By STEPHEN NEILL F.B.A.
India and Political Change
1706-86
2. DIVIDED INDIA
Mughul's power stemmed from the power and military prowess of the powerful people of Central Asia, who were transformed by the elements of Persian culture and, after settling in India, with traditional Persian skills in speech and administration. But the marriage of Mughul's leaders, generation after generation, to Indian princesses had reduced the Central Asian element to their descendants into a faint memory, and there may have been a decline in vitality inherited from the race. It was unfortunate for Mughuls that the family, in two hundred years, produced one really great ruler, one who was remarkable for his extraordinary ability, and two who were able to replace any other ruler of their time, at the beginning of the empire. The eighteenth century failed in the main function of the royal court - that of producing heirs who could proceed in succession. Two of Mughul's rulers in that century were able to hold their own for a long time. But the first Mohammed Shah (1719-45) was less successful in preparing himself for the question the situation required. The second long reign, Shahc Alam II (1759-1806), was a series of catastrophes.
In 1788 he was blinded by the cruel Rohilla king,
Ghulam Qadir. Finally in 1803 he was officially taken into custody under the
protection of the real rulers of the country, the English. The historian tends
to study and go back to the eighteenth-century Indian ideas of honesty which,
although at home in some Western lands, had no place at the time in the minds
of the Indians. Integrity may be in the family, in the same religion, in the
commemoration of the great events, or in the same idea of freedom or political
technology. None of these features have worked well in Mughul India. The word
'kingdom' means an association that has never really existed; although
divisions of power began to appear only after Aurungzib's death, divisive
powers were at work before that time. There was no clear law of succession.
'The king is dead; live long king 'makes possible the smooth transfer of
loyalty from the dead king to the one immediately recognized as his successor.
If, as is often the case, many rivals seek a throne and engage in rivalry,
loyalty to one another would not be without fraud. Mughul's rule was actually a
foreign power. Muslim descent was said to rule over people who were Hindus or
Sikhs. Aurungzib policies had made a huge difference, but they were always present;
even Akbar's absolute power did not help to eliminate the tensions that existed
between the religious community.
The attitude of the common people, the farmers of
the land on which the prosperity of the empire depended, was never so honest as
to be submissive, grateful when a ruler gave a satisfactory measure of order
and security, annoyed when his sentences passed. beyond the limits of what was
once thought to be logical and legitimate. Akbar wisely stated that the minimum
wage for a farmer's income should not exceed one third of the total produce. It
seems that by the time of Aurungzib it had been increased to at least half. In
addition the ryot did not meet directly with the higher authorities, but was
increasingly produced under the employment of cash-strapped farmers or other
small but troubled officials. Part of the problem was that the empire was too
big. The slowness and difficulty of communication made it almost impossible to
maintain institutional control in very remote areas. Even Akbar had to spend a
lot of time fighting for the preservation of his authority. As the institution
weakened, there was an inevitable tendency for provincial governors to view
themselves as independent rulers, as governors themselves, even as they
continued to show respect for the now empty state power. The ideal view of the
Indian monarchy was closely associated with that of cakravartin, the king of
the world, who once or twice was about to be fulfilled in the Indian
subcontinent, and it once again appeared in the minds of the people. Each of
those who wanted to relinquish power of FMughul wanted to be not only a ruler,
one among many, but also a ruler, to whom all others would submit. So everyone
was thinking only of his own interests. Agreements and agreements can be made,
co-operatives; but these could be broken as soon as they were made. Thus the
endless kaleidoscope of the building, dividing and conversion units in which
the history of India in the eighteenth century is marked. It is not that the
story is a story of young people who did not have the greatness that was
remarkable years ago. There were men of great ability, more than one who could
as far as possible under the best of circumstances find state power. But one
separated the other.
