History of the Jats:Dr Kanungo/Ahmad Shah Durrani’s Campaign Against the Jats
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By K. R. Qanungo. Edited by Vir Singh. Delhi, Originals, 2003, ISBN 81-7536-299-5.
Chapter VI. Ahmad Shah Durrani’s Campaign Against the Jats
(1169 A.H. (Nov. 1756-April 1757)
Suraj Mal's struggle with the Abdali
[p.58]: Raja Surajmal was left undisturbed by the new government of Delhi for about a year as Ghazi-ud-din and the Marathas were busy in the Punjab. The Afghans were driven across the Indus, and again that province became a part of the Empire. A quarell soon sprang up between the Wazir Ghazi-ud-din and Najib-ud-daula (the Aamir-ul-umra), who resented the dictatorship of his rival. The emperor Alamgir II to being a nonentity, whose moments were swayedt by the will of his keeper, the Imperial camp had no room for two such equally ambitious and powerful grandees. Najib-ud-daula feared the alliance of the Marathas with Ghazi-ud-din, who might someday bring him to account with their help. He looked for protection to the Durani Shah, and open treasonable negotiations with him. Ghazi-ud-din made peace with Raja Surajmal as a counterweight to the alienation of the Rohela Chief. In the second year of Alamgir II's reign; te Ahmad Shah Durrani again crossed the Indus (Rabi I., 1169; November 1756), and marched rapidly upon the capital to put Ghazi-ud-din. Antaji Mankeshwar and other Marathas in the pay of the Wazir anticipated the Afghan freebooters, and after thoroughly looting the old fort, and the suburbs of the capital, fled at midnight. Ghazi-ud-din surrendered himself to the Shah in his Camp at Narela. On his arrival at Delhi he was utterly fleeced, having to pay
[p.59]: about one krore of Rupees and to lose the office of wazir. Ahmad Shah sat on the throne of Delhi and issued coins inhis own name (8th Jamada I., = Saturday 29th January 1757). Raja Suraj Mal being nearest among the refractory chiefs, the wrath of the Shah turned upon him first with all its pent up fury.XXI Jawahar Singh, son of Suraj Mal, was watching the movements of the Afghan army from Ballamgarh1 with five of six thousand troop's. He cut off a foraging party of the Afghans, who had gone towards Faridabad.
The Shah was extremely enraged, and that very night sent Abdus Samad Khan, with instructions to decoy the infidels into an ambush. The Jat prince almost fell into the trap, by chasing a squadron of the enemy's cavalry to their hiding place. He made his escape losing some followers and a part of the booty. The Afghans looted some villages and beheaded as many men as they could capture.
On the 22nd Jamada I., = Saturday 12th Feb. 1757 Ahmad Shah left Delhi and marched against the Jats with the determination of conquering Deeg, Kumher and Bharatpur. A strong division of the army was sent ahead under the command of Jahan Khan (the Durrani general), and Najib-ud-daula, with these instructions, "Move into the boundaries of the accursed Jat, and in every town and district held by him slay and plunder. The city of Mathura is a holy place of the Hindus, and I have heard Suraj Mal is there; let it be put entirely to the edge of the sword. To the best of your power leave nothing in that kingdom and country. Up to Akbarabad (Agra) leave nothing standing." Not satisfied with this command to his generals the Shah directed the mace-bearers "to convey a general order to the army to plunder and slay at every place they reached. Any body they acquired was made a free grant to them. Every person cutting off and bringing in heads of infidels should throw them down before the tent of the chief minister, wherewith to build a high tower. An account would be drawn up and
XXI. For discordant note see, G.C. Dwivedi, The Jats: Their role in the Mughal Empire 167-168. Dwivedi concludes that grabbing the Jat wealth was the primary reason of the Afghan expedition'. - Ed.
1. Ballamgarh is written Ballabgarh in the modern atlas, 22 miles south-west of Delhi on.G.I.P. Ry.; Faridabad, 16 miles south-west of Delhi.
[p.60]: five Rupees per head would be paid them from the Government funds." This was not a war but a scalp-gathering expedition on a big scale, worth of a Red Indian Chief.
