The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan, by H. G. Keene
THE FALL OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE OF HINDUSTAN,
A NEW EDITION,
WITH CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.
1887
PREFACE.
Two editions of this book having been absorbed, it has been
thought that the time was come for its reproduction in a form
more adapted to the use of students. Opportunity has been taken
to introduce considerable additions and emendations.
The rise and meridian of the Moghul Empire have been related in
Elphinstone's " History of India: the Hindu and Mahometan Period;
" and a Special Study of the subject will Also be found in the "
Sketch of the History of Hindustan" published by the present
writer in 1885. Neither of those works, however, undertakes to
give a detailed account of the great Anarchy that marked the
conclusion of the eighteenth century, the dark time that came
before the dawn of British power in the land of the Moghul. Nor
is there is any other complete English book on the Subject.
The present work is, therefore, to be regarded as a monograph on
the condition of the capital and neighbouring territories, from
the murder of Alamgir II. in 1759 to the occupation of Dehli by
Lake in 1803. Some introductory chapters are prefixed, with the
view of showing how these events were prepared; and an account of
the campaign of 1760-1 has been added, because it does not seem
to have been hitherto related on a scale proportioned to its
importance. That short but desperate struggle is interesting as
the last episode of medi¾val war, when battles could be decided
by the action of mounted men in armour. It is also the sine qua
non of British Empire in India. Had the Mahrattas not been
conquered then, it is exceedingly doubtful if the British power
in the Bengal Presidency would ever have extended beyond Benares.
The author would wish to conclude this brief explanation by
reproducing the remarks which concluded the Preface to his second
edition.
"There were two dangers," it was there observed; "the first, that
of giving too much importance to the period; the second, that of
attempting to illustrate it by stories — such as those of Clive
and Hastings — which had been told by writers with whom
competition was out of the question. Brevity, therefore, is
studied; and what may seem baldness will be found to be a
conciseness, on which much pains have been bestowed."
"The narrative," it was added, "is one of confusion and
transition; and chiefly interesting in so far as it throws light
on the circumstances which preceded and caused the accession of
the East India Company to paramount power in India." The author
has only to add an expression of his hope that, in conjunction
with Mr. S. Owen's book, what he has here written may help to
remove doubts as to the benefits derived by the people of India
from the Revolution under consideration.
Finally, mention should be made of Mr. Elphinstone's posthumous
work, "The Rise of British Power in the East." That work does
not, indeed, clash with the present book; for it did not enter
into the scope of the distinguished author to give the native
side of the story, or to study it from the point of view here
presented. For the military and political aims and operations of
the early British officers in Madras and Bengal, however,
Elphinstone will be found a valuable guide. His narrative bears
to our subject a relation similar to that of the "Roman de Rou"
to the history of the Carling Empire of Northern France.
OXFORD, 1887.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
CHAPTER I
Preliminary Observations on Hindustan and the City of Dehli
CHAPTER II.
Greatness of the Timurides
Causes of Empire's decline
Character of Aurungzeb
Progress of disruption under his descendants
Muhamadan and Hindu enemies
The stage emptied
CHAPTER III.
Muhamad Shah
CHAPTER IV.
Ahmad Shah
Alamgir II.
CHAPTER V,
Afghan invasion
CHAPTER VI.
Overthrow of Mahrattas at Panipat
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
A.D. 1760-67.
1760. Movements of Shahzada Ali Gohar, after escaping
from Dehli
Shojaa-ud-Daulal
His Character
Ramnarayan defeated
M. Law
1761. Battle of Gaya
1762. March towards Hindustan
1763. Massacre of Patna
1764. Flight of Kasim and Sumroo
Battle of Buxar
1705. Treaty with British
1767. Establishment at Allahabad
Legal position
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1764-71.
1764. Najib-ud-Daula at Dehli
Mirza Jawan Bakht Regent
The Jats
The Jats attacked by Najib
Death of Suraj Mal
1765. Jats attack Jaipur .
1766. Return of Mahrattas
1767. Ahmad Abdali defeats Sikhs .
1768. Mahrattas attack Bhartpur
1770. Rohillas yield to them
Death of Najib-ud-Daula
State of Rohilkand
Zabita Khan .
1771. Mahrattas invite Emperor to return to Dehli
CHAPTER III.
A.D. 1771-76
Agency of Restoration .
Madhoji Sindhia
Emperor's return to Dehli . . . .
1772. Zabita Khan attacked by Imperial force under Mirza
Najaf Khan
Flight of Zabita
Treaty with Rohillas
Zabita regains office
Mahrattas attack Dehli .
1773. Desperation of Mirza Najaf .
Mahrattas attack Rohilkand .
Opposed by British
Advance of Audh troops
Restoration of Mirza
Abdul Ahid Khan .
Suspicious conduct of Rohillas
Tribute withheld by H. Rahmat
1774. Battle of Kattra
1775. Death of Shojaa-ud-Daula
Zabita Khan rejoins Jats
Najaf Kuli Khan
Successes of Imperial army
1776. Zabita and the Sikhs
Death of Mir Kasim
CHAPTER IV.
A.D. 1776-85
Vigour of Empire under M. Najaf
Zabita rebels again
1777. Emperor takes the field .
And the rebellion is suppressed
Sumroo's Jaigir
1778. Abdul Ahid takes the field against the Sikhs
Unsuccessful campaign
1779. Sikhs plunder Upper Doab
Dehli threatened, but relieved
1780. Mirza Najaf's arrangements
Popham takes Gwalior
Death of Sumroo
1781. Begam becomes a Christian
1782. Death of Mirza
Consequent transactions
Afrasyab Khan becomes Premier
Mirza Shaffi at Dehli
1783. Murder of Shaffi
Action of Warren Hastings
1784. Flight of Shahzadah Jawan Bakht
Madhoji Sindhia goes to Agra
Afrasyab murdered
1785. Tribute demanded from British, but refused
Death of Zabita
Sindhia supreme
Chalisa Famine
State of Country
CHAPTER V.
A.D. 1786-88.
1786. Gholam Kadir succeeds his father Zabita
Siege of Raghogarh
1787. British policy
Measures of Sindhia
Rajput confederacy
Battle of Lalsot
Mohammed Beg's death
Defection of his nephew Ismail Beg
Greatness of Sindhia
Gholam Kadir enters Dehli
But checked by Begam Sumroo and Najaf Kuli
Gholam Kadir joins Ismail Beg
1788. Battle of Chaksana
Emperor proceeds towards Rajputana
Shahzada writes to George III.
Najaf Kuli rebels
Death of Shahzada
Siege of Gokalgarh
Emperor's return to Dehli
Battles of Fatihpur and Firozabad
Confederates meet at Dehli
Sindhia is inactive
Benoit de Boigne
CHAPTER VI.
A.D. 1788
Defection of Moghuls and retreat of Hindu Guards
Confederates obtain possession of palace
Emperor deposed
Palace plundered
Gholam Kadir in the palace
Emperor blinded
Approach of Mahrattas
Apprehensions of the spoiler
Moharram at Dehli
Explosion in palace
Gholam Kadir flies to Meerut
His probable intentions
His capture and punishment
Sindhia's measures
Future nature of narrative
Poetical lament of Emperor
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
A.D. 1788 - 94.
Sindhia as Mayor of palace
British policy
1789. Augmentation of Sindhia's Army
1790. Ismail Beg joins the Rajput rising
Battle of Patan
Sindhia at Mathra
Siege of Ajmir
Jodhpur Raja
Battle of Mirta
Rivals alarmed
French officers
1792. Sindhia's progress to Puna
Holkar advances in his absence
Ismail Beg taken prisoner
Battle of Lakhairi
Sindhia rebuked by Lord Cornwallis
His great power
Rise of George Thomas
1793. He quits Begam's service
Sindhia at Punah
1794. His death and character
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1794 - 1800.
Daulat Rao Sindhia
Thomas adopted by Appa Khandi Rao
1795. Revolution at Sardhana
Begum delivered by Thomas
Becomes a wiser woman
Movements of Afghans
Battle of Kurdla
1796. De Boigne retires
1797. General Perron
Musalman intrigues
Afghans checked
Succession in Audh
1798 War of the Bais
1799. Afghans and British, and treaty with the Nizam
Rising of Shimbunath
Thomas independent
Revolt of Lakwa Dada
1801. Holkar defeated at Indor
Power of Perron
CHAPTER III.
A.D. 1801-3.
Feuds of Mahrattas
Perron attacks Thomas
Thomas falls
1802. Treaty of Bassein
1803. Marquis of Wellesley
Supported from England
Fear entertained of the French
Sindhia threatened
Influence of Perron
Plans of the French
The First Consul.
Wellesley's views
War declared
Lake's Force
Sindhia's European officers
Anti-English feelings, and fall of Perron
Battle of Dehli
Lake enters the capital
Is received by Emperor
No treaty made
CHAPTER IV.
CONCLUSION
Effect of climate upon race
Early immigrants
Early French and English
Empire not overthrown by British
Perron's administration
Changes since then
The Talukdars
Lake's friendly intentions towards them
Their power curbed
No protection for life, property, or traffic
Uncertain reform without foreign aid
Concluding remarks
APPENDIX.
THE FALL OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE OF HINDUSTAN.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
Preliminary Observations on Hindustan and the City of Dehli.
