Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s3.t1.84

Language: English

v2.c28.s3.t1.84.1

Cruelty of Rāja Mān Singh.—Six months had thus fled. The fiat of Akhai Chand was supreme; he alone was [156] visible; his orders alone were obeyed. Raja Man was only heard of as an automaton, moving as the Diwan pleased. But while the latter was thus basking in the full sunshine of prosperity, enriching himself and his dependents, execrated by the nobles and envied by his fellow-citizens, they heard of his fall! Then, the insanity of his master proved to be but a cloak to the intensity of his resentment. But a blind revenge would not have satisfied Raja Man. The victims of his deep dissimulation, now in manacles, were indulged with hopes of life, which, with the application of torture, made them reveal the plunder of prince and subject. A schedule of forty lakhs, or £400,000, was given by the Diwan and his dependents, and their accounts being settled in this world, they were summarily dismissed to the other, with every mark of ignominy which could add to the horrors of death. Nagji, the Kiladar,¹ and misleader of the late regent prince, with Mulji Dandal, one of the old allodial stock, had each a cup of poison, and their bodies were thrown over the ‘Gate of Victory’ (Fateh Pol). Jivaraj, a brother of the Dandal, with Biharidas Khichi, and the tailor, had their heads shaved, and their bodies were flung into the cascade beneath. Even the sacred character of “expounder of the Vedas,” and that of “ revealer of the secrets of heaven,” yielded no protection;

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and Byas Sheodas, with Srikishan, Jotishi, the astrologer, were in the long list of proscriptions. Nagji, commandant of the citadel, and Mulji, had retired on the death of the regent-prince; and with the wealth they had accumulated, while administering to his follies, had erected places of strength. On the restoration of Raja Man, and the general amnesty which prevailed, they returned to their ancient offices in the castle, rose into favour, and forgot they had been traitors. Having obtained their persons, Man secured the ancient jewels of the crown, bestowed on these favourites during the ephemeral sway of his son. Their condemnation was then passed, and they were hurled over the battlements of the rock which it was their duty to guard. With such consummate skill was the plot contrived, that the creatures of the minister, in the most remote districts, were imprisoned simultaneously with himself. Of the many subordinate agents thus confined, many were liberated on the disclosure of their wealth; and by these sequestrations, Raja Man obtained abundant supplies. The enormous sum of a crore, or near one million sterling, was stated; but if they yielded one-half (and this was not unlikely), they gave the means, which he was not slow to use, for the prosecution of what he termed a just punishment, though it [157] better deserves the name of a savage revenge.

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Had he been satisfied with inflicting the last penalty of the law on the nefarious Akhai Chand, and some of the household officers whose fidelity ought ever to be firm, and with the sequestration of the estates of some two or three of the vassals whose power had become dangerous, or their treason too manifest to be overlooked, he would have commanded the services of the rest, and the admiration of all conversant with these events. But this first success added fuel to his revenge, and he sought out more noble victims to glut it. His circumspection and dissimulation were strengthened, not relaxed, by his success. Several of the chiefs, who were marked out for death, had received, only a few days before, the highest proof of favour in additional lands to their rent-roll, and accident alone prevented a group of the most conspicuous from falling into the snare which had inveigled Akhai Chand. Salim Singh of Pokaran, and his constant associate Surthan of Nimaj, with Anar Singh of Ahor, and the minors of their clans, whose duty daily carried them to the court, as the chief advisers of the prince, formed a part of the administration of the Diwan, and they naturally took alarm upon his confinement. To obviate this, a deputation was sent by the prince to tranquillize them by the assurance that, in the confinement of the minister, whose rapacity and misconduct deserved punishment, the Raja had attained all his ends.

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Thus, in order to encompass the destruction of the Pokaran chief, he would not have scrupled to involve all the rest. The prince, with his own mouth, desired the confidential servant of Anar Singh, who was his personal friend, to attend with the others. Their distrust saved him. The same night, the mercenary bands, to the number of eight thousand men, with guns, attacked Surthan Singh in his dwelling. With one hundred and eighty of his clan, he defended himself against great guns and small arms, as long as the house was tenable, and then sallied out sword in hand, and, with his brother and eighty of his kin, fell nobly in the midst of his foes. The remainder retreated with their arms to defend Nimaj and their infant chief. This gallant defence, in which many of the townspeople were slain, prevented a repetition of the attempt against the Pokaran chief, who remained on the defensive; until, seeing an opportunity, he fled to his asylum in the desert, or he would that day have renounced " the sheath of the dagger which held the fortunes of Marwar," and which now contained the accumulated revenge of four generations: of Deo Singh, of Sabhala, of Sawai, and his own. His death would have terminated this branch of Ajit's issue, adopted into the house of [158] Pokaran, in the history of which we have a tolerable picture of the precariousness of existence in Marwar.¹