There was no sense of place division and
domination, as well as friendly coexistence. Each temporary friend is also an
enemy that should be destroyed when the time comes. While none of them may be
strong enough to conquer all others and reach their full potential, each one is
strong enough to prevent the others from reaching the desired goal. So no one
was able to use his full potential or achieve what he could otherwise do. It
was always expected of the wise, sometimes irrational, and impatient wings of
the patient to finally intervene and take the highest authority and achieve
what other rulers have tried to bring to nothing - unity. of the entire
sub-continent from Khyber Pass to Cape Comorin. If Mughul's empire was doomed
to extinction, it became apparent for many years that the Marathais were the
most likely assassins to receive their succession suit. Sivaji (d. 1680) had
left his people with a large base. It seemed that this could grow and spread
until it embraced a large, if not all, part of India. For various reasons this
did not happen. First, the Maratha people have never created a close-knit
government; their organization was like, rather, a loose rule. The most
powerful institution, where the powerful pesha ruled under a weak king, was
Poona. But in close association with him were gaikwar in Baroda, holkar in
Indore, scindia in Gwalior, and bhonsle in Nagpur. Each of these rulers had his
own ambitions and concerns. The Marathais may unite against the enemy, but they
may also be quickly divided because of envy and rivalry among themselves.
Despite all of this, the Marathaans could at times be powerful forces. The aim
was not so much to win and rule as to invade and return, to take away
everything that might move, be it product or money or (otherwise) women. The
grief caused by the victims was intense. There was little security of life or
property, and, when the Maratha payments were met, only the strong and
invincible patience of the Indian farmer enabled him to survive.
During the eighteenth century, the character of
Martha had a dramatic change. Like the Mughuls, the acquisition of power led to
the simplicity and life of a surprisingly different splendor and complexity of
the days of Sivaji, when under his leadership a fierce hill race invaded the
castles of the Mughul. The nobility began to embrace the methods of the old
empires, to build their own palaces and to fill them with artifacts that they
could not yet produce. Such a life-style was not intended to be a catastrophic
military success that would open the way to world domination. Sivaji did not
leave anyone equal. But in the early years of the eighteenth century the leader
of Martha showed a position, if he were alive, we could have helped him turn
the fragile coalition into a real empire. Historians have given almost endless
praise to Pesha BajTRAo (c. 1700-40), both for his personality and for his
abilities. He was equally prominent as a soldier and as a state official; brave
in the field and generous in victory; of a ruling and unequal appearance among
his people as a spokesman. But Baji Rao died at about forty-two years old, and
no one was to take his place. For many years the Marathais had been waging war
against the Mughuls, almost always the worst of the old powers. In 1738 an even
greater threat threatened Mughul's throne from a very different source. Two
years earlier the Kurasani pilgrim, Nadir Quli, had ousted the last of the
Persian Safavi emperors and made himself king of Persia under the title Nadir
Shah. Like many other rulers from Central Asia and Afghanistan, Nadir Shah had
set his sights on the fertile fields and treasures of India.
On December 27, 1738 he crossed the Indus. On 12
March 1739 he arrived in Delhi and set up the gardens of Shalimar. There was no
siege and no victory; but in the chaos that followed naturally this invasion of
many Persian tribes had been involved and killed by the civilians. In a fit of
rage, Nadir Shah set the city on fire with its inhabitants. The slaughter
lasted all day; the number of deaths is recorded in very different ways, the
maximum is 150,000, the lowest is 8,000; the first is much higher, the last is
much lower.2 The next day Nadir Shah issued a decree ordering an end to murder
and looting; his orders were obeyed, but by this time most of the city had been
destroyed. It was not part of Nadir Shah's plans to establish a Persian empire
in India. Like many of his predecessors, he came to demonstrate military might
and to enrich himself and his people. After a little more than two months in
Delhi, contemptuously leaving Muhammad Shah Shah who was not in his position of
emperor, and in possession of a great deal of spoil including the throne of the
famous Shah Jahan peacock, he withdrew to his homeland. The Persian invasion
did not kill immediately; but this manifestation of the weakness of the Mughul
regime was not lost on the many hips that stood next to the injured body,
concerned only to enrich themselves, and, if possible, to ensure their
institutional independence.
The story of the Mughul kingdom's disintegration
was not over. The capture of the Mughul in Deccan was always dangerous; by the
middle of the eighteenth century it was gone without a name. The man who
brought about this change, on the one hand, is best known by his name
Nizam-ul-Mulk (671-1748), though his name was Chin QilTch Khan.3 the greatest
in the kingdom. In 1713 he was appointed governor of the six Deccan provinces
under the title Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahadur Fath Jang. After much change nizam was
returned to Delhi by Muham mad Shah and appointed by vazlr. A knowledgeable and
perfect ruler in every generous and honest ruler, nizam aspired to reorganize
the whole state government and restore its prosperity by taking control of the
hands of the slave and useless court. He soon realized that the work was too great
even for one of his unusual skills; in December 1723 he left Delhi and returned
to Deccan. From this point on Nizam-ul-Mulk would say nothing of an independent
monarchy. He did not withdraw any income from Delhi. He made it his own and was
promoted. Although he was wise enough not to take the place of the king and did
not offer a coin in his name, in all other respects he took royal privileges
and ruled in Hyderabad as a perfect king. His strong management and sound
financial principles freed farmers from much of the unjust suffering they had
endured; fertile lands began to enjoy an unprecedented prosperity.