THE country to which the term Hindustan is strictly and properly
applied may be roughly described as a rhomboid, bounded on the
north-west by the rivers Indus and Satlej, on the south-west by
the Indian Ocean, on the south-east by the Narbadda and the Son,
and on the north-east by the Himalaya Mountains and the river
Ghagra. In the times of the emperors, it comprised the provinces
of Sirhind (or Lahore), Rajputana, Gujrat, Malwa, Audh (including
Rohilkand, strictly Rohelkhand, the country of the Rohelas, or
"Rohillas" of the Histories), Agra, Allahabad, and Dehli: and the
political division was into subahs, or divisions, sarkars or
districts; dasturs, or sub-divisions; and parganahs, or fiscal
unions.
The Deccan, Panjab (Punjab), and Kabul, which also formed parts
of the Empire in its widest extension at the end of the
seventeenth century, are omitted, as far as possible, from
notice, because they did not at the time of our narration form
part of the territories of the Empire of Hindustan, though
included in the territory ruled by the earlier and greater
Emperors.
Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa also formed, at one time, an integral
portion of the Empire, but fell away without playing an important
part in the history we are considering, excepting for a very
brief period. The division into Provinces will be understood by
reference to the map. Most of these had assumed a practical
independence during the first quarter of the eighteenth century,
though acknowledging a weak feudatory subordination to the Crown
of Dehli.
The highest point in the plains of Hindustan is probably the
plateau on which stands the town of Ajmir, about 230 miles south
of Dehli. It is situated on the eastern slope of the Aravalli
Mountains, a range of primitive granite, of which Abu, the chief
peak, is estimated to be near 5,000 feet above the level of the
sea; the plateau of Ajmir itself is some 3,000 feet lower.
The country at large is, probably, the upheaved basin of an
exhausted sea which once rendered the highlands of the Deccan an
island like a larger Ceylon. The general quality of the soil is
accordingly sandy and light, though not unproductive; yielding,
perhaps, on an average about one thousand lbs. av. of wheat to
the acre. The cereals are grown in the winter, which is at least
as cold as in the corresponding parts of Africa. Snow never
falls, but thin ice is often formed during the night. During the
spring heavy dews fall, and strong winds set in from the west.
These gradually become heated by the increasing radiation of the
earth, as the sun becomes more vertical and the days longer.
Towards the end of May the monsoon blows up from the Indian Ocean
and from the Bay of Bengal, when a rainfall averaging about
twenty inches takes place and lasts during the ensuing quarter.
This usually ceases about the end of September, when the weather
is at its most sickly point. Constant exhalations of malaria take
place till the return of the cold weather.
After the winter, cacurbitaceous crops are grown, followed by
sowings of rice, sugar, and cotton. About the beginning of the
rainy season the millets and other coarse grains are put in, and
the harvesting takes place in October. The winter crops are
reaped in March and April. Thus the agriculturists are never out
of employ, unless it be during the extreme heats of May and June,
when the soil becomes almost as hard from heat as the earth in
England becomes in the opposite extreme of frost.
Of the hot season Mr. Elphinstone gives the following strong but
just description: — "The sun is scorching, even the wind is hot,
the land is brown and parched, the dust flies in whirlwinds, all
brooks become dry, small rivers scarcely keep up a stream, and
the largest are reduced to comparative narrow channels in the
midst of vast sandy beds." It should, however, be added, that
towards the end of this terrible season some relief is afforded
to the river supply by the melting of the snow upon the higher
Himalayas, which sends down some water into the almost exhausted
stream-beds. But even so, the occasional prolongation of the dry
weather leads to universal scarcity which amounts to famine for
the mass of the population, which affects all classes, and which
is sure to be followed by pestilence. Lastly, the malaria noticed
above as following the monsoon gives rise to special disorders
which become endemic in favouring localities, and travel thence
to all parts of the country, borne upon the winds or propagated
by pilgrimages and other forms of human intercourse. Such are the
awful expedients by which Nature checks the redundancy of a
non-emigrating population with simple wants. Hence the
construction of drainage and irrigation-works has not merely a
direct result in causing temporary prosperity, but an indirect
result in a large increase of the responsibilities of the ruling
power. Between 1848 and 1854 the population of the part of
Hindustan now called the North-West Provinces, where all the
above described physical features prevail, increased from a ratio
of 280 to the square mile till it reached a ratio of 350. In the
subsequent sixteen years there was a further increase. The latest
rate appears to be from 378 to 468, and the rate of increase is
believed to be about equal to that of the British Islands.
There were at the time of which we are to treat few
field-labourers on daily wages, the Metayer system being
everywhere prevalent where the soil was not actually owned by
joint-stock associations of peasant proprietors, usually of the
same tribe.
The wants of the cultivators were provided for by a class of
hereditary brokers, who were often also chandlers, and advanced
stock, seed, and money upon the security of the unreaped crops.
These, with a number of artisans and handicraftsmen, formed the
chief population of the towns; some of the money-dealers were
very rich, and 36 per cent. per annum was not perhaps an extreme
rate of interest. There were no silver or gold mines, external
commerce hardly existed, and the money-price of commodities was
low.
The literary and polite language of Hindustan, called Urdu or
Rekhta, was, and still is, so far common to the whole country,
that it everywhere consists of a mixture of the same elements,
though in varying proportions; and follows the same grammatical
rules, though with different accents and idioms. The constituent
parts are the Arabised Persian, and the Prakrit (in combination
with a ruder basis, possibly of local origin), known as Hindi.
Speaking loosely, the Persian speech has contributed nouns
substantive of civilization, and adjectives of compliment or of
science; while the verbs and ordinary vocables and particles
pertaining to common life are derived from the earlier tongues.
So, likewise, are the names of animals, excepting those of beasts
of chase.
The name Urdu, by which this language is usually known, is said
to be of Turkish origin, and means literally "camp." But the
Moghuls of India first introduced it in the precincts of the
Imperial camp; so that as Urdu-i-muali (High or Supreme Camp)
came to be a synonym for new Dehli after Shahjahan had made it
his permanent capital, so Urdu-ki-zaban meant the lingua franca
spoken at Dehli. It was the common method of communication
between different classes, as English may have been in London
under Edward III. The classical languages of Arabia and Persia
were exclusively devoted to uses of law, learning, and religion;
the Hindus cherished their Sanskrit and Hindi for their own
purposes of business or worship, while the Emperor and his Moghul
courtiers kept up their Turkish speech as a means of free
intercourse in private life. The Chaghtai dialect resembled the
Turkish still spoken in Kashgar.
Out of such elements was the rich and still growing language of
Hindustan formed, and it is yearly becoming more widely spread
over the most remote parts of the country, being largely taught
in Government schools, and used as a medium of translation from
European literature, both by the English and by the natives. For
this purpose it is peculiarly suited, from still possessing the
power of assimilating foreign roots, instead of simply inserting
them cut and dried, as is the case with languages that have
reached maturity. Its own words are also liable to a kind of
chemical change when encountering foreign matter (e.g., jau,
barley: when oats were introduced some years ago, they were at
once called jaui — "little barley").
The peninsula of India is to Asia what Italy is to Europe, and
Hindustan may be roughly likened to Italy without the two
Sicilies, only on a far larger scale. In this comparison the
Himalayas represent the Alps, and the Tartars to the north are
the Tedeschi of India; Persia is to her as France, Piedmont is
represented by Kabul, and Lombardy by the Panjab. A recollection
of this analogy may not be without use in familiarizing the
narrative which is to follow.
Such was the country into which successive waves of invaders,
some of them, perhaps, akin to the actual ancestors of the Goths,
Huns, and Saxons of Europe, poured down from the plains of
Central Asia. At the time of which our history treats, the
aboriginal Indians had long been pushed out from Hindustan into
the mountainous forests that border the Deccan; which country has
been largely peopled, in its more accessible regions, by the
Sudras, who were probably the first of the Scythian invaders.
After them had come the Sanskrit-speaking race, a congener of the
ancient Persians, who brought a form of fire-worshipping, perhaps
once monotheistic, of which traces are still extant in the Vedas,
their early Scriptures. This form of faith becoming weak and
eclectic, was succeeded by a reaction, which, under the auspices
of Gautama, obtained general currency, until in its turn
displaced by the gross mythology of the Puranas, which has since
been the popular creed of the Hindus.
This people in modern times has divided into three main
denominations: the Sarawagis or Jains (who represent some sect
allied to the Buddhists or followers of Gautama); the sect of
Shiva, and the sect of Vishnu.
In addition to the Hindus, later waves of immigration have
deposited a Musalman population — somewhat increased by the
conversions that occurred under Aurangzeb. The Mohamadans are now
about one-seventh of the total population of Hindustan; and there
is no reason to suppose that this ratio has greatly varied since
the fall of the Moghuls.
The Mohamadans in India preserved their religion, though not
without some taint from the circumjacent idolatry. Their
celebration of the Moharram, with tasteless and extravagant
ceremonies, and their forty days' fast in Ramzan, were alike
misplaced in a country where, from the movable nature of their
dates, they sometimes fell in seasons when the rigour of the
climate was such as could never have been contemplated by the
Arabian Prophet. They continued the bewildering lunar year of the
Hijra, with its thirteenth month every third year; but, to
increase the confusion, the Moghul Emperors also reckoned by
Turkish cycles while the Hindus tenaciously maintained in matters
of business their national Sambat, or era of Raja Bikram Ajit.
