The Anarchy

by William Dalrymple

  On 17 July, the Rohillas arrived and camped at Shahdara, on the opposite bank of the Yamuna to the Red Fort. There was much nervousness in the palace, but the Emperor remained calm, insisting that there was no cause for alarm: ‘I do not know why this young orphan should be an object of such hostility,’ he said. ‘This Ghulam Qadir is a child of His Majesty’s house and has eaten his salt.* What possibility is there that he would take any rash or violent steps? This is all just calumny spread by the populace. Calm down, my children.’104

  Over the course of the next few days, however, two things happened which made the presence of the Rohillas much more threatening. Firstly, Ghulam Qadir received a message from the elderly widow of the Emperor Ahmad Shah, the Dowager Empress, Malika-i-Zamani Begum, a former ally of Ghulam Qadir’s grandfather, Najib ud-Daula. She offered twelve lakhs** to the Rohillas if they would depose Shah Alam and replace him on the throne with her grandson, the Emperor’s young cousin, Bedar Bakht. Secondly, Anupgiri Gossain, who was encamped with his small battalion at Qudsia Bagh, took fright at the growing size of the Rohilla force on the opposite bank and on the night of the 28th decamped with his troops in the dark to look for reinforcements – or so he later said.†

  At first light on the 29th, the Rohillas saw that there was no longer anyone guarding the Yamuna crossing and that even the city gates were unmanned. ‘With the speed of lightning and wind’, Ghulam Qadir quickly crossed with a boatload of men and military equipment.105 He landed at his old home of Qudsia Bagh, and, before the Mughals could react, seized the Kashmiri Gate. He placed his own men on the parapet, while he waited for the ferries to bring across his siege guns and the rest of the troops.

  When 2,000 Rohillas had crossed, he marched them down through the town, straight to the Red Fort where, finding the gates barred, he took up position at the Golden Mosque in front of the Delhi Gate, and sent a message inside: ‘This house-born intimate of the court has suffered from the hands of fate and seeks refuge in the royal shadow, hoping for a kind reception!’106

  ‘The Rohillas swore [on the Quran] that they had no intention of doing any harm,’ wrote the Maratha newswriter. ‘They said they only wanted that the Emperor should lay his gracious hand on their heads. After Ghulam Qadir had taken a formal oath swearing he came to his sovereign in peace and as an ally, the Emperor sent his eunuchs to tell him he would admit him to an audience, but only with ten or twenty followers.’107 However, the Head Eunuch, Mansur Ali Khan, who was also the Nazer, or Overseer of the Fort Administration, had saved Ghulam Qadir’s life at the fall of Pathargarh and now wished to reingratiate himself. Against the Emperor’s orders, he opened the great double gates of the Fort and allowed the Afghan to march in all 2,000 of his men. ‘The Nazer gave over the gates of the Fort into the hands of Ghulam Qader Khan’s men,’ wrote Khair ud-Din. ‘Ghulam Qader Khan, now inside the Fort, posted his Rohilla military chiefs to keep watch over the thoroughfares and passages and gates, both external and internal, of the Fort and royal apartments.’108

  The soldiers of Najaf Khan’s Red Platoon were still eager to fight. In the Diwan-i-Khas throne room, Shah Alam’s favourite son, Prince Akbar, gathered the other young Mughal shahzadas and asked for permission to engage: ‘One choice is yet left,’ he said. ‘If you will allow us, we brothers will fall upon these traitors, and will bravely encounter martyrdom.’ But the Emperor shook his head: ‘No one can escape the decrees of the Almighty,’ he said. ‘There is no contending against doom. The power is now in the hands of others.’109

  Ghulam Qadir moved quickly. The royal guards and the princes were immediately disarmed. The guards were expelled from the Fort and the princes locked up in Aurangzeb’s white marble Moti Masjid. Then Ghulam Qadir, in what would at any other time be regarded as an unpardonable breach of etiquette, sat down on the cushions of the imperial throne next to the Emperor, ‘passed an arm familiarly round his neck and blew tobacco smoke into his sovereign’s face’.110 So began what the Maratha newswriter described as a ‘dance of the demons’, a reign of terror which lasted for nine weeks.111

  That evening, Ghulam Qadir retired to the camp he had set up in one of the palace gardens, the Hayat Baksh Bagh. The following morning, the 30th, the Rohilla returned to the throne chamber. ‘When the King saw him trespassing onto the Privy Seat (sarir-e khas), he began reproaching him softly: “I trusted our verbal agreement and the oath you swore on the Holy Quran,”’ said the Emperor. ‘I see I was deceived.’

