Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s8.2

v4.c54.s8.2

Jaswant's tactics were to disperse for plunder and combine for battle. His forces, formed into three separate divisions, spread out like fans and combed the entire country for food and spoils. A famine was raging throughout the Deccan and Central India, caused by widespread predatory war following a year of drought. Traders of grain ceased to move on the roads, which were infested by the brutal Pindhāri bands of the rival armies. The villages where grain used to be stored had been sacked and now lay deserted. Marāthi newsletters tell one monotonous tale of the people's suffering: "The Pindhāris, sparing Punā city only, have made the country on all sides up to the Ghātmāthā in the west, a lampless desolation:" "Holkar's disturbances have devastated the Punā district; all the people have fled away; the scarcity is extreme." Only the widest dispersion and extreme rapidity in changing ground enabled Holkar's immense host to live on the country; and for such tactics, his indigenous cavalry, then known to be the best in India, was eminently suited.