Ahmad Shah's campaign
The campaign began with the siege of Ballamgarh2, as Jawahar Singh had taken his post there with two Maratha chiefs, Shamsher Bahadur and Antaji Mankeshwar. The fort was bravely defended for two days. On the third night the son of Suraj Mal and the Maratha leaders fled in disguise; a few men left in the fort to cover the flight, were put to death by the Afghans. Twelve thousand Rupees, some horses, and camels fell into the hands of the victors. Ahmad Shah at once sent out parties for making a vigorous search for the fugitives in the neighbouring places. But Jawahar Singh and the Maratha leaders, dressing themselves in Qizzilbash (persian) clothes had gone through an under ground chamber into the ditch of the fort, threaded their way through the Shah's troops, and hidden in some ravines near the Jamuna. For two days and nights they did not come out even to drink water from the river.
The Shah halted for two days and ordered a general slaughter and plundering. An eyewitness, a Sayyid who was in the Afghan camp, thus describes their raids: "It was at midnight when the camp-followers went to the attack. It was thus managed: one horseman mounted a horse and took ten to twenty others, each tied to the tail of the horse, preceding it, and drove them just like a string of camels. When it was one watch after sunrise I saw them came back. Every horseman had loaded up all his horses with the plundered property, and atop it rode girl-captives and slaves. The severed heads were tied up in rugs like bundles of grain, and placed on the heads of the captives, and thus did they return to the camp .... Daily did this manner of slaughter and plundering proceed. It was a marvellous state of things, this slaying and capturing, and no whit inferior to the day of the Last Judgment. All those heads that had been cut off were built into pillars, and the men upon whose heads bloody bundles had been brought in, were made to grind corn, and then, when the reckoning was made up,
2. This was not originally intended by the Shah. He was prevailed upon by Ghazi-ud-din to besiege it.
[p.61]: their heads too were cut off. These things went on all the way to the city of Akbarabad, nor was any part of the country spared." [Irvine's translation of a Persian Ms., Indian Antiquary, Vol. xxxvi. p. 60]
Jahan Khan's terrible loot of Mathura
Jahan Khan had also carried out to the letter his master's instructions. On the 28th February 1757, two days after the holi, he suddenly appeared before the doomed city of Mathura. The inhabitants had little apprehension of the terrible fate which was to overtake them in the midst of the gay rejoicings of the spring season. Mathura was an unfortified city, without walls and ditches, easily accessible on all sides. Suraj Mal had left there about 5000 troops, to defend the city against the Durrani generals. Though taken by surprise, they gave a good account of themselves. After an obstinate fight in which three thousand Jats fell in the defence, the holy city was taken by these Afghans and an awful carnage began. A detachment of the Shah's troops attacked Gokul lying to the south of Mathura. About four thousand warlike Naga sannyasis, ever ready to die for their religion, assembled there; two thousand of them fell after killing an equal number of Pathans. Gokul was saved3 the Musalmans turned back terrified by militant Hindu fanaticism. But they met with no resistance at Brindaban, the earthly paradise of an effeminate cult - the resort of females and unsexed males. And a terrible treatment was meted out to it by the followers of a sturdier faith.
That year the holi was played afresh by the Durranis with the blood of the Hindus; the whole city of Mathura burnt like a huge bonfire such as was never lighted on the merry moonlit night of the holi. Groans of outraged women and cries of mothers from whose bosom the fiendish soldiery tore away their children for slaughter, echoed through the burning streets. The blue current of the Jamuna of the poet's imagination flowed blood-red for seven days and yellowish for a week more. The devotees of the degenerate Vaishnavism, who lived in bowers beside the stream, dreaming of the frolics of the Divine Cowherd and hearing in ecstasy the tune of his amorous flute, met with a fit
3. See Sardesai's Panipat Prakaran, (in Marathi), p. 77.
[p.62]: retribution. The throats of the meek babajis were cut in the exact manner of Muhammadan butchers, in their dwelling places.4 In each hut lay a severed head (of a bairagi), with the head of a slaughtered cow applied to its mouth and tied to it with a rope round its neck. [Ind. Ant. Vol. 36, p. 62].
The Musalman inhabitants of the city also did not fare much better at the hands of their co-religionists. They saved their heads but not their honour and property. The soldiers of the Shah so scrupulously enforced his order that those who declared themselve Musalmans had to strip themselves naked and show the sign of circumcision, before they were let off.
