Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c55.s2: § 2. Shāh Nizāmuddin, Sindhiā's Resident in Delhi
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c55.s2
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§ 2. Shāh Nizāmuddin, Sindhiā's Resident in Delhi
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Mahādji Sindhiā when appointed Regent of the Mughal Empire, had to place a representative of his own at Delhi, in order to enforce his policy at the imperial Court and manage the Emperor. The duties of this officer were far more difficult and required far higher qualities for their smooth discharge than those of a British Resident in a feudatory Indian State. Only a man gifted with extraordinary intelligence, diplomatic tact, and combined strength of character and patience, could have served the needs of Sindhiā at the Delhi Court in those troubled early days of political change; and it was Sindhiā's misfortune that he could find no agent of such a character.
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Anand Rao Narsi Yerulkar who used to carry Mahādji's messages to the Emperor from 1780 to 1786, proved the reverse of the required diplomatic agent. In a drunken frolic during the Holi festival of March 1786, he gave mortal offence to Shah Alam by parading through the Marātha camp an old man and a boy, dressed out in rags and tinsel ornaments to caricature the pauper Emperor and his favourite daughter. Mahādji's son-in-law Lādoji Sitolé who was next sent to Delhi (in August 1786) as the Maratha Resident, proved a failure by reason of his lack of spirit; he ran away from the capital as soon as he heard of Mahādji’s repulse at Lālsot (August 1787). Then came the interruption of Ghulām Qādir’s ascendancy. After Mahādji had recovered his supremacy, he appointed in August 1789 a man whom he knew to be a *persona grata* with the Emperor and who he hoped would prove a moulder of Muslim opinion in the capital. This man was Shāh Nizāmuddin.
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Shāh Nizām-ud-din (popularly known as Shāhji, and also by his family title *Hazratji* or “His Holiness”), was descended on his father’s side from the celebrated Bāghdād saint Sayyid Muhiuddin Abdul Qādir Jilāni al-Hasani al-Husaini (d. 561 A.H.) from whom he was 18th in direct line. His mother was a daughter of another Islamic saint Khwājah Bāqi-billah of Delhi. His family migrated from Bāghdād to Burhānpur in the middle of the 17th century, and two generations later removed to Delhi. At the Mughal capital they used to give spiritual instruction to the people who were drawn by the report of their learning, piety and miraculous powers. Their disciples were wont to salute them as *Khudā-numā*, or the Revealer of God to man. In time their modest hermitage one mile outside the Agra Gate of Shah Jahān’s capital, grew into a baronial mansion with extensive gardens and out-houses (described by T. Twining in his *Travels*, 225-228.)
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The Emperor Shah Alam II in his devotion to all *mullās* and *faqirs* highly honoured Nizām-ud-din and cherished him at his Court. So great was his belief in the intelligence and zeal of this priest that he used to employ him from 1783 onwards as his agent in diplomatic missions to Sindhiā’s Marātha envoys accredited to his Court.
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The choice of Shāhji as his own Resident at the Delhi darbār was forced on Mahādji by his want of a capable Marātha agent. Shāhji’s merit lay in his spiritual influence over the weak-minded Emperor and the expected obedience of the people of the capital to such a generally respected personage. This hold of Shāhji on Mahādji Sindhiā was made doubly strong when the holy man married his son Amir Muhammad Khan to the grand-daughter of Sindhia’s Muslim guru, Shāh Mansur of Bir.
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Shāh Nizām-ud-din was Sindhiā’s subahdar of Delhi from August 1789 till June 1796, when he was removed.* But his long tenure of this office had the most unhappy consequences for Sindhiā’s interests. Like a typical darvish, Shāhji professed contempt for riches, while at the same time his greed for all moneys that came within his reach was boundless. As he pretended to have renounced wealth and to have vowed to live on alms of the smallest currency, namely a cowrie or Cyprœan shell, paid by each of his votaries, he was nicknamed the Cowrie Faqir. He laid out a new garden of his own by encroaching on some plots of land belonging to the Emperor and prince Akbar, and said that it was done with Sindhia’s permission!
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We must remember that Shāh Nizām-ud-din as Sindhiā’s deputy exercised only civil and diplomatic control over the Delhi province, though he bore the title of Subahdār or governor. But the military control of Delhi fort was entrusted to a Hindu officer, who was independent of Shāhji, with the result that the two constantly quarrelled and each served as a check on the other. After Sindhia’s recovery of Delhi fort in October 1788, Raja Hirā Singh of the Jāt ruling family of Ballabhgarh, was placed in Delhi as the qiladār.† His kinsman Ajit Singh did the duties of the post. On 21st August 1791, Khāndé Rao Hari took over charge as the new *qiladār*, but he had very soon to go away on campaign (1st September), leaving Kumār Bhawāni Singh to hold the fort, and this Bhawāni Singh, continued as *qiladār* for six years after, and had the inevitable friction with Shāhji. Lakhwā Dādā, after being appointed Daulat Rao’s viceroy of Hindustan, recognised Kumār Bhawāni Singh (*alias* Mān S., according to *D.C.*) as *qiladār* of Delhi (27 May 1795). On 24th December, 1796, Mān Singh was dismissed and Bhāu Tātyā (Lakhwā’s partisan) appointed to the post, from whom Pedron, by order of Perron, captured the fort of Delhi on 14th October 1798. Perron’s officer Louis Bourquien commanded in Delhi up to the British conquest in September 1803. (*DY.* ii. 30, 25. *Kālé Akh.* *DC.*)
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∗ In June 1796 Jaswant Rao Sindhiā (a great-grandson of Ranoji) became subahdār of Delhi after the dismissal of Shāhji, but Daulat Rao Sindhia replaced him by Shāh Hāji, a personal servant or Khawās of Prince Akbar Shah on 5th Feb. 1797. In May 1798 Nizām-ul-din (through his son) was reappointed by Sindhia to his old post and held it till July 1801. On 6th Oct. 1799, Prince Akbar and some other sons of Shāh Alam seized Nizām-ud-din, gave him a beating, and kept him confined in the fort for some days, after which he was released. The subahdāri was next given to Perron who held it till the British conquest. Perron discharged the duties of this office through his deputy Drugeon (his first choice, M. Bernier having been found incompetent). DY. DC. PRC. viii. 177, 178. ix. 257, 27.
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† For this Ballabhgarh Jat dynasty, see Agra and Calcutta Gazetteer (pub. 1842) pt. ii. p. 289. Delhi Dist. Gazetteer, 213. Hira Singh and Ajit S. were joint qiladārs. Ajit S. was murdered by his brother Zālim