkomb.
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At the very outset as Jaswant Holkar approached the Marātha homeland, the Peshwā sent frantic appeals to Daulat Rao Sindhiā to save him by despatching a strong army to the Punā district. Sindhiā could not immediately comply; his hands were full of the campaign he was waging in the north to capture all the strong places of Holkar in Mālwā, and the army he assembled at Burhānpur under Gopāl Bhāu and Sadāshiv Bakhshi was at first forbidden to advance south and assume the offensive. Nor could these generals stir from their base, because of their utter want of money and the refusal of their soldiers to march unless their arrears were cleared. The two generals also quarrelled and pulled different ways; Gopāl Bhāu engaged himself profitably in robbing the baron of Asirgarh of his possessions in that region. However, in the middle of September, Sadāshiv did reach Ahmadnagar, as we have seen. He was reinforced by another corps near the end of that month, and got ready to march to the defence of Punā.
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Meantime, the spoliation of the Nāsik district took a long time and it was only at the end of September that Jaswant could march into the Junnar subdivision of the Punā district, immediately south of Nasik. Here a strong Sindhian division of 10,000 horse and one full brigade of trained infantry with 40 guns under Sadashiv Bhāskar had arrived and halted by the Peshwā's directions at Nārāyangāon, nine miles south-east of Junnar city, and only 44 miles north of Punā. Here the first open clash between the rival forces took place. Skirmishes with the Holkar horsemen roving in that district began on 3rd October.