The Emperor Akbar, in the course of his endeavours to fuse the
peoples of India into a whole, endeavoured amongst other things
to form a new religion. This, it was his intention, should be at
once a vindication of his Tartar and Persian forefathers against
Arab proselytism, and a bid for the suffrages of his Hindu
subjects. Like most eclectic systems it failed. In and after his
time also Christianity in its various forms has been feebly
endeavouring to maintain a footing. This is a candid report, from
a source that cannot but be trusted, of the result of three
centuries of Missionary labour.
"There is nothing which can at all warrant the opinion that the
heart of the people has been largely touched, or that the
conscience of the people has been affected seriously. There is no
advance in the direction of faith in Christ, like that which
Pliny describes, or Tertullian proclaims as characteristic of
former eras. In fact, looking at the work of Missions on the
broadest scale, and especially upon that of our own Missions, we
must confess that, in many cases, the condition is one rather of
stagnation than of advance. There seems to be a want in them of
the power to edify, and a consequent paralysis of the power to
convert. The converts, too often, make such poor progress in the
Christian life, that they fail to act as leaven in the lump of
their countrymen. In particular, the Missions do not attract to
Christ many men of education; not even among those who have been
trained within their own schools. Educated natives, as a general
rule, will stand apart from the truth; maintaining, at the best,
a state of mental vacuity which hangs suspended, for a time,
between an atheism, from which they shrink, and a Christianity,
which fails to overcome their fears and constrain their
allegiance." — Extract from Letter of the Anglican Bishops of
India, addressed to the English Clergy, in May, 1874.
The capital cities of Northern India have always been Dehli and
Agra; the first-named having been the seat of the earlier
Musalman Empires, while the Moghuls, for more than a full
century, preferred to hold their Court at Agra. This dynasty,
however, re-transferred the metropolis to the older situation;
but, instead of attempting to revive any of the pristine
localities, fixed their palace and its environs upon a new--and a
preferable—piece of ground.
If India be the Italy of Asia, still more properly may it be said
that Dehli is its Rome. This ancient site stretches ruined for
many miles round the present inhabited area, and its original
foundation is lost in a mythical antiquity. A Hindu city called
Indraprastha was certainly there on the bank of the Jamna near
the site of the present city before the Christian era, and
various Mohamadan conquerors occupied sites in the neighbourhood,
of which numerous remains are still extant. There was also a city
near the present Kutb Minar, built by a Hindu rajah, about 57
B.C. according to General Cunningham. This was the original (or
old) Dilli or Dehli, a name of unascertained origin. It appears
to have been deserted during the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni,
but afterwards rebuilt about 1060 A.D. The last built of all the
ancient towns was the Din Panah of Humayun, nearly on the site of
the old Hindu town; but it had gone greatly to decay during the
long absence of his son and grandson at Agra and elsewhere.
At length New Dehli—the present city—was founded by Shahjahan,
the great-grandson of Humayun, and received the name, by which it
is still known to Mohamudans, of Shahjahanabad. The city is seven
miles round, with seven gates, the palace or citadel one-tenth of
the area. Both are a sort of irregular semicircle on the right
bank of the Jamna, which river forms their eastern arc. The plain
is about 800 feet above the level of the sea, and is bordered at
some distance by a low range of hills, and receiving the drainage
of the Mewat Highlands. The greatest heat is in June, when the
mean temperature in the shade is 92¡ F.; but it falls as low as
53¡ in January. The situation—as will be seen by the map—is
extremely well chosen as the administrative centre of Hindustan;
it must always be a place of commercial importance, and the
climate has no peculiar defect. The only local disorder is a very
malignant sore, which may perhaps be due to the brackishness of
the water. This would account for the numerous and expensive
canals and aqueducts which have been constructed at different
periods to bring water from remote and pure sources. Here
Shahjahan founded, in 1645 A.D., a splendid fortified palace,
which continued to be occupied by his descendants down to the
Great Revolt of 1857.
The entrance to the palace was, and still is, defended by a lofty
barbican, passing which the visitor finds himself in an immense
arcaded vestibule, wide and lofty, formerly appropriated to the
men and officers of the guard, but in later days tenanted by
small shopkeepers. This opened into a courtyard, at the back of
which was a gate surmounted by a gallery, where one used to hear
the barbarous performances of the royal band. Passing under this,
the visitor entered the 'Am-Khas or courtyard, much fallen from
its state, when the rare animals and the splendid military
pageants of the earlier Emperors used to throng its area.
Fronting you was the Diwan-i-Am (since converted into a canteen),
and at the back (towards the east or river) the Diwan-i-Khas,
since adequately restored. This latter pavilion is in echelon
with the former, and was made to communicate on both sides with
the private apartments.
On the east of the palace, and connected with it by a bridge
crossing an arm of the river, is the ancient Pathan fort of
Salimgarh, a rough and dismal structure, which the later Emperors
used as a state prison. It is a remarkable contrast to the rest
of the fortress, which is surrounded by crenellated walls of high
finish. These walls being built of the red sandstone of the
neighbourhood, and seventy feet in height, give to the exterior
of the buildings a solemn air of passive and silent strength, so
that, even after so many years of havoc, the outward appearance
of the Imperial residence continues to testify of its former
grandeur. How its internal and actual grandeur perished will be
seen in the following pages. The Court was often held at Agra,
where the remains of a similar palace are still to be seen. No
detailed account of this has been met with at all rivalling the
contemporary descriptions of the Red Palace of Dehli. But an
attempt has been made to represent its high and palmy state in
the General Introduction to the History of Hindustan by the
present writer.
Of the character of the races who people the wide Empire of which
Dehli was the metropolis, very varying estimates have been
formed, in the most extreme opposites of which there is still
some germ of truth. It cannot be denied that, in some of what are
termed the unprogressive virtues, they exceeded, as their sons
still exceed, most of the nations of Europe; being usually
temperate, self-controlled, patient, dignified in misfortune, and
affectionate and liberal to kinsfolk and dependents. Few things
perhaps show better the good behaviour — one may almost say the
good breeding — of the ordinary native than the sight of a crowd
of villagers going to or returning from a fair in Upper India.
The stalwart young farmers are accompanied by their wives; each
woman in her coloured wimple, with her shapely arms covered
nearly to the elbow with cheap glass armless. Every one is
smiling, showing rows of well-kept teeth, talking kindly and
gently; here a little boy leads a pony on which his white-bearded
grandfather is smilingly seated; there a baby perches, with eyes
of solemn satisfaction, on its father's shoulder. Scenes of the
immemorial East are reproduced before our modern eyes; now the
"flight into Egypt," now St. John and his lamb. In hundreds and
in thousands, the orderly crowds stream on. Not a bough is broken
off a way-side tree, not a rude remark addressed to the passenger
as he threads his horse's way carefully through the everywhere
yielding ranks. So they go in the morning and so return at night.
But, on the other hand, it is not to be rashly assumed that, as
India is the Italy, so are the Indian races the Italians of Asia.
All Asiatics are unscrupulous and unforgiving. The natives of
Hindustan are peculiarly so; but they are also unsympathetic and
unobservant in a manner that is altogether their own. From the
languor induced by the climate, and from the selfishness
engendered by centuries of misgovernment, they have derived a
weakness of will, an absence of resolute energy, and an
occasional audacity of meanness, almost unintelligible in a
people so free from the fear of death. Many persons have thought
that moral weakness of this kind must be attributable to the
system of caste by which men, placed by birth in certain grooves,
are forbidden to even think of stepping out of them. But this is
not the whole explanation. Nor, indeed, are the most candid
foreign critics convinced that the system is one of unmixed evil.
The subjoined moderate and sensible estimate of the effects of
caste, upon the character and habits of the people is from the
Bishops' letter quoted above. "In India, Caste has been the bond
of Society, defining the relations between man and man, and
though essentially at variance with all that is best and noblest
in human nature, has held vast communities together, and
established a system of order and discipline under which
Government has been administered, trade has prospered, the poor
have been maintained, and some domestic virtues have flourished."
Macaulay has not overstated Indian weaknesses in his Essay on
Warren Hastings, where he has occasion to describe the character
of Nand Komar, who, as a Bengali man-of-the-pen, appears to have
been a marked type of all that is most unpleasing in the Hindoo
character. The Bengalis, however, have many amiable
characteristics to show on the other side of the shield, to which
it did not suit the eloquent Essayist to draw attention. And in
going farther North many other traits, of a far nobler kind, will
be found more and more abundant. Of the Musalmans, it only
remains to add that, although mostly descended from hardier
immigrants, they have imbibed the Hindu character to an extent
that goes far to corroborate the doctrine which traces the morals
of men to the physical circumstances that surround them. The
subject will be found more fully treated in the concluding
chapter.
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1707-19.
Greatness of Timur's Descendants—Causes of the Empire's
Decline—Character of Aurangzeb—Progress of Disruption under his
Successors—Muhamadan and Hindu enemies—The Stage emptied.
For nearly two centuries the throne of the Chaghtais continued to
be filled by a succession of exceptionally able Princes. The
brave and simple-hearted Babar, the wandering Humayun, the
glorious Akbar, the easy but uncertain-tempered Jahangir, the
magnificent Shahjahan, all these rulers combined some of the best
elements of Turkish character — and their administration was
better than that of any other Oriental country of their date. Of
Shahjahan's government and its patronage of the arts — both
decorative and useful — we have trustworthy contemporary
descriptions. His especial taste was for architecture; and the
Mosque and Palace of Dehli, which he personally designed, even
after the havoc of two centuries, still remain the climax of the
Indo-Saracenic order, and admitted rivals to the choicest works
of Cordova and Granada.