At Mathura, about 14 days after massacre, a stark naked figure crept out of a heap of ruins and stood before the Mir Sahib, who penned this horrible account, asking for a little food. On being questioned he related the following story : "I am a Musalman; I was a dealer in jewellery, my shop was a large one. On the day of slaughter .... a horseman, drawn sword in hand, came at me and tried to kill me. I said I was a Musalman. He said "Disclose your privities." I undid my cloth. He continued "Whatever cash you have, give to me so that I may spare your life. I gave him my 4,000 rupees. Another came and cut me on the stomach with his sabre. I fled and hid in a corner" (ibid, p. 62).
Brindaban met with a worse fate, as the Mir Sahib's description bears out. "Wherever you gazed you beheld only heaps of slain. You could only pick your way with difficulty, owing to the quantity of bodies lying about and the amount of blood spilt. At one place, we saw about two hundred dead children in a heap. Not one of the dead bodies had a head .... The stench and fetor and effluvium in the air were such that it was painful to open your mouth or even draw a breath. Every one held his nose and stopped his mouth with his handkerchief while he spoke" [Ibid. p. 62].
About the middle of March, Ahmad Shah reached Mathura and was gratified to see what his generals had done. Jan Khan and Najih-ud-daula were exalted by the gift of khilats and commanded "to move on to Akbarabad where there are many wealthy men who were subjects of
4. Bhao Bakhar, 34.
[p.63]: the Jat." The city of Agra was also depopulated by a general Slaughter and the fort invested. Fortunately an epidemic broke out in the Shah's arm -150 men dying every day. It took one hundred rupees to purchase one seer of tamarind. The Shah made up his mind to march back to his country. Jahan Khan was called back from the siege of the citadel of Agra. His return march began on the 27th of March and by the 29th the Jat country was cleared of enemies. [Ind. Ant., Vol. xxxvi, pp. 64-65]. The campaign of Ahmad Shah was a failure from the military point of view : Suraj Mal's strength remained almost unimpaired. Deeg and Bharatpur were not taken, nor was their proud owner brought to his knee. Only two or three undefended towns were captured and the civilian population massacred. He had failed to draw out Suraj Mal and make him fight.
Suraj Mal's tactics
Suraj Mal's tactics were to play a waiting game till the heat of the Indian plains would drive Abdali away or bring upon the scene of the Marathas, who were reported on the banks of Narmada. When the Durrani threatened to advance from Mathura upon Kumher, he amused him with the offer of a krore of Rupees as peshkash, if the Shah would postpone his march. A few days after, Suraj Mal now grown bolder at the Shah's distress, wrote to him bluntly, as advised by Rupram Katari, "I cannot pay more than ten lakhs as peshkash; let there be peace and amity between us by your acceptance of this; otherwise continuation of hostilities is decided upon.5 Shah was glad to agree to this little as his brave Afghans were dying by hundreds every day. A written agreement for paying ten lakhs was executed by Suraj Mal, and the Durrani army retreated to Delhi. But of this sum the Jat Raja did not pay a single penny.
Suraj Mal's alliance with Ghazi-ud-din and the Marathas
Scarcely had the Northern tempest abated its fury, when a deluge came from the south to overwhelm Hindustan. It stopped only at the foot of the Himalayas and the bank of
5. Bhao Bakhar, p. 38. For another version, see Wendel, 39; "His good fortune so willed it that he had no need to give a penny of what he had promised."
[p.64]: the Indus threatening to engulf Islam in India, sweeping of momentarily all vestiages of the Durrani conquest, and Submerging all the Muslim principalities in Northern India. The victory of the Shah was a triumph of Ghazi-ud-din rivals, the Ruhela chief Najib-ud-daula, whom the conqueror left at his Deputy incharge of the person of the Titular Emperor Alamgir II and the Imperial City. The office of the Wazir had been taken away from him and restored to his intriguing uncle Imtizam-ud-daulah. Ghazi-ud-din burnt with the thirst of revenge against the emperor, the wazir, and Amir-ul-Umra, and to gratify it he invited the Marathas again. Raghunathrao came to Hindustan second time (November 1756 -October 1757), and infused a new life among the despondent Maratha cheafs. Delhi was recaptured and Ghzi-ud-din reintated as wazir. Najib-ud-daula escaped the terrible Vengeance of his triumphant rival by throwing himself upon the mercy of Malhar Rao Holkar, whom he called his God-father (Dharam Pita). Raghunath reconquered the Punjab, defeated the Durrani's general Jahan Khan, and his son Taimur Shah, and draw them across the Indus. A de-facto Maratha dominion was established throughout the Northern India.
