Behind this apparently benign concern for the Emperor lay a deep anxiety on the part of the Company. Shah Alam’s announcement of his imminent departure had been entirely unexpected. Not only did the Emperor’s keepers want him in their own hands to legalise and legitimate whatever decisions they made, they also feared the consequences if others should seize him with the same intention. The Marathas were the Company’s most formidable rivals in India. They dominated almost the entire west coast of the subcontinent and much of the central interior, too. Too late, the Company was now contemplating ‘the additional influence it must give to the Marathas having the Emperor’s person in their hands, whose name will be made a sanction for their future depredations’.5
With a view to changing the Emperor’s mind, one of the highest ranking Company officers, General Barker, was despatched to Allahabad to try and reason with him. Even Shah Alam’s own senior advisers told him that he was ‘throwing away the substance to grasp at a shadow … and sacrificing his interests to the vain gratification of residing in the imperial palace’. They also warned him about the dangers of placing confidence in the Marathas, ‘the very people whose perfidious conduct and insatiable ambition had proved so fatal to many of your august family’.6
But Shah Alam had made up his mind. Barker found him ‘deaf to all arguments’.7 The Emperor even went as far as threatening suicide if there was any attempt by the Company to thwart him. He had long found life in Allahabad as a puppet of the Company insupportable, and now he yearned to return home, whatever the risks. ‘He sighed for the pleasures of the capital,’ wrote William Francklin, a Company official who knew him well and who eventually wrote his first biography.8
The Council ultimately realised it had little option but to accept the Emperor’s decision with the best grace possible: ‘It was not in our power to prevent this step of the King’s,’ they wrote to the directors in London in January 1771, ‘except by putting an absolute restraint on his person, which we judged would be as little approved by our Hon’ble masters, as it was repugnant to our own sentiments of Humanity.’9 Barker wrote to the Emperor: ‘since His Majesty has arranged all this with the Marathas secretly, the writer has received instructions neither to stand in the way of the royal resolution, nor to support it.’10
In fact, the Company had no one to blame but themselves for the Emperor’s dramatic decision. The discourteous treatment he had received from EIC officers in Allahabad since he arrived there six years earlier was the principal reason he had decided to hazard everything on the gamble of the Delhi expedition: ‘The English added to Shah Alam II’s misfortunes by treating him with an insulting lack of respect,’ wrote Jean-Baptiste Gentil, who had visited the Emperor in the Allahabad fort. ‘They did this repeatedly, in a setting – the palace of his forebear Akbar – which constantly brought to mind the former power and glory of the House of Timur.’
These insults at length compelled him to abandon what little remained to him of this once-opulent inheritance, and to go back to Delhi to live in the squalid huts hastily put up there for his return.
Worse, they [the Company] increased his misery by refusing to pay him the full 26 lakhs Rupees* that had been agreed under the Treaty of Allahabad of 1765.
A mere battalion-officer, of his own accord, arrested and imprisoned one of Shah Alam’s most senior liveried footmen. The Emperor duly requested the officer to release his servant, promising that in future his servant would be more careful, though the man had committed no offence deserving such treatment. Well, can you believe it? This officer immediately had the man brought out and horse-whipped in the presence of the Emperor’s messenger, saying: ‘This is how I punish anyone who fails to show me due respect!’
A short time after this, Brigadier Smith, who was staying in the imperial palace, forbade the Emperor’s musicians to sound the traditional naubat trumpet fanfare which is always played in a chamber above the gateway to the palace, saying that it woke him too early in the morning. The musicians having played in spite of the Brigadier’s orders, Smith sent guards to throw them and their instruments down from the upper chamber: luckily the musicians escaped in time, so it was only the instruments which were thrown down.
The uncouth and quarrelsome nature of this officer banished any peace of mind which the unfortunate Emperor might have enjoyed at Allahabad, till the humiliations inflicted on him daily compelled him, as said, to abandon his palace in Allahabad, to go and live on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi, exchanging a rich and fertile province for a township of ruins.11
These thoughtless insults by junior officers only added to the bitterness Shah Alam already felt towards their superiors. He had good reason to feel betrayed. In the course of his many attempts to get the Company to honour its promises, one exchange in particular with Clive still rankled.