The abilities of his son and successor ALAMGIR, known to
Europeans by his private name, AURANGZEB, rendered him the most
famous member of his famous house. Intrepid and enterprising as
he was in war, his political sagacity and statecraft were equally
unparalleled in Eastern annals. He abolished capital punishment,
understood and encouraged agriculture, founded numberless
colleges and schools, systematically constructed roads and
bridges, kept continuous diaries of all public events from his
earliest boyhood, administered justice publicly in person, and
never condoned the slightest malversation of a provincial
governor, however distant his province. Such were these emperors;
great, if not exactly what we should call good, to a degree rare
indeed amongst hereditary rulers.
The fact of this uncommon succession of high qualities in a race
born to the purple may be ascribed to two main considerations. In
the first place, the habit of contracting, marriages with Hindu
princesses, which the policy and the latitudinarianism of the
emperors established, was a constant source of fresh blood,
whereby the increase of family predisposition was checked. Few if
any races of men are free from some morbid taint: scrofula,
phthisis, weak nerves, or a disordered brain, are all likely to
be propagated if a person predisposed to any such ailment marries
a woman of his own stock. From this danger the Moghul princes
were long kept free. Khuram, the second son of Jahangir, who
succeeded his father under the title of Shah Jahan, had a Hindu
mother, and two Hindu grandmothers. All his sons, however, were
by a Persian consort — the lady of the Taj.
Secondly, the invariable fratricidal war which followed the
demise of the Crown gave rise to a natural selection (to borrow a
term from modern physical science), which eventually confirmed
the strongest in possession of the prize. However humanity may
revolt from the scenes of crime which such a system must perforce
entail, yet it cannot be doubted that the qualities necessary to
ensure success in a struggle of giants would certainly both
declare and develop themselves in the person of the victor by the
time that struggle was concluded.
It is, however, probable that both these causes aided ultimately
in the dissolution of the monarchy.
The connections which resulted from the earlier emperors' Hindu
marriages led, as the Hindus became disaffected after the
intolerant rule of Aurangzeb, to an assertion of partisanship
which gradually swelled into independence; while the wars between
the rival sons of each departing emperor gave more and more
occasion for the Hindu chiefs to take sides in arms.
Then it was that each competitor, seeking to detach the greatest
number of influential feudatories from the side of his rivals,
and to propitiate such feudatories in his own favour, cast to
each of these the prize that each most valued. And, since this
was invariably the uncontrolled dominion of the territories
confided to their charge, it was in this manner that the reckless
disputants partitioned the territories that their forefathers had
accumulated with such a vast expenditure of human happiness and
human virtue. For, even from those who had received their
titledeeds at the hands of claimants to the throne ultimately
vanquished, the concession could rarely be wrested by the
exhausted conqueror. Or, when it was, there was always at hand a
partisan to be provided for, who took the gift on the same terms
as those upon which it had been held by his predecessor.
Aurangzeb, when he had imprisoned his father and, conquered and
slain his brothers, was, on his accession, A.D. 1658, the most
powerful of all the Emperors of Hindustan, and, at the same time,
the ablest administrator that the Empire had ever known. In his
reign the house of Timur attained its zenith. The wild Pathans of
Kabul were temporarily tamed; the Shah of Persia sought his
friendship; the ancient Musalman powers of Golconda and Bijapur
were subverted, and their territories rendered subordinate to the
sway of the Empire; the hitherto indomitable Rajputs were subdued
and made subject to taxation; and, if the strength of the
Mahrattas lay gathered upon the Western Ghats like a cloud risen
from the sea, yet it was not to be anticipated that a band of
such marauders could long resist the might of the great Moghul.
Yet that might and that greatness were reduced to a mere show
before his long reign terminated; and the Moghul Empire resembled
— to use a familiar image — one of those Etruscan corpses which,
though crowned and armed, are destined to crumble at the breath
of heaven or at the touch of human hands. And still more did it
resemble some splendid palace, whose gilded cupolas and towering
minarets are built of materials collected from every quarter of
the world, only to collapse in undistinguishable ruin when the
Ficus religiosa has lodged its destructive roots in the
foundation on which they rest. Thus does this great ruler furnish
another instance of the familiar but everneeded lesson, that
countries may be over-governed. Had he been less anxious to stamp
his own image and superscription upon the palaces of princes and
the temples of priests; upon the moneys of every market, and upon
every human heart and conscience; he might have governed with as
much success as his free thinking and pleasure-seeking
predecessors. But he was the Louis Quatorze of the East; with
less of pomp than his European contemporary, but not less of the
lust of conquest, of centralization, and of religious conformity.
Though each monarch identified the State with himself, yet it may
be doubted if either, on his deathbed, knew that his monarchy was
dying also. But so it was that to each succeeded that gradual but
complete cataclysm which seems the inevitable consequence of the
system which each pursued.
One point peculiar to the Indian emperor is that the persecuting
spirit of his reign was entirely due to his own character. The
jovial and clement Chaghtai Turks, from whom he was descended,
were never bigoted Mohamadans. Indeed it may be fairly doubted
whether Akbar and his son Jahangir were, to any considerable
extent, believers in the system of the Arabian prophet. Far
different, however, was the creed of Aurangzeb, and ruthlessly
did he seek to force it upon his Hindu subjects. Thus there were
now added to the usual dangers of a large empire the two peculiar
perils of a jealous centralization of power, and a deep-seated
disaffection of the vast majority of the subjects. Nor was this
all. There had never been any fixed settlement of the succession;
and not even the sagacity of this politic emperor was superior to
the temptation of arbitrarily transferring the dignity of
heir-apparent from one son to another during his long reign.
True, this was no vice confined exclusively to Aurangzeb. His
predecessors had done the like; but then their systems had been
otherwise genial and fortunate. His successors, too, were
destined to pursue the same infatuated course; and it was a
defeated intrigue of this sort which probably first brought the
puppet emperor of our own time into that fatal contact with the
power of England which sent him to die in a remote and
dishonoured exile.
When, therefore, the sceptre had fallen from the dead man's
hands, there were numerous evil influences ready to attend its
assumption by any hands that were less experienced and strong.
The prize was no less than the possession of the whole peninsula,
estimated to have yielded a yearly revenue of the nominal value
of thirty-four millions of pounds sterling, and guarded by a
veteran army of five hundred thousand men.
The will of the late emperor had left the disposal of his
inheritance entirely unsettled. "Whoever of my fortunate sons
shall chance to rule my empire," is the only reference to the
subject that occurs in this brief and extraordinary document.
His eldest surviving son consequently found two competitors in
the field, in the persons of his brothers. These, however, he
defeated in succession, and assumed the monarchy under the title
of BAHADUR SHAH. A wise and valiant prince, he did not reign long
enough to show how far he could have succeeded in controlling or
retarding the evils above referred to; but his brief occupation
of the monarchy is marked by the appearance of all those powers
and dynasties which afterwards participated, all in its
dismemberment, and most in its spoil. Various enemies, both Hindu
and Musalman, appeared, and the Empire of the Chaghtai Turks was
sapped and battered by attempts which, though mostly founded on
the most selfish motives, involved a more or less patriotic
feeling. Sikhs, Mahrattas, and Rajputs, all aimed at
independence; while the indigenous Mohamadans, instead of joining
the Turks in showing a common front to the common enemy, weakened
the defence irrecoverably by opposition and rivalry.
In the attempt to put down the Sikhs, Bahadur died at Lahor, just
five years after the death of his father. The usual struggle
ensued. Three of the princes were defeated and slain in detail;
and the partisans of the eldest son, Mirza Moizudin, conferred
upon him the succession (by the title of JAHANDAR SHAH), after a
wholesale slaughter of such of his kindred as fell within their
grasp. After a few months, the aid of the governors of Bihar and
Allahabad, Saiyids of the tribe of Barha, enabled the last
remaining claimant to overthrow and murder the incapable Emperor.
The conqueror succeeded his uncle under the title of FAROKHSIAR.
The next step of the Saiyids, men of remarkable courage and
ability was to attack the Rajputs; and to extort from their
chief, the Maharajah Ajit Sing, the usual tribute, and the hand
of his daughter for the Emperor, who, like some of his
predecessors, was anxious to marry a Hindu princess. But the
levity and irresolution of the Emperor soon led to his being, in
his turn, dethroned and slaughtered. The race was now quite worn
out.
A brief interregnum ensued, during which the all-powerful Saiyids
sought to administer the powers of sovereignty behind the screen
of any royal scion they could find of the requisite nonentity.
But there was a Nothing still more absolute than any they could
find; and after two of these shadow-kings had passed in about
seven months, one after the other, into the grave, the usurpers
were at length constrained to make a choice of a more efficient
puppet. This was the son of Bahadur Shah's youngest son, who had
perished in the wars which followed that emperor's demise. His
private name was Sultan Roshan Akhtar ("Prince Fair Star"), but
he assumed with the Imperial dignity the title of MOHAMMAD SHAH,
and is memorable as the last Indian emperor that ever sat upon
the peacock throne of Shah Jahan.