Raja Surajmal swam cautiously with the current. He had now to make a choice between the Abdali and the marathas: between an emergency of his faith and his own un-scrupulous co-religionist. His Pan-Hinduistic ideal inclined him to the Maratha cause, though their conduct inspired little confidence. But he was too prudent to join them in their offensive campaigns and thereby diminish his resources and earn the enmity of his Muslim neighbours. This information Jat Maratha Alliance was of purely defensive nature gainst the foreign Afghan Invaders. The political views of the great Jat Chief, expresses on many occasions during this period, deserve high admiration, and had the Maratha government acted upon them their de fecto sovereignty in Hindustan would have remained long unshaken. Suraj Mal in the first place a recognised the supreme necessity of doing away with the traitor Najib-ud-daula and crushing thoroughly the colonies of Ruhela Afghans before the Durrani should find time to come to their relief: in short the prospect of any
[p.65]: assistance from the traitors within to the inverter from Afghanistan must be cut off. Raghunathrao and Dattaji Sindhia were also of the same view, and would have killed Najib-ud-daula, but for the unwise and interested intervention of Malhar Rao Holkar. Secondly, Surajmal's desire was to make Nawab Shuja-ud-daula the wazir of the Empire in place of Ghazi-ud-din. This was not at all dictated by personal prejudice. Ghazi-ud-din was an isolated figure in Northern India; having neither the territorial nor the family influence, his position was extremely weak. On the other hand Nawab Shuja-ud-daulah was practically the independent and hereditary ruler of a large and wealthy kingdom. This would bring the requisite strength for the maintenance of the dignity of the wajirat, without making him in independent of the support of Maratha. His family being of persian origin, and of the Shia faith, he had no extraterritorial attachment like that of Ruhela Afghans to the Abdali, so as to make him dangerous and formiable like Najeeb Khan.6
Defeat of Marathas at Sukkartal and generosity of Suraj Mal
The inevitable crash came a couple of years later. Najib-ud-daula besieged for about a year at Sukkartal, remained unsubdued owing to the scarcity veiled the enmity of Holkar to other Maratha leaders. The racial sympathy of Ruhela leaders like Hafiz Rahmat Khan, Dundi Khan, and others, was with Najib-ud-daula and Abdali. But they could not hither to move owing to the fear of Nawab Shuja-Ud-daula. The designs of Holkar against Oudh having now become known. The Nawab became extremely alarmed and was driven to form a coalition with them to help Najib-Ud-daula, though he was strongly adverse to their proposal of inviting the Shah from Kabul. The unhappy Emperor Alamgir II found the throne of his ancestors not even the softest of chairs under the humiliating dictatorship of Ghazi-ud-din. He sent secret letters to the
6. Malhar Rao Holkar advocated and acted upon a contrary policy, viz., to uphold the power of his dharmaputra Najib Khan, and with Najib's help crush Nawab Shuja-ud-daula and conquer the kingdom of Oudh. This would, he thought, bring the whole of India from Attock to Rameshwar under the shadow of the Peshwa's umbrella, i.e., sovereignty! (Panipat Prakaran, p. 103). With leaders, so much deficient in farsight and statesmanship, no nation, however brave in war, did ever succeed in building up an enduring empire.
