Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c41.s1.140

v3.c41.s1.140

Īsari Singh, A.D. 1743-60.—Isari Singh succeeded to a well-defined territory, heaps of treasure, an efficient ministry, and a good army; but the seeds of destruction lurked in the social edifice so lately raised, and polygamy was again the immediate agent. Isari Singh was the successor of Jai Singh, according to the fixed laws of primogeniture; but Madho Singh, a younger son, born of a princess of Mewar, possessed conventional rights which vitiated those of birth. These have already been discussed, as well as their disastrous issue to the unfortunate Isari Singh, who was not calculated for the times, being totally deficient in that nervous energy of character, without which a Rajput prince can enforce no respect. His conduct on the Abdali invasion admitted the construction of cowardice, though his retreat from the field of battle, when the commander-in-chief, Kamaru-d-din Khan, was killed, might have been ascribed to political motives, were it not recorded that his own wife received him with gibes and reproaches. There is every appearance of Jai Singh having repented of his engagement on obtaining the hand of the Sesodia princess, namely, that her issue should succeed, as he had in his lifetime given an appanage unusually large to Madho Singh, namely, the four parganas of Tonk, Rampura, Phaggi, and Malpura.¹ The Rana also, who supported his nephew's claims, assigned to him the rich fief of Rampura Bhanpura in Mewar,² which as well as Tonk Rampura, constituting a petty sovereignty, were, with eighty-four lakhs (£840,000 sterling), eventually made over to Holkar for supporting his claims to the 'cushion' of Jaipur. The consequence of this barbarous intervention in the international quarrels of the Rajputs annihilated the certain prospect they had of national independence, on the breaking up of the empire, and subjected them to a thraldom still more degrading, from which a change of redemption is now offered to them.