In December 1732 the nizam reached an agreement
with the Maratha people, where by directing the paternal attention to the
possible expansion of the Maratha power in northern India, he found his hands
left free to combine his powers in the south. By the fourth century
Nizam-ul-Mulk was a prominent figure in Mughul's empire; he may be emperor, if
tradition is true that in 1739 Nadir Shah wished to set aside the weak Muhammad
Shah for himself. He was famous both as a soldier and as an ambassador; he was
respected by the good and hated with stones. By the time he died, on June 1,
1748, tired of years and work, he had gained a significant independence in the
vast territory he ruled; and, though his successors were far from his equals,
he had established a genealogy that would surpass that of the Mughulites for
nearly a century.4 Bengal, with its full population and endless watercourses,
was another place where the Mughuls found it difficult to maintain effective
control. In this region, as in the south, the dangerous system of connecting
the emperor with the governors of various provinces was adopted in support of
which each ruler could immediately subdue him. This simply puzzled the
management and did not increase efficiency. Bengal, Bihar and Orissa were built
into viceroyalty. From 1726 to 1739 these provinces were well governed by the
wise Shujac -ud-din. himself in Murshidabad, the capital of Bengal, as deputy
governor of the three provinces, by subordinate to the governor of Delhi but by
acting as the independent governor of a large and densely populated region.
In 1751 he was forced to surrender Orissa to the
Maratha; but two great regions remained under his rule. He died in 1756,
leaving his empire to his grandson Siraj-ud-daula, a direct confrontation with
the English that would lead to an irreversible catastrophe. The final woe is
yet to come. On the northwestern border of India the Afghans were constantly
resting, a dangerous cloud that could not be completely dispersed. After the
death of Nadir Shah in 1747, one of his generals, Ahmad Shah, an Afghan of the
Abdali tribe, gradually made himself king of the whole of Afghanistan and took
over the throne. Soon the idea of a new emperor, as well as that of many of
his predecessors, centered on foreign conquests. In 1756 he arrived in India,
looted Delhi and withdrew, leaving his son TImur Shah as deputy president of
Lahore. The Marathais reacted strongly. Their power was great, and they were
one in a way that had never been seen before or since. TImur Shah was deported
and Lahore resided. It seemed that at the moment the development of the dragon
was under arrest. The fate ruled otherwise. In August 1759 Ahmad Shah Abdali
crossed the Indus again. The Maratha people reacted strongly to what they
considered to be a threat throughout India. The candidates sent invitations to
the rulers from afar to participate in the campaign. An experienced soldier,
Sadashiv Bhau, was appointed commander The two armies assembled at Panipat
Stadium, where two decisive battles had already been fought in the earlier
days. The last contact took place on 14 January 1761.
The Marathas fought with great courage, and for a
time the story of the war seemed uncertain. However, because of famine and long
hours of fighting, they could not stand in front of Abdali's superior schemes.
Late in the afternoon a large army of game reserves was thrown into the fray;
the Maratha line was broken, and since then the massacre has not been fair. It
is estimated that 75,000 defenders, soldiers and supporters of the camp, died.
The army was gone, and Abdali was the master of everything.6 The third battle
of Panipat decided once again the question of whether there should be a Maratha
empire in India. Through their remarkable endurance the Marathaans succeeded in
reorganizing themselves; but with their diminished power it was impossible for
them to re-apply successfully to Mughul's regime. The withdrawal of the
Marathas within its borders probably saved the nizam from extinction, and made
possible the work of a pilgrim who later made himself the ruler of Mysore. The
most important effect was not immediately apparent. The defeat of the Maratha
in Panipat meant that the Indians were not able to resist the British as they
began to work for the establishment of an immovable empire in Bengal.
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