[p.66]: Abdali entreating him to rescue him from the galling yoke of his cruel wazir and restore to him Najib-ud-daula, the best of his gaolers. The Shah, in order to wipe off the past disgrace and avenge the defeat of his son and his generals, crossed the Indus for the fourth time (Thursday, 25th Oct., 1759)7. The wazir had his uncle Intizam-ud-daula and the Emperor, murdered, as they were suspected of being in secret league with the invader, and raised another prince to the throne under the title of Shah Jahan II (8th Rabi II, 1173 H. = Thursday,29 Nov. 1759). The Shah steadily marched towards Najib Khan's territory and was there joined by all the Ruhela Chiefs and the Nawab Shuja-ud-daula. But there was no unanimity in the Maratha camp. They were defeated in several small engagements; a panic set in among them. Dattaji Singhia raised the siege of Sukkartal on 11th Dec. 1759, and came to Delhi. Consternation and dismay prevailed everywhere; the imperial capital became deserted. Those who had anything, either honour or wealth, to lose, fled southwards, to the territory of the Jats, which became the hospitable asylum of both Hindu and Muhammadan fugitives. The Maratha chiefs also sent their wives and children to the protection of Raja Suraj Mal. And with them came the harem of the wazir of Hindustan, who did not hesitate to trust the honour of ladies to the custody of his generous foe. Suraj Mal had hitherto maintained an attitude of suspicious aloofness while the fortunes of the Marathas were in the ascendant. But at this critical stage, he was not deterred by the fear of the Abdali's vengeance from coming forward and standing by their side. The Jat had not forgotten the good done to him by Jayaji Appa Sindhia during the siege of Kumher, and was on the look out for an opportunity to return it. While Dattaji Sindhia was yet before the fort of Sukkartal, and Delhi was without adequate Maratha troops, Suraj Mal sent 5,000 Jats to reassure the people and aid in the defence of the city.XXII Seeing the overwhelming superiority
7. 3rd Rabi. I. 1173 H.; (Waqa, p. 135).
XXII. Qanungo does not take note of the Sindhia's invitation to [[Suraj Mal]]. 5000 Jat troops under Rup Ram Kataria joined Sindhia on 8th November, 1759, at Sukkartal not at Delhi. On 8th December Sindhia raised the futile siege of Sukkartal. On 20th December, 1759 he entrusted his family, heavy baggage and the disabled camp followers to the care of the Jats to be escorted to Delhi. On 4th January 1760 Rupram Kataria escorted them towards the Jat country. Rajwade, I,143,144, 147, 150;S.P.D., II.110; cited by G. C. Dwivedi, The Jats: Their role in the Mughal Empire, 178. - Ed.
[p.67]: of the enemy, everyone advised the Dattaji to retreat beyond the Chambal and wait for the arrival of reinforcement. But that noble hero, conscious of the responsibility of the new role with his country aspired (him) to play, resolved to demonstrate in the open field that Maharashtra would not shrink from paying the necessary price in blood for the dominion of India. He reached Delhi on 3rd January 1760 and told Jankoji Sindhia to go home with the ladies. But the latter firmly refused, having resolved to stay and share the fate of its chief. Rup Ram Katari conducted the ladies to Surajmal's territory for safety. On the plain of Badli about 8 Miles from Delhi Dattaji gave battle to the Abdali in the first week of Jamada II,1173.8 Long and fierce was the conflict. Inspired by their brave leader, the Marathas reckless of life, fought with a dashing Valour and perseverance never displayed before by that people in Hindustan. But the superior generalship of the Durrani and the greatest staying power of the Ruhelas won the day. The Maratha left 10,000 men by the least computation dead on the field. The Jats carried Jankoji , wounded and disabled, and other survivors to the fort of Kumher.
The wazir Ghazi-ud-din Imad-ul-Mulk, divining their probable issue, had left Delhi before the battle.XXIII Fallen from the fortune he stood a suppliant at the gate of Surajmal's fort for an asylum which he despaired of getting anywhere as against the wrath of the victorious Shah. This was the same Ghazi-ud-din who, as Father Wendel and Ghulam Ali (author of Imad-us-Saadat) remind us, had shortly before armed all Hindustan to destroy Surajmal and sat as an implacable foe before those very walls whose protection he nowau sought. Surajmal came out and conducted his honorable guest in "with all attention and respect befitting
8. All Persian histories including Siyar, say that this battle took place in the month of Janadi-ul-Akhir which begins on Jan. 20, 1760. Waqa makes no exact entry. It took place in the last week of January.
XXIII. According to Ali Muhammad Khan, Wazir Imad fled to Suraj Mal's fort Kumher after the defeat of Dattaji at Barari Ghat on 9th January 1760. He had already sent his family members there in November 1759. Mirat-i-Ahmadi, p. 905; cited by P.C. Chandavat, Maharaj Suraj Mal Aur Unka Yug, 159, f.n.2. -Ed.