The events mentioned in the preceding brief summary, though they
do not comprehend the whole disintegration of the Empire, are
plainly indicative of what is to follow. In the final chapters of
the First Part we shall behold somewhat more in detail the
rapidly accelerating event. During the long reign of Mohammad
foreign violence will be seen accomplishing what native vice and
native weakness have commenced; and the successors to his
dismantled throne will be seen passing like other decorations in
a passive manner from one mayor of the palace to another, or
making fitful efforts to be free, which only rivet their chains
and hasten their destruction. One by one the provinces fall away
from this distempered centre. At length we shall find the throne
literally without an occupant, and the curtain will seem to
descend while preparations are being made for the last act of
this Imperial tragedy.
CHAPTER III.
A.D. 1719-48
Muhammad Shah — Chin Kulich Khan, his retirement from Dehli —
Movements of the Mahrattas — Invasion of Nadir Shah — Ahmad Khan
repulsed by the Moghuls.
GUIDED by his mother, a person of sense and spirit, the young
Emperor began his reign by forming a party of Moghul friends, who
were hostile to the Saiyids on every conceivable account. The
former were Sunnis, the latter Shias; and perhaps the animosities
of sects are stronger than those of entirely different creeds.
Moreover, the courtiers were proud of a foreign descent; and,
while they despised the ministers as natives of India, they
possessed in their mother tongue — Turkish — a means of
communicating with the Emperor (a man of their own race) from
which the ministers were excluded. The Saiyids were soon
overthrown, their ruin being equally desired by Chin Kulich, the
head of the Turkish party, and Saadat Ali, the newly-arrived
adventurer from Persia. These noblemen now formed the rival
parties of Turan and Iran; and became distinguished, the one as
founder of the principality of Audh, abolished in 1856, the other
as that of the dynasty of Haidarabad, which still subsists. Both,
however, were for the time checked by the ambition and energy of
the Mahrattas. Chin Kulich was especially brought to his knees in
Bhopal, where the Mahrattas wrung from him the cession of Malwa,
and a promise of tribute to be paid by the Imperial Government to
these rebellious brigands.
This was a galling situation for an ancient nobleman, trained in
the traditions of the mighty Aurangzeb. The old man was now
between two fires. If he went on to his own capital, Haidarabad,
he would be exposed to wear out the remainder of his days in the
same beating of the air that had exhausted his master. If he
returned to the capital of the Empire, he saw an interminable
prospect of contempt and defeat at the hands of the
Captain-General Khan Dauran, the chief of the courtiers who had
been wont to break their jests upon the old-fashioned manners of
the veteran.
Thus straitened, the Nizam, for by that title Chin Kulich was now
beginning to be known, took counsel with Saadat, the Persian, who
was still at Dehli. Nadir Shah, the then ruler of Persia, had
been for some time urging on the Court of Dehli remonstrances
arising out of boundary quarrels and similar grievances. The two
nobles, who may be described as opposition leaders, are believed
to have in 1738 addressed the Persian monarch in a joint letter
which had the result of bringing him to India, with all the
consequences which will be found related in the History of
Hindustan by the present writer, and in the well-known work of
Mountstuart Elphinstone.
It would be out of place in this introduction to dwell in detail
upon the brief and insincere defence of the Empire by Saadat
'Ali, in attempting to save whom the Khan Dauran lost his life,
while the Nizam attempted vain negotiations. The Persians, as is
well-known, advanced on Dehli, massacred some 100,000 of the
inhabitants, held the survivors to ransom, and ultimately retired
to their own country, with plunder that has been estimated at
eighty millions sterling, and included the famous Peacock Throne.
The Nizam was undoubtedly the gainer by these tragic events. In
addition to being Viceroy of the Deccan, he found himself
all-powerful at Dehli, for Saadat 'Ali had died soon after the
Khan Dauran. Death continuing to favour him, his only remaining
rival, the Mahratta Peshwa, Baji Rao, passed away in 1740, on the
eve of a projected invasion of Hindustan. In 1745 the Province of
Rohelkhand became independent, as did the Eastern Subahs of
Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. Leaving his son to represent him at
Dehli, the Nizam settled at Haidarabad as an independent ruler,
although he still professed subordination to the Empire, of which
he called himself Vakil-i-Mutlak, or Regent.
Shortly after, a fresh invader from the north appeared in the
person of Ahmad Khan Abdali, leader of the Daurani Afghans, who
had obtained possession of the frontier provinces during the
confusion in Persian politics that succeeded the assassination of
Nadir. But a new generation of Moghul nobles was now rising,
whose valour formed a short bright Indian summer in the fall of
the Empire; and the invasion was rolled back by the spirit and
intelligence of the heir apparent, the Vazir's son Mir Mannu, his
brother-in-law Ghazi-ud-din, and the nephew of the deceased
Governor of Audh, Abul-Mansur Khan, better known to Europeans by
his title Safdar Jang. The decisive action was fought near
Sirhind, and began on the 3rd March, 1748. This is memorable as
the last occasion on which Afghans were ever repulsed by people
of India until the latter came to have European leaders. The
death of the Vazir took place eight days later. This Vazir
(Kamr-ul-din Khan), who had long been the head of the Turkish
party in the State, was the nominal leader of the expedition, in
conjunction with the heir-apparent, though the chief glory was
acquired by his gallant son Mannu, or Moin-ul-din. The Vazir did
not live to share the triumph of his son, who defeated the enemy,
and forced him to retire. The Vazir Kamr-ul-din died on the 11th,
just before the retreat of the Afghans. A round shot killed him
as he was praying in his tent; and the news of the death of this
old and constant servant, who had been Mohammad's personal friend
through all the pleasures and cares of his momentous reign,
proved too much for the Emperor's exhausted constitution. He was
seized by a strong convulsion as he sate administering justice in
his despoiled palace at Dehli, and expired almost immediately,
about the 16th of April, A.D. 1748.
CHAPTER IV.
A.D. 1748-54.
Ahmad Shah — The Rohillas — Ghazi-ud-din the younger —
Perplexities of the Emperor — Alamgir II. placed on the throne.
SELDOM has a reign begun under fairer auspices than did that of
Ahmad Shah. The Emperor was in the flower of his age; his
immediate associates were men distinguished for their courage and
skill; the Nizam was a bar to the Mahrattas in the Deccan, and
the tide of northern invasion had ebbed out of sight.
There is, however, a fatal element of uncertainty in all systems
of government which depend for their success merely upon personal
qualities. The first sign of this precarious tenure of greatness
was afforded by the death of the aged Nizam Chin Kulich, Viceroy
of the Deccan, which took place immediately after that of the
late Emperor.
The eldest son of the old Nizam contended with the nephew of the
deceased Saadat — whose name was Mansur, but who is better known
by his title of Safdar Jang — for the Premiership, or office of
Vazir, and his next brother Nasir Jang held the Lieutenancy of
the Deccan. The command in Rajputan, just then much disturbed,
devolved at first on a Persian nobleman who had been his Bakhshi,
or Paymaster of the Forces, and also Amir-ul-Umra, or Premier
Peer. His disaster and disgrace were not far off, as will be seen
presently. The office of Plenipotentiary was for the time in
abeyance. The Vazirship, which had been held by the deceased
Kamr-ul-din was about the same time conferred upon Safdar Jang,
who also succeeded his uncle as Viceroy or Nawab of Audh. Hence
the title, afterwards so famous, of Nawab-Vazir.
Having made these dispositions, the Emperor followed the
hereditary bent of his natural disposition, and left the
provinces to fare as best they might, while he enjoyed the
pleasures to which his opportunities invited him. The business of
state fell very much into the hands of a eunuch named Jawid Khan,
who had long been the favourite of the Emperor's mother, a Hindu
danseuse named Udham Bai, who is known in history as the Kudsiya
Begam. The remains of her villa are to be seen in a garden still
bearing her name, on the Jamna side a little beyond the Kashmir
Gate of New Dehli. For a time these two had all at their command;
and the lady at least appears to have made a beneficent use of
her term of prosperity. Meanwhile, the two great dependencies of
the Empire, Rohilkand and the Panjab, become the theatre of
bloody contests.
The Rohillas routed the Imperial army commanded by the Vazir in
person, and though Safdar Jung wiped off this stain, it was only
by undergoing the still deeper disgrace of encouraging the Hindu
powers to prey upon the growing weakness of the Empire.
Aided by the Mahrattas under Holkar and by the Jats under Suraj
Mal, the Vazir defeated the Rohillas at the fords of the Ganges;
and pushed them up into the malarious country at the foot of the
Kumaon mountains, where famine and fever would soon have
completed their subjugation, but for the sudden reappearance in
the north-west of their Afghan kindred under Ahmad Khan the
Abdali.
The Mahrattas were allowed to indemnify themselves for these
services by seizing on part of the Rohilla country, and drawing
chauth from the rest; consideration of which they promised their
assistance to cope with the invading Afghans; but on arriving at
Dehli they learned that the Emperor, in the Vazir's absence, had
surrendered to Ahmad the provinces of Lahor and Multan, and thus
terminated the war.
An expedition was about this time sent to Ajmir, under the
command of Saadat Khan, the Amir-ul-Umra, the noble of the Shiah
or "Iranian" party already mentioned as commanding in Rajputan,
and who was also the Imperialist Viceroy of Agra. He wasted his
time and strength, however, in an attack upon the Jats, through
whose country the way went. When at last he neared Ajmir he
allowed himself to be entangled in the local intrigues which it
was the object of his expedition to suppress. He returned after
about fifteen months of fruitless campaigning, and was dismissed
from his office by the all-powerful Jawid, Ghazi-ud-din succeeded
as Amir-ul- Umra.
