Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c58.s11: § 14. End of the Mughal Empire
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c58.s11
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§ 14. End of the Mughal Empire
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Marquess Wellesley took care not to sign any treaty or engagement with Shah Alam II. The blind old shadow on the throne of Akbar and Aurangzib placed himself unreservedly under British protection, asking only for his defence and sustenance. The Governor-General by an order issued on 23rd May 1805, made permanent provision for the support of the Emperor and his family in the following way: [MM. iv. 554.]*
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1. A specified portion of territory near the city of Delhi, on the right bank of the Jamunā was set apart, the revenue of which was reserved for the support of the imperial family. But regardless of the actual shortage in the collection, the Emperor and his family as well as two courtiers were to be paid by the English Rs. 90,000 in all every month. (This was raised to one lakh in 1809, and to one and a quarter lakhs monthly in 1833.)
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2. In the lands thus set apart, the Emperor would have no territorial jurisdiction, their revenue collection and civil and criminal justice were to be administered by the British Resident.
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3. Two courts of justice according to Muslim Law, were established for Delhi city and the assigned district outside it, under British authority, the Emperor only retaining the right of confirming any sentence of death passed by these courts.
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4. The Emperor retained exclusive civil and criminal jurisdiction within the walls of the palace-fort of Delhi.
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By the Treaty of Sarji Anjangaon, the Pādishāh of Delhi became a British subject. It is not true that this treaty merely transferred to the British Governor-General the status of Sindhia in the political frame-work of the Mughal Empire. Mahādji Sindhia had been a servant of the Delhi Emperor; he had been appointed Regent of the Empire by that sovereign, and every successor of Mahādji had to be formally appointed by the same sovereign before he could exercise the functions of his office. It is true that Shah Alam II when first investing Mahādji in the robes of Regent had promised to make that office hereditary in the Sindhia family. But a master who can appoint is also legally competent to dismiss. When on 14th November 1784, Mahadji Sindhia went to his first audience with Shah Alam, he prostrated himself before the throne and laid his head down on the Emperor's feet; he was then raised up and declared a son of the Emperor.
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∗ Development of the scheme, Kaye's Metcalfe, i. 218-223. Delhi Dist. Gazetteer, 22-23. How the revenue grew, from 4 lakhs in 1807 to 15 lakhs in 1813, and 30 lakhs in 1830, Kaye, i.
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³⁶⁵ E. Thompson's Life of Charles Lord Metcalfe, chap. viii. Brojendranath Banerji's Rammohun Roy's Mission to England, 55-63. For the crimes and squalor within the palace limits, Kaye, 343. Thompson, 141-143. [F. Wynne's] Sketches of India, pub. 1816, pp. 103-111.
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But on 16th September 1803, Shah Alam hailed the British as his saviours. No British Governor-General ever interviewed the Emperor of Delhi; none of them required his formal letter of appointment when entering on his office in any subah of the former Mughal Empire,* nor even did the successive British officers who administered the Delhi district and the Red Fort. In fact, the English were the guardian and protector of the emperor, while the pageant on the Delhi throne was a perpetual minor, under the protection and control of the British Government, without any volition or motion of his own. The British authorities also set their feet down on the immemorial practice of the Indian princes seeking confirmation of their succession to their States from the Emperor of Delhi. Even in the territory reserved for the Emperor's support, called the Delhi district or Crownland, as well as in the city of Delhi outside the Red Fort, the administration was conducted by the British Resident, as the supreme executive authority, exactly as in any district of the Company's possessions, though the revenue was ear-marked for the imperial family and that too, only up to a limit of Rs. 12 lakhs (1809), raised to 15 lakhs in 1833.
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Henceforth the Pādishāh was neither the suzerain of the English E. I. Company, nor the ally of the King of England and therefore his equal in international status. He was not even like one of the vassal princes who accepted British paramountcy and exercised internal sovereignty within well-defined territorial limits, while their foreign relations alone were subject to British control. Even in Delhi, "the authority of the Shah was to be a harmless fiction"; he had no revenue, law-courts or troops of his own. [Kaye's *Metcalfe*, i. 223.]
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∗ The Marquess of Hastings refused to visit the Emperor when he went to Delhi in January 1815, "because His Majesty expected the Governor-General's acquiescence in a ceremonial which was to imply His M. being the liege-lord of the British possessions. This dependent tenure could never be acknowledged by me." *Private Journal*, dated 22 Jan. 1815.
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Thus the Treaty of Sarji Anjangaon (30th December 1803) marks the true end of the Mughal Empire as a political institution.
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*Note on Sindhia's infantry at Assaye.*
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Arthur Wellesley wrote,—"Pohlmann's brigade of eight battalions was called the First [raised for Mahadji in 1790], which was destroyed on the 23rd Sept.; the other two brigades in that action . . . were four battalions of Begam Samru [but only one of B.S. actually fought,—J. S.] and four battalions of Dupont. The latter was formerly Filose's and was utterly destroyed by Holkar at Ujjain [18 July 1801]. It was raised [again] at Punā. . . . The only brigade that escaped on the 23rd Sept. was part of B. Samru's. They were with the baggage and got off in safety. On the day of action . . . I saw them go off. There may also have been one battalion of Pohlmann with the baggage. Dorsan was certainly killed, and the bodies of other Europeans, who did not belong to us, were seen [among the dead at Assaye].' Gurwood, ii. 456 and 434. This proves the truth of the Maratha reports that 4 battalions of Filose, one of Samru, and [one or two] battalions of Sindhia (i.e., the First Campoo) alone fought,—"the *five* battalions slew many men of the English"—"on our side 3 battalions were cut off, and the remainder, consisting of 15 or 16 battalions and the entire cavalry of both the Rajas retreated in safety."