In 1766 Shah Alam had gone as far as sending an envoy to his fellow monarch George III, one sovereign to another, to appeal to him for help, ‘considering the sincerity of friendship and nobility of heart of my brother in England’. In his letter Shah Alam had offered to recognise the Hanoverian King’s overlordship in return for being installed in Delhi by Company troops. But the Emperor’s letters to the King had been intercepted by Clive, along with the nazr (ceremonial gift) of rare jewels worth Rs100,000,* and neither were ever delivered. Meanwhile, Shah Alam’s presents to the King were given on his return to London by Clive, as if from himself, without any mention of the Emperor. Shah Alam’s envoy did make it to Britain, and wrote a remarkable book about his travels, The Wonders of Vilayet, which revealed for the first time to an Indian audience the bleakness of the British winter and the quarrelsome nature of whisky-fuelled Scots; but the Company made sure he never succeeded in getting an audience with the King or near anyone in government.12
In December 1769, when Calcutta yet again refused to escort the Emperor to Delhi, this time allegedly ‘owing to the unsuitability of the time’, Shah Alam finally concluded that it was hopeless to rely on the Company: if he was ever to get to Delhi, he would have to do so protected by his own troops – and he would need to find new allies to convey him where he wished to go.13
Dramatic changes in the politics of Hindustan helped spur the Emperor into action. In the decade following the defeat of the Marathas at Panipat in 1761, and the death of 35,000 – an entire generation of Maratha warriors and leaders – the Afghans had had the upper hand in Hindustan from roughly 1761 until 1770.14 In 1762 Ahmad Shah Durrani had ousted Shah Alam’s teenage nemesis, Imad ul-Mulk, from the Red Fort, and installed as governor Najib ud-Daula, a Rohilla of Afghan birth. Najib had started his Indian career as a humble Yusufzai horse dealer but had steadily risen thanks to his skills both as a fighter and as a political strategist.
Najib was the ‘undefeated but not unchallenged master of Delhi for nine years’, who succeeded in ‘maintaining his position by a brilliant feat of poise and balance’, between a viper’s nest of contending forces.15 In October 1770, however, Najib died, and rumours reached Allahabad that his unruly son and successor, Zabita Khan, ‘had presumed to enter into the royal seraglio, to have connection with some of the ladies shut up in it. The king’s own sister was one of the number.’16 Mughal honour was now at stake, and the queen mother, Zeenat Mahal, wrote to her son to come immediately and take charge.
The main architect of the Afghan incursions into northern India, Ahmad Shah Durrani, had now returned to the mountains of his homeland to die. He was suffering the last stages of an illness that had long debilitated him, as his face was eaten away by what the Afghan sources call a ‘gangrenous ulcer’, possibly leprosy or some form of tumour. Soon after winning his greatest victory at Panipat, Ahmad Shah’s disease began consuming his nose, and a diamond-studded substitute was attached in its place. By 1772, maggots were dropping from the upper part of his putrefying nose into his mouth and his food as he ate. Having despaired of finding a cure, he took to his bed in the Toba hills, where he had gone to escape the summer heat of Kandahar.17 He
was clearly no longer in any position to swoop down and assist his Rohilla kinsmen in India. The Afghans settled in India were now on their own.18
In May 1766, the Marathas launched their first, relatively modest, expedition north of the Chambal since Panipat five years earlier. By 1770, they were back again, this time with an ‘ocean-like army’ of 75,000, which they used to defeat the Jat Raja of Deeg and to raid deep into Rohilla territory east of Agra.19 It was becoming increasingly clear that the future lay once again with the Marathas, and that the days of Afghan domination were now over.