Almost every section of the History of Ahmad Shah abstracted by
Professor Dowson (VIII.) ends with some sinister allusion to this
favourite eunuch and his influence. The Emperor had nothing to
say as to what went on, as his mother and Jawid were the real
rulers. The Emperor considered it to be most suitable to him to
spend his time in pleasure; and he made his Zanana extend a mile.
For weeks he would remain without seeing the face of a male
creature. There was probably no sincere friend to raise a
warning; and the doom deepened and the hand wrote upon the wall
unheeded. The country was overrun with wickedness and wasted with
misery. The disgrace of the unsuccessful Saadat returning from
Ajmir, was enhanced by his vainly attempting to strike a blow at
the Empress and her favourite. They called in the Turkish element
against him, and contrived to alienate his countryman, Safdar
Jang, who departed towards his Viceroyship of Audh; leaving the
wretched remains of an Empire to ferment and crumble in its own
way.
The cabinet of the Empress was now, in regard to Ghazi-ud-din and
the Mahrattas, in the position of a necromancer who has to
furnish his familiars with employment on pain of their destroying
him. But an escape seemed to be afforded them by the projects of
Ghazi-ud-din, who agreed to draw off the dangerous auxiliaries to
aid him in wresting the Lieutenancy of the Deccan from his third
brother Salabat Jang who had possessed himself of the
administration on the death of Nasir Jang, the second son and
first successor of Chin Kulich, the old Nizam. He was to be
represented at Dehli by a nephew.
Gladly did the Persian party behold their rival thus depart;
little dreaming of the dangerous abilities of the boy he had left
behind. This youth, best known by the family affix of
Ghazi-ud-din (2nd), but whose name was Shahabuddin, and who is
known in native histories by his official title of Aamad-ul-Mulk,
was son of Firoz Jang, the old Nizam's fourth son. He at once
assumed the head of the army, and may be properly described,
henceforth, as "Captain-General." He was but sixteen when the
news of his uncle's sudden death at Aurangabad was brought to
Dehli. Safdar Jang, returning from Lucknow, removed the Emperor's
chief favourite, Jawid, by assassination (28th August, 1752) and
doubtless thought himself at length arrived at the goal of his
ambition. But the young Ghazi, secretly instigated by the weak
and anxious monarch, renewed against the Persian the same war of
Turan and Iran, of Sunni and Shia, which in the last reign had
been waged between the uncle of the one and the grandfather of
the other. The only difference was that both parties being now
fully warned, the mask of friendship that had been maintained
during the old struggle was now completely dropped; and the
streets of the metropolis became the scene of daily fights
between the two factions. Many splendid remains of the old cities
are believed to have been destroyed during these struggles. The
Jats from Bhurtpore came up under Suraj Mal, their celebrated
leader, and plundered the environs right and left. The Vazir's
people, the Persian partly, breached a bastion of the city wall,
and their victory seemed near at hand. But Mir Mannu, the famous
Viceroy of the Punjab — who was Ghazi's near kinsman — sent a
body of veterans to aid the Moghul cause; the account is
confused, but this seems to have turned the tide. The Moghuls, or
Turks, for the time won; and Ghazi assumed the command of the
army. The Vazirship was conferred on Intizam-ud-daulah the Khan
Khanan (a son of the deceased Kamr-ul-din, and young Ghazi's
cousin), while Safdar Jang falling into open rebellion, called
the Jats under Surajmal to his assistance. The Moghuls were thus
led to have recourse to the Mahrattas; and Holkar was even
engaged as a nominal partizan of the Empire, against his
co-religionists the Jats, and his former patron the Viceroy of
Audh. The latter, who was always more remarkable for sagacity
than for personal courage, soon retired to his own country, and
the hands of the conqueror Ghazi fell heavily upon the
unfortunate Jats.
The Khan Khanan and the Emperor now began to think that things
had gone far enough; and the former, who was acquainted with his
kinsman's unscrupulous mind and ruthless passions, persistently
withheld from him a siege-train which was required for the
reduction of Bhartpur, the Jat capital. The Emperor was thus in a
situation from which the utmost judgment in the selection of a
line of conduct was necessary for success, indeed for safety. The
gallant Mir Mannu, son of his father's old friend and servant
Kamar-uddin, was absent in the Panjab, engaged on the arduous
duty of keeping the Afghans in check. But his brother-in-law, the
Khan Khanan, was ready with alternative projects, of which each
was courageous and sensible. To call back Safdar Jung, and openly
acknowledge the cause of the Jats, would probably cost only one
campaign, well conceived and vigorously executed. On the other
hand, to support the Captain-General Ghazi honestly and without
reserve, would have secured immediate repose, whilst it crushed a
formidable Hindu power.
The irresolute voluptuary before whom these plans were laid could
decide manfully upon neither. He marched from Dehli with the
avowed intention of supporting the Captain-General, to whom he
addressed messages of encouragement. He at the same time wrote to
Surajmal, to whom he promised that he would fall upon the rear of
the army (his own !), upon the Jats making a sally from the
fortress in which they were besieged.
Safdar Jang not being applied to, remained sullenly aloof: the
Emperor's letter to the Jats fell into the hands of Ghazi-ud-din,
the Captain-General, who returned it to him with violent menaces.
The alarmed monarch began to fall back upon his capital, pursued
at a distance by his rebellious general. Holkar meanwhile
executed a sudden and independent attack upon the Imperial camp,
which he took and plundered at Sikundrabad, near Bolandshahr. The
ladies of the Emperor's family were robbed of everything, and
sent to Dehli in country carts. The Emperor and his minister lost
all heart, and fled precipitately into Dehli, where they had but
just time to take refuge in the palace, when they found
themselves rigorously invested.
Knowing the man with whom they had to deal, their last hope was
obviously in a spirited resistance, combined with an earnest
appeal to the Audh Viceroy and to the ruler of the Jats. And it
is on record in a trustworthy native history that such was the
tenor of the Vazir's advice to the Emperor. But the latter,
perhaps too sensible of the difficulties of this course from the
known hostility of Safdar Jang, and the great influence of
Ghazi-ud-din over the Moghul soldiery, rejected the bold counsel.
Upon this the Vazir retired to his own residence, which he
fortified, and the remaining adherents of the Emperor opened the
gates and made terms with the Captain-General. The latter then
invested himself with the official robes of the Vazirate (5th
June, 1754) and convened the Moghul Darbar, from which, with his
usual address, he contrived to obtain as a vote of the cabinet
what was doubtless the suggestion of his own unprincipled
ambition. "This Emperor," said the assembled nobles, "has shown
his unfitness for rule. He is unable to cope with the Mahrattas:
he is false and fickle towards his friends. Let him be deposed,
and a worthier son of Timur raised to the throne." This
resolution was immediately acted upon; the unfortunate monarch
was blinded and consigned to the State prison of Salim Garh,
adjoining the palace; and a son of Jahandar Shah, the competitor
of Farokhsiar, proclaimed Emperor under the sounding title of
Alamgir II., July, 1754 A.D. The new Emperor (whose title was due
to the fact that his predecessor — the great Aurangzeb — had been
the first to bear it) was in the fifty-fourth year of his age. He
was a quiet old devotee, whose only pleasures were reading
religious books and attending divine service. His predecessor was
not further molested, and lived on in his captivity to his death
in 1775, from natural causes, at the age of fifty. Ghazi-ud-din
was at the same time acknowledged as Vazir in the room of the
Khan Khanan. That officer was murdered about five years later,
according to Beale (Orl. Bl. Dicty in voc.) So also the
Siyar-ul-mutikharin.
One name, afterwards to become very famous, is heard of for the
first time during these transactions; and, since the history of
the Empire consists now of little more than a series of
biographies, the present seems the proper place to consider the
outset of his career. Najib Khan was an Afghan soldier of
fortune, who had attained the hand of the daughter of Dundi Khan,
one of the chieftains of the Rohilkand Pathans. Rewarded by this
ruler with the charge of a district, now Bijnaur, in the
north-west corner of Rohilkand, he had joined the cause of Safdar
Jang, when that minister occupied the country; but on the
latter's disgrace had borne a part in the campaigns of
Ghazi-ud-din. When the Vazir first conceived the project of
attacking the government, he sent Najib in the command of a
Moghul detachment to occupy the country, about Saharanpur, then
known as the Bawani mahal, which had formed the jagir of the
Ex-Vazir Khan Khanan. This territory thus became in its turn
separated from the Empire, and continued for two generations in
the family of Najib. Though possessing the unscrupulous nature of
his class, he was not without the virtues that are found in its
best specimens. He was active, painstaking, and faithful to
engagements; when he had surmounted his early difficulties he
proved a good administrator. He ruled the dwindled Empire for
nine years, and died a peaceful death, leaving his charge in an
improved and strengthened condition, ready for its lawful
monarch. He was highly esteemed by the British in India.— (v. inf
89 )
The dominions of Akbar and Aurangzeb had now indeed fallen into a
pitiable state. Although the whole of the peninsula still
nominally owned the sway of the Moghul, no provinces remained in
the occupation of the Government besides part of the upper Doab,
and a few districts south of the Satlaj. Gujarat was overrun by
the Mahrattas; Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa were occupied by the
successor of Aliverdi Khan, Audh and Allahabad by Safdar Jang,
the central Doab by the Afghan tribe of Bangash, the province now
called Rohilkand by the Rohillas. The Panjab had been virtually
abandoned; the rest of India had been recovered by the Hindus,
with the exception of such portions of the Deccan as still formed
the arena for the family wars of the sons of the old Nizam. Small
encroachments continued to be made by the English traders.