[p.68]: his rank."9 We are told that he richly furnished his best palace at Bharatpur for the use of Ghazi-ud-din, amply provided for the comfort, security and honour of the wazir and his family, and treated him rather like a master on a Visit to the house of a servant. In the meanwhile, the Shah after making himself master of the capital, demanded one krore of Rupees from Suraj Mal as fine for his disloyal conduct. The Jat Raja was too prudedent to supply the sinews of war to his enemy, whose next demand, as he knew would be the surrender of the fugitives. He banished all idea of peace with the perfidious invader and made up his mind to spend that sum more honourably in carrying on a war of defence. All Hindustan rejoiced over the fall of the Marathas, and the joy was shared even by the Hindus who had suffered rather more severely from their rapine than the Musalmans had done. Their character and conduct created no confidence among the people of Northern India. Their hand had been against everybody's hand and now everybody's hand was against them. Rajputana had suffered so much at their hands, that Rajput princes, like Madho Singh of Amber, and Bijay Singh of Marwar, greeted the victory of the Abdali with as much joy as their unhappy descendants evinced forty ears after, at the victory of Lord Lake over the same race.10
Suraj Mal's foresight
But Raja Suraj Mal who had suffered equally at their hands, viewed the situation in another light, and acted with greater foresight to gain higher political ends. It was not merely e sentiment of gratitude to the Jayaji Appaji Sindhia that determine his conduct during this critical period. To him the annual Maratha raid appeared to be a lesser evil than the revival of a strong Muhammadan empire under a new dynasty, viz., that of the Durrani. He regarded the presence of the Marathas in Northern India as a great political necessity to keep out all foreign invaders and hold the balance between the Hindu and the Muhmmadan powers.
9. Wendel 51; Imad, 73.
10. The situation is graphically described in the contemporary Maratha letters : मराठ्याचा हर्ष उडन गेला, बहुत फिकिरींत पेडले, काल फिरला, जेरीस् आले जाटमाए जथाजी शिन्दयांचा कुंभरील डपकार स्मरून वरचेवर साह्य करीत हाते वाकी सर्व्व रजपुत सुहां मराठयांवर उडन आंचा वदनक्ष ह्वालावद्दल आनंद मांनु लगले.
[p.69]: He was too much of a practical statesman to think of an exclusive an intolerant Hindu swaraj like the short-sighted Bhao. No one was more conscious - as we shall see hereafter - of the value of preserving the dignity of the Mughal imperial throne, as the only centre of attraction and the sole bond of union among newly risen Hindu and Muhammadan principalities. So far as we are in a position to infer from his attitude towards his neighbours, his aim was to establish a confederation of several practically autonomous States under the head ship of the Mughal Emperor, having no other obligation than to combine under the imperial banner in times of common danger. He was willing to give the Mughal empire a new lease of life, but not of power, being averse to the idea of reviving the tradition and the formidable power that it had been in the days of Akbar and Aurangzeb, when aspiring smaller nationalities were mercilessly crushed under the dead-weight of the despotic imperialism of Delhi. Any attempt in that direction, he knew fully well, could begin only with the destruction of the Jat Power. In his scheme, the Emperor was to remain only the dignified figurehead, all initiative and lead remaining with the wazir, who should not be allowed to become powerful enough to be independent of the support of the confederates or overthrow the house of Taimur, Suraj Mal fixed his choice upon Shuja-ud-daula, the wise and tolerant ruler of Oudh, to be the constitutional wazir of this confederated empire.
Ahmad Shah Durrani, after having put the affairs of Delhi in some order, started on 2nd February 1760 (14 Jamada II., 1173 H.) against Raja Suraj Mal and on 7th February invested the fort of Deeg. But this seems to have been a mere demonstration, because we find him marching away towards Mewat on the 27th (Waqa, 170=171). Suraj Mal came out of his stronghold and made incursions into the Doab.