In contrast to the failing and retreating Durrani monarchy, the Marathas had produced two rival young leaders who had showed both the determination and the military ability to recover and expand Maratha fortunes in the north. The first of these was the young Mahadji Scindia. Of humble origins, Scindia had been chased from the battlefield of Panipat by an Afghan cavalryman who rode him down, wounded him below the knee with his battle axe, then left him to bleed to death. Scindia had crawled to safety to fight another day but he would limp badly from the wound for the rest of his life. Unable to take exercise, Scindia had grown immensely fat. He was, however, a brilliant politician, capable, canny and highly intelligent.20
His great rival, Tukoji Holkar, had also narrowly survived death on the plains of Panipat, but was a very different man. A dashing bon viveur, with a fondness for women and drink, but with little of his rival’s subtlety or intelligence, he and Scindia disagreed on most matters, and their nominal overlord, the Maratha Peshwa, had had to intervene repeatedly to warn the two rival warlords to stop squabbling and cooperate with each other. But both men did agree that this was the right moment to revive Maratha power in Hindustan, and that the best way of cementing this would be to install Shah Alam back in Delhi under their joint protection, and so secure control of his affairs.21 The master of Delhi, they knew, was always the master of Hindustan.
In late 1770 a secret message from Scindia reached Allahabad, offering Shah Alam Maratha protection if he were to return home. In response the Emperor discreetly sent an envoy to both Maratha leaders to explore the possibility of an alliance. Both rival camps responded positively and an understanding was reached. On 15 February 1771, an agreement was settled between the Marathas and Shah Alam’s son, the Crown Prince, who was in Delhi acting as Regent, that the Marathas would drive Zabita Khan and his Afghans out of Delhi, after which Scindia would escort Shah Alam to Delhi and hand over the palace to him. All this would be done in return for a payment by Shah Alam of Rs40 lakh.* The terms were secretly ratified by the Emperor on 22 March 1771.
By the middle of the summer, the Marathas had crossed the Yamuna in force and succeeded in capturing Delhi and expelling Zabita Khan’s garrison. They then forded the upper Ganges and headed deep into Rohilkhand, burning and plundering as they went. Zabita Khan retreated in front of them to Pathargarh, his impregnable fortress in the badlands north-east of Meerut. All the pieces were now in place.22
Only one final matter remained to be decided: the commander of Shah Alam’s new army. Here the Emperor had a rare stroke of luck. His choice fell on a man who would prove to be his greatest asset and most loyal servant. Mirza Najaf Khan had only recently entered Shah Alam’s service. He was the young Persian cavalry officer who had previously distinguished himself against the Company in the service of Mir Qasim.
Still in his mid-thirties, handsome, polished and charming, Najaf Khan had the blood of the royal Persian Safavid dynasty flowing in his veins and was allied through marriage with Nawab Shuja ud-Daula of Avadh. He was a refined diplomat, an able revenue manager and an even more accomplished soldier. He had carefully observed Company tactics and strategy while fighting with Mir Qasim, and learned the art of file-firing, modern European infantry manoeuvres and the finer points of artillery ballistics. The Company officers who met Najaf Khan were impressed: he was ‘high spirited and an active and valiant commander, and of courteous and obliging manners’, wrote William Francklin after meeting him. ‘By his unremitting attention to business, he preserved regularity, and restored order throughout every department.’ More unusually still for the times, he was ‘a humane and benevolent man’.23
Few believed Shah Alam had much of a chance of getting safely back to Delhi. Fewer still believed he had any hope of re-establishing Mughal rule there, or of achieving any meaningful independence from the Marathas, who clearly wished to use him for their own ends, just as the Company had done. But if anyone could help Shah Alam succeed on all these fronts, Najaf Khan was the man.
As the historian Shakir Khan commented, ‘A single courageous, decisive man with an intelligent grasp of strategy is better than a thousand ditherers.’24
Twenty miles on from Allahabad, the Emperor crossed into Avadh and that night arrived at Serai Alamchand. There, on 30 April, he was joined by Nawab Shuja ud-Daula.