CHAPTER V
A.D. 1754-60.
Progress of Ghazi ud-din — Ahmad Khan enters Dehli — Escape of
the Prince Ali Gauhar — Murder of the Emperor — Ahmad the Abdali
advances on Dehli — End of Ghazi's career.
No sooner was the revolution accomplished than the young
kingmaker took effective measures to secure his position. He
first seized and imprisoned his relation the Khan Khanan, whose
office he had usurped, as above stated. The opportune death of
Safdar Jang (17th October, 1754) removed another danger, while
the intrepidity and merciless severity with which (assisted by
Najib Khan) he quelled a military mutiny provoked by his own
arbitrary conduct, served at once as a punishment to the
miserable offenders and a warning to all who might be meditating
future attacks.
Of such there were not a few, and those too in high places. The
imbecile Emperor became the willing centre of a cabal bent upon
the destruction of the daring young minister; and, though the
precautions of the latter prevented things from going that
length, yet the constant plotting that went on served to
neutralize all his efforts at administration, and to increase in
his mind that sense of misanthropic solitude which is probably
the starting-point of the greatest crimes.
As soon as he judged that he could prudently leave the Court, the
Minister organized an expedition to the Panjab, where the gallant
Mir Mannu had been lately killed by falling from his horse. Such
had been the respect excited in men's minds towards this
excellent public servant, that the provinces of Lahor and Multan,
when ceded to the Afghans in the late reign, had been ultimately
left in his charge by the new rulers. Ahmad the Abdali even
carried on this policy after the Mir's death, and confirmed the
Government in the person of his infant son. The actual
administrators during the minority were to be the widow of Mannu
and a statesman of great local experience, whose name was Adina
Beg. This man was a Hindu by origin, a, self-made man, bold and
intelligent.
It was upon this opportunity that the Vazir resolved to strike.
Hastily raising, such a force as the poor remnant of the imperial
treasury could furnish, he marched on Lahor, taking with him the
heir apparent, Mirza Ali Gauhar. Seizing the town by a coup de
main, he possessed himself of the Lady Regent and her daughter,
and returned to Dehli, asserting that he had extorted a treaty
from the Afghan monarch, and appointed Adina Beg sole
Commissioner of the provinces.
However this may have been, the Court was not satisfied; and the
less so that the success of the Minister only served to render
him more violent and cruel than ever. Nor is it to be supposed
that Ahmad the Abdali would overlook, for any period longer than
his own convenience might require, any unauthorized interference
with arrangements made by himself for territory that he might
justly regard as his own. Accordingly the Afghan chief soon lent
a ready ear to the representations of the Emperor's party, and
swiftly presented himself at the head of an army within twenty
miles of Dehli. Accompanied by Najib Khan, (who was in secret
correspondence with the invader,) the Minister marched out to
give battle; and so complete was the isolation into which his
conduct had thrown him, that he learned for the first time what
was the true state of affairs when he saw the chief part of the
army follow Najib into the ranks of the enemy, where they were
received as expected guests.
In this strait the Minister's personal qualities saved him.
Having in the meantime made Mannu's daughter his wife, he had the
address to obtain the intercession of his mother-in-law; and not
only obtained the pardon of the invader, but in no long time so
completely ingratiated himself with that simple soldier as to be
in higher power than even before the invasion.
Ahmad Khan now took upon himself the functions of government, and
deputed the Minister to collect tribute in the Doab, while Sardar
Jahan Khan, one of his principal lieutenants, proceeded to levy
contributions from the Jats, and Ahmad himself undertook the
spoliation of the capital.
From the first expedition Ghazi returned with considerable booty.
The attack upon the Jats was not so successful; throwing
themselves into the numerous strongholds with which their country
was dotted, they defied the Afghan armies and cut off their
foraging parties in sudden sallies. Agra too made an obstinate
defence under a Moghul governor; but the invaders indemnified
themselves both in blood and plunder at the expense of the
unfortunate inhabitants of the neighbouring city of Mathra, whom
they surprised at a religious festival, and massacred without
distinction of age or sex.
As for the citizens of Dehli, their sufferings were grievous,
even compared with those inflicted twenty years before by the
Persians of Nadir Shah, in proportion as the conquerors were less
civilized, and the means of satisfying them less plentiful. All
conceivable forms of misery prevailed during the two months which
followed the entry of the Abdali, 11th September, 1757, exactly
one hundred years before the last capture of the same city by the
avenging force of the British Government during the Great Mutiny.
Having concluded these operations, the invader retired into
cantonments at Anupshahar, on the Ganges, and there proceeded to
parcel out the Empire among such of the Indian chiefs as he
delighted to honour. He then appointed Najib to the office of
Amir-ul-umra, an office which involved the personal charge of the
Palace and its inmates; and departed to his own country, from
which he had lately received some unsatisfactory intelligence.
The Emperor endeavoured to engage his influence to bring about a
marriage which he desired to contract with a daughter of the
penultimate Emperor, Muhammad Shah: but the Abdali, on his
attention being drawn to the young lady, resolved upon espousing
her himself. He at the same time married his son Timur Shah to
the daughter of the heir apparent, and, having left that son in
charge of the Panjab, retired with the bulk of his army to
Kandahar.
Relieved for the present from his anxieties, the Minister gave
sway to that morbid cruelty which detracted from the general
sagacity of his character. He protected himself against his
numerous enemies by subsidizing a vast body-guard of Mahratta
mercenaries, to pay whom he was led to the most merciless
exactions from the immediate subjects of the Empire. He easily
expelled Najib (who since his elevation must be distinguished by
his honorific name of Najib ud daula, "Hero of the State"): he
destroyed or kept in close confinement the nobles who favoured
the Emperor, and even sought to lay hands upon the heir apparent,
Ali Gohar.
This prince was now in his seven-and-thirtieth year, and
exhibited all those generous qualities which we find in the men
of his race as long as they are not enervated by the voluptuous
repose of the Palace. He had been for some time residing in a
kind of open arrest in the house of Ali Mardan Khan, a fortified
building on the banks of the river. Here he learned that the
Minister contemplated transferring him to the close captivity of
Salim Garh, the state prison which stood within the precincts of
the Palace. Upon this he consulted with his companions, Rajah
Ramnath and a Musalman gentleman, Saiyid Ali, who with four
private troopers agreed to join in the hazardous enterprise of
forcing their way through the bands which by this time invested
the premises. Early the following morning they descended to the
courtyard and mounted their horses in silence.
There was no time to spare. Already the bolder of the assailants
had climbed upon the neighbouring roofs, from which they began to
fire upon the little garrison, while their main forces guarded
the gateway. But it so happened that there was a breach in the
wall upon the river side, at the rear of the premises. By this
the Prince and his friends galloped out, and without a moment's
hesitation plunged their horses into the broad Jamna. One alone,
Saiyid Ali, stayed behind, and single-handed held the pursuers at
bay until the prince had made good his escape. The loyal follower
paid for his loyalty with his life. The fugitives found their way
to Sikandra, which was the centre of Najib's new fief; and the
Prince, after staying some time under the protection of the
Amir-ul-Umra, ultimately reached Lucknow, where, after a vain
attempt to procure the co-operation of the new Viceroy in an
attack upon the British, he was eventually obliged to seek the
protection of that alien power.
Ahmad the Abdali being informed of these things by letters from
Dehli, prepared a fresh incursion; the rather that Adina Beg,
with the help of the Mahrattas had at the same time chased his
son, Timur Shah, from Lahor; while with another force they had
expelled Najib from his new territory, and forced him to seek
safety in his forts in the Bawani Mahal. The new Viceroy of Audh
raised the Rohillas and his own immediate followers in the
Abdali's name; the Mahrattas were driven out of Rohilkand; and
the Afghans, crossing the Jamna in Najib's territory to the north
of Dehli, arrived once more at Anupshahar about September, 1759,
whence they were enabled to hold uninterrupted communication with
Audh.
The ruthless Ghazi was now almost at the end of his resources. He
therefore resolved to play his last card, and either win all by
the terror of his monstrous crime, or lose all, and retire from
the game.
The harmless Emperor, amongst his numerous foibles, cherished the
pardonable weakness of a respect for the religious mendicants,
who form one of the chronic plagues of Asiatic society. Taking
advantage of this, a Kashmirian in the interest of the Minister
took occasion to mention to Alamgir that a hermit of peculiar
sanctity had recently taken up his abode in the ruined fort of
Firozabad, some two miles south of the city, and (in those days)
upon the right bank of the Jamna, which river has now receded to
a considerable distance. The helpless devotee resolved to consult
with this holy man, and repaired to the ruins in his palanquin.