The Jats plundered half of Koel and stormed the citadel of the town (March 17, 1760). The daily entries in the Waqa-i-Shah Alam Sani about the movements of the Durranis, Jats and the Marathas give us some idea of their tactics. While the Durrani was before Deeg, a Maratha detachment advanced from the direction of Rewari in order to draw
[p.70]: away the Afghans in pursuit. Ahmad Shah chased them through Mewat, but they vanished in the desert tracts beyond Rewari, and another division of the Marathas appeared before Bahadurgarh (about 20 miles w. of Delhi), in the rear of the Abdali. When the Shah made one march towards Delhi they crossed the Jamuna and plundered Meerut and Sikandra.XXIV The Abdali started in pursuit and chased them towards Mathura and Agra. Again the Jats appeared in the Doab, plundering and conquering; in short they carried on a brilliantly planned running fight in concert with the remnants of the Maratha army (Waqa, 173).
Holkar and Suraj Mal, forgetting their old animosity, had become friends under the stress of adversity. Malhar Rao, who perhaps did not desire that his rival Dattaji should win the glory of defeating the Durrani, appeared tardily on the scene after the disastrous battle of Badli and asked Raja Suraj Mal to join him in giving another battle to the Afghans. But Suraj Mal refused to move until reinforcements came from the Peshwa. Holkar was once so completely surprised by the Abdali general Shah Pasand Khan at SikandrabadXXIV in the Doab that his whole detachment was cut off, and he himself managed to flee with only his clothes on, riding upon a mare (Siyar, iii. 381). He never ventured to issue out again from Deeg where he had taken refuge in fear Of the Abdali.
Aware of the impending danger that awaited him in Hindustan, the Shah hearing the reports of the vast Maratha preparation in the South, busied himself in forming a coalition Of all princes, Hindu and Musalman, of Northern India, who had suffered so much at the hands of the southern robbers. He tried to convince them that his mission was that of their emancipation from the Maratha pest, and not one of conquest an new enslavement. He wished to detach Raja Suraj Mal and Ghazi-ud-din from their alliance with the Marathas, and for that purpose sent esteemed Ruhela chief Hafiz Rahamat Khan with proposals of peacel1(Tarikh-i-
XXIV. Sikandra read as Sikandrabad in Bulandshahar District, - Ed.
11. In the month of Shawwal 1173 H., Hafiz Rahamat Khan went to Mathura to talk of a compromise with the Jat and Ghazi-ud-din, Negotiations were cut off by the Jat on the 23rd of Shawwal (8th June, 1760), when the Marathas approached (Waqa, 175). This corroborates the statement of the Tarikh-i-Husaini, the only Persian history which mentions the embassy of Hafiz-ul-mulk.
[p.71]: Husaini, 537). The fickle minded Ghazi-ud-din wavered, and Suraj Mal gave his guest complete liberty of action. News reached Delhi on 19th February (2nd Rajab, 1173 H) that peace had been concluded between the Shah and Ghazi-ud-din Imad-ul mulk, the latter having been confirmed in the office of wazir (Waqa,173). Throughout the eventful year of 1760 Suraj Mal fought the Shah not only with arms but also the subtler weapon of diplomacy and intrigue. The Durrani wanted to invest a sordid quarrel between himself and the Marathas over the carcase of the Mughal empire with the more attracting character of a Hindu-Musalman conflict for the dominion of India.
The credit of Raja Suraj Mal lies in baffling this aim of Afghan diplomatic activity. He carried on a counter-intrigue with the son of his old ally, the Nawab of Oudh. Shuja-ud-daula did not like the permanent establishment of the Durrani Power in India, because it would only make his natural enemies (the Afghans) too formidable for his safety. Suraj Mal almost achieved his end, but fortune befriended the Abdali. Those who follow the complicated threads of diplomacy, and the movements of the Nawab of Oudh during this period, cannot but hold that the junction of the Nawab with the Shah was a pure accident (vide Kasi Rai Asiatic Researches, Vol. III), Suraj Mal had at first allowed Ghazi-ud-din to swallow the bait of the Shah, but he now made him reject it by playing upon his fear. Though Ghazi-ud-din was a fugitive, poor and powerless, his adhesion was anxiously sought by both parties, as it carried a great moral value, and Suraj Mal bid as high as the Shah to secure it for the Marathas. He promised in a most solemn manner to procure his restoration to the office of wazir after the repulse of the Afghans. Ghazi-ud-din broke the newly made treaty with the Shah and waited for the arrival of the Bhao.
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