The two had not come face to face since both had fled from the battlefield of Buxar seven years earlier. With Shuja came another veteran of that battle, the fearsome Naga commander, Anupgiri Gossain, now ennobled with the Persianate Mughal title, ‘Himmat Bahadur’ – or ‘Great of Courage’. Like everyone else, Shuja tried to dissuade Shah Alam from progressing to Delhi, but ‘finding that His Majesty was firm in his determination’ he agreed to lend the Emperor the services of Anupgiri, along with his force of 10,000 Gossain horse and foot, as well as five cannon, numerous bullock carts full of supplies, tents and Rs12 lakh* in money, ‘believing that if His Majesty joins the Marathas with insufficient troops he will be entirely in their hands’.25 But he declined to come with the Emperor and warned him that he saw the expedition ending badly.26
Shuja’s warnings continued to be echoed by General Barker. The general wrote to the Emperor: ‘the rains have now set in, and the Royal March, if continued, will end in disaster. So long as His Majesty stops at Kora [on the western edge of Avadh] the English troops will be at his service. If, which God forbid, His Majesty goes beyond the boundaries of Kora, and sustains a defeat, we will not hold ourselves responsible.’27
But the Emperor kept his nerve. He stayed nearly three weeks at Serai Alamchand, sequestered in his tent with Mirza Najaf Khan, ‘invisible to every person’, planning every detail of their march and working out together how to overcome the different obstacles. They secretly sent a trusted eunuch ahead with Rs2.5 lakh** in bags of gold to buy influence among the Maratha nobles. His mission was to discover which of the rival young Maratha leaders was more open to Shah Alam’s rule, and to begin negotiations about handing over the Red Fort back into Mughal hands.28
On 2 May, the Emperor packed up and headed westwards by a succession of slow marches until his army reached the last Company cantonment at Bithur, outside Kanpur. Here General Barker came and personally bade the Emperor farewell. He took with him all the British officers of Shah Alam’s army, but as a goodwill gesture left him with two battalions of Company sepoys and a gift of four field guns.29
The following week, Shah Alam’s army trudged in the heat past Kannauj and over the border into Rohilla territory. On 17 July, the monsoon broke in full force over the column, ‘and the very heavy rains which have fallen impeded his progress’ as the axles of his artillery foundered in the monsoon mud and the elephants waded slowly through roads that looked more like canals than turnpikes.30 Towards the end of August, the Emperor’s damp and bedraggled army finally reached Farrukhabad, dripping from the incessant rains. Here the Emperor faced his first real challenge.
The Rohilla Nawab of Farrukhabad, Ahmad Khan Bangash, had just died. Shah Alam decided to demonstrate his resolve by demanding that all the Nawab’s estates should now escheat to the crown, in the traditional Mughal manner. His demands were resisted by the Nawab’s grandson and successor, who gathered a Rohilla army, surrounded and cut off the Emperor’s column, and prepared to attack the imperial camp. Shah Alam sent urgent messages to Mahadji Scindia, requesting immediate military assistance. This was the moment of truth: would the Marathas honour t
heir promise and become imperial protectors, or would they stand by and watch their new protégé be attacked by their Afghan enemies?
Two days later, just as the Rohillas were preparing for battle, several thousand of Scindia’s Marathas appeared over the horizon. The young Bangash Nawab saw that he was now outnumbered and appealed for peace, quickly agreeing to pay Shah Alam a peshkash (tribute) of Rs7 lakh* in return for imperial recognition of his inheritance. The Shah confirmed the young man in his estates, then moved with his winnings to Nabiganj, twenty miles from Farrukhabad, to spend the rest of the monsoon.31
On 18 November, Mahadji Scindia finally came in person to the imperial camp. He was led limping into the Emperor’s durbar by Prince Akbar, as everyone watched to see whether the Maratha chieftain would conform to Mughal court etiquette and offer full submission to the Emperor. After a moment’s hesitation, to the relief of the Mughals, Scindia prostrated himself before the Emperor, ‘laid his head at the Emperor’s feet, who raised him up, clasped him to his bosom and praised him. On account of his lameness, he was ordered to sit down in front of the Emperor’s gold chair.’32 Scindia then offered the Emperor nazars (ceremonial gifts), signifying obedience, after which the Emperor ‘graciously laid the hands of favor upon his back. After two hours he received leave of absence and returned to his Encampment.’33
Two days later, Scindia returned for a second visit, and the two leaders, the Mughal and the Maratha, worked out their plans and strategy. On 29 November, the newly confederated armies struck camp and together headed on towards Delhi.34
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