Arrived at the door of the room, which was in the N.E. corner of
the palace of Firoz Shah, he was relieved of his arms by the
Kashmirian, who admitted him, and closed the entrance. A cry for
aid being presently heard was gallantly responded to by Mirza
Babar, the emperor's son-in-law, who attacked and wounded the
sentry, but was overpowered and sent to Salim Garh in the
Emperor's litter. The latter meanwhile was seized by a savage
Uzbek, named Balabash, who had been stationed within, and who
sawed off the defenceless monarch's head with a knife. Then
stripping off the rich robe he cast the headless trunk out of the
window, where it lay for some hours upon the sands until the
Kashmirian ordered its removal. The date of this tragic event is
between the 10th and 30th of November, 1759 (the latter being the
day given by Dowson, vol. viii. p. 243). The late Minister,
Intizam-ud-Daula, had been murdered by order of his successor
three days earlier. A grandson of Kam Bakhsh (the unfortunate son
of Aurangzeb) was then taken out of the Salim Garh and proclaimed
Emperor by the sonorous title of "Shah Jahan II." But he is not
recognised on the list of emperors, and his reign — such as it
was — lasted but a moment. Ghazi - (or Shahab) ud-din attempted
to reproduce the policy of the Sayyids by governing behind this
puppet; but the son of the murdered emperor proclaimed himself in
Bihar (v. inf.), and Ahmad the Abdali moved against Ghazi, as we
shall see in the next chapter. Discretion was the only part of
valour left, and the young and unscrupulous politician fled to
Bhartpur, where he found a temporary asylum with Suraj Mal.
As this restless criminal here closes his public life, it may be
once for all mentioned that he reluctantly and slowly retired to
Farukhabad, where he remained till Shall Alam came there in 1771
(inf. p. 98); that being driven from thence at the Restoration he
once more became a wanderer, and spent the next twenty years of
his life in disguise and total obscurity; till being accidentally
discovered by the British police at Surat, about 1791, he was, by
the Governor-General's orders, allowed to depart with a small sum
of money to Mecca, the refuge of many a Mohamadan malcontent.
Returning thence he visited Kabul, where he joined one of the
Dehli princes in an attempted invasion of India. The prince went
mad at Multan, and Ghazi, leaving him there, went on to
Bandelkhand, where he received a grant of land on which he
chiefly passed the remainder of his days. He died in 1800, and
was buried at Pakpatan in the Panjab (v. Journal of the As. Soc.
of Bengal, No. CCXXVI. 1879, pp. 129, ff.)
The vengeance of the Abdali, therefore, fell upon the unoffending
inhabitants of the capital — once more they were scourged with
fire and sword. Leaving a garrison in the palace, the Abdali then
quitted the almost depopulated city, and fell back on his old
quarters at Anupshahar, where he entered into negotiations with
the Rohillas, and with the Nawab of Audh, of which the result was
a general combination of the Musalmans of Hindustan with a view
of striking a decisive blow in defence of Islam. But these events
will form the subject of a separate chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
The Campaign of Panipat.
THE Mahratta confederacy was in 1759 irresistible from the
borders of Berar to the banks of the Ganges. On one side they
were checked by the Nizam and Haidar, on the other by
Shujaa-ud-daula, the young ruler of Audh. Between these limits
they were practically paramount. To the westward a third
Mohamadan power, the newly-formed Daurani empire, was no doubt a
standing menace; but it is very possible that, with Ahmad Shah,
as with the other Moslem chiefs, arrangements of a pacific nature
might have been made. All turned upon the character and conduct
of one man. That man was Sadasheo Rao, the cousin and minister of
the Mahratta leader, the Peshwa, into whose hands had fallen the
sway of Mahratta power. For their titular head, the descendant of
Sivaji the original founder, was a puppet, almost a prisoner,
such as we, not many years ago, considered the Mikado of Japan.
The state of the country is thus described by a contemporary
historian, quoted by Tod: — "The people of Hindustan at this
period thought only of personal safety and gratification. Misery
was disregarded by those who escaped it; and man, centred solely
in self, felt not for his kind. This selfishness, destructive of
public, as of private, virtue, became universal in Hindustan
after the invasion of Nadir Shah; nor have the people become more
virtuous since, and consequently are neither happy nor more
independent."
Ahmad Khan (known as "the Abdali"), whom we are now to recognise
as Ahmad Shah, the Daurani emperor, returned to Hindustan (as
stated in the last chapter) late in the summer, and marched to
Dehli, when he heard of the murder of Alamgir II. The execrable
Shahabuddin (or Ghazi-ud-din the younger) fled at his approach,
taking refuge with the Jats. Mahratta troops, who had occupied
some places of strength in the Panjab, were defeated and driven
in. The capital was again occupied and plundered, after which the
Shah retired to the territory of his ally Najib, and summoned to
his standard the chiefs of the Rohillas. On the other hand the
Mahrattas, inviting to their aid the leaders of the Rajputs and
Jats, moved up from the South. They possessed themselves of the
capital in December 1759.
The main force of the Mahrattas that left the Deccan consisted of
20,000 chosen horse, under the immediate command of the minister,
Sadasheo, whom for convenience we may in future call by his title
of "the Bhao." He also took with him a powerful disciplined corps
of 10,000 men, infantry and artillery, under a Mohamadan soldier
of fortune, named Ibrahim Khan. This general had learned French
discipline as commandant de la qarde to Bussy, and bore the
title, or nickname, of "gardi," a souvenir of his professional
origin.
The Bhao's progress was joined by Mahratta forces under Holkar,
Sindhia, the Gaikwar, Gobind Pant, and others. Many of the Rajput
States contributed, and Suraj Mal brought a contingent of 20,000
hardy Jats. Hinduism was uniting for a grand effort; Islam was
rallied into cohesion by the necessity of resistance. Each party
was earnestly longing for the alliance of the Shias under Shujaa,
Viceroy of Audh, whose antecedents led men on both sides to look
upon them as neutral.
The Bhao had much prestige. Hitherto always victorious, his
personal reputation inspired great respect. His camp, enriched
with the plunder of Hindustan, was on a scale of unwonted
splendour. "The lofty and spacious tents," says Grant-Duff,
"lined with silks and broadcloths, were surmounted by large
gilded ornaments, conspicuous at a distance..... Vast numbers of
elephants, flags of all descriptions, the finest horses,
magnificently caparisoned .... seemed to be collected from every
quarter .... it was an imitation of the more becoming and
tasteful array of the Moghuls in the zenith of their glory." Nor
was this the only innovation. Hitherto the Mahrattas had been
light horsemen, each man carrying his food, forage, bedding, head
and heel ropes, as part of his accoutrements; marching fifty
miles after a defeat, and then halting in complete readiness to
"fight another day." Now, for the first time, they were to be
supported by a regular park of artillery, and a regular force of
drilled infantry. But all these seeming advantages only
precipitated and rendered more complete and terrible their
ultimate overthrow.
Holkar and Suraj Mal, true to the instincts of their old
predatory experience, urged upon the Bhao, that regular warfare
was not the game that they knew. They counselled, therefore, that
the families and tents, and all heavy equipments, should be left
in some strong place of safety, such as the almost impregnable
forts of Jhansi and Gwalior, while their clouds of horse harassed
the enemy and wasted the country before and round him. But the
Bhao rejected these prudent counsels with contempt. He had seen
the effect of discipline and guns in Southern war; and, not
without a shrewd foresight of what was afterwards to be
accomplished by a man then in his train, resolved to try the
effect of scientific soldiership, as he understood it. The
determination proved his ruin; not because the instrument he
chose was not the best, but because it was not complete, and
because he did not know how to handle it. When Madhoji Sindhia,
after a lapse of twenty years, mastered all Asiatic opposition by
the employment of the same instrument, he had a European general,
the Count de Boigne, who was one of the great captains of his
age; and he allowed him to use his own strategy and tactics.
Then, the regular battalions and batteries, becoming the nucleus
of the army, were moved with resolution and aggressive purpose,
while the cavalry only acted for purposes of escort,
reconnoissance, and pursuit. In the fatal campaign before us, we
shall find the disciplined troops doing all that could fairly be
expected of them under Asiatic leaders, but failing for want of
numbers, and of generalship.
On arriving at Dehli, the Bhao surrounded the citadel in which
was situated the palace of the emperors. It was tenanted by a
weak Musalman force, which had been hastily thrown in under the
command of a nephew of Shah Wali Khan, the Daurani Vazir. After a
brief bombardment, this garrison capitulated, and the Bhao took
possession and plundered the last remaining effects of the
emperors, including the silver ceiling of the divan khas, which
was thrown into the melting-pot and furnished seventeen lakhs of
rupees ( £170,000).
Ahmad, in the meantime, was cantoned at Anupshahr, on the
frontier of the Rohilla country, where he was compelled to remain
while his negotiations with Shujaa were pending. So came on the
summer of 1760, and the rainy season was at hand, during which,
in an unbridged country, military operations could not be carried
on. All the more needful that the time of enforced leisure should
be given to preparation. Najib, the head of the Rohillas, was
very urgent with the Shah that Shujaa should be persuaded to take
part against the Mahrattas. He pointed out that, such as the
Moghul empire might be, Shujaa was its Vazir. As Ahmad Shah had
hitherto been foiled by the late Nawab Safdar Jang, it was for
his majesty to judge how useful might be the friendship of a
potentate whose predecessor's hostility had been so formidable.
"But," added the prudent Rohilla, "it must be remembered that the
recollection of the past will make the Vazir timorous and
suspicious. The negotiation will be as delicate as important. It
should not be entrusted to ordinary agency, or to the impersonal
channel of epistolary correspondence."
The Shah approved of these reasonings, and it was resolved that
Najib himself should visit the Vazir, and lay before him the
cause which he so well understood, and in which his own interest
was so deep. The envoy proceeded towards Audh, and found the
Vazir encamped upon the Ganges at Mahdi Ghat. He lost no time in
opening the matter; and, with the