  While he was still speaking, the Rohilla summoned Prince Bedar Bakht. Ghulam Qadir stepped forward, and took the Emperor’s dagger from his girdle, then without a word sent the Emperor off to the imperial prison of Salimgarh, and placed Bedar Bakht on the throne. Drums were beaten and coins struck in the name of the new Emperor, Bedar Shah.112 ‘The Emperor could only bite the hand of astonishment with the teeth of reflection.’113

  According to the newswriter’s despatch, ‘Ghulam Qadir then demanded from [the boy’s grandmother] Malika-i-Zamani Begum the promised money.’

  She came from her mansion in the city to the fort and said, ‘after searching the people of the imperial mahals and the Begums, I shall provide you the money. If you act by my advice, all your affairs will flourish.’ ‘The money and the property in the fort now all belong to me,’ replied Ghulam Qadir. ‘You have to give me what you promised.’

  Ghulam Qadir then confiscated all the money, furniture and wardrobes of Shah Alam, and the jewels and gold and silver vessels from the imperial stores. Then he searched the Begums and the princesses and seized whatever ornaments and clothes were found, so that even the clothes they wore were taken away and they were left with only their noses and ears intact. Then, stripping the male inhabitants of the fort, and the inhabitants of Delhi who had gone there for safety, he turned them out and seized all their property. He began to dig up the floors of the houses. He remarked, ‘Shah Alam attempted to ruin my house, and in concert with the Marathas and Mirza Najaf Khan went to Pathargarh and dishonoured my women. Even now he wishes to summon Scindia and devastate my house. I have no option but to take retribution.’114

  The cupola of the golden mosque was stripped of its gold leaf.115 ‘With the complicity of the Nazer Mansur Ali Khan, they stretched out the hand of oppression on the people of the city.’116 Before long, Rs25 crore of jewels* had been disgorged from the city’s jewellers and bankers. While he looted the city and the palace, according to Azfari, the Rohilla, ‘day and night gave himself over to great quantities of various intoxicants, particularly to bhang, bauza [beer-like booze] and ganja’.117

  Gradually, Ghulam Qadir became more and more savage. The servants began to be hung upside down and tortured over fires to reveal hiding places of the Emperor’s treasure.118 ‘Some maid-servant dancing girls and providers of pleasure favoured by Shah Alam were brought in without veil or covering; they were taken to the daira camp where they were made to pleasure drunken louts.’119 The Head Eunuch Mansur Ali was dragged through a latrine and left nearly to drown in the sewer beneath: ‘Ghulam Qadir called out to his henchmen: “If this traitor (namak-haram) doesn’t produce the seven lakhs rupees** within the next watch, stuff his mouth with excrement!”’120 When the eunuch protested that he had saved Ghulam Qadir’s life as a baby, the latter replied, ‘Do you not know the old proverb, “to kill a serpent and spare its young is not wise”.’

  According to a report sent to Warren Hastings, ‘the new King Bedar Shah was not allowed a change of raiment and was obliged to beg Ghulam Qadir for a rupee to buy a meal; but the Rohilla refused to see him when his Majesty went on foot to beg. The old Queens of Muhammed Shah [Rangila] who had seen Delhi in its utmost splendour before the invasion of Nader Shah, were forced from their Houses and their property ransacked. Shah Alam was seven days without any food but coarse bread & water.’121

  Ghulam Qadir was convinced that the Emperor was still hiding many of his treasures from him, so on 10 August he summoned him and the princes back from the Salimgarh prison. Acc
ording to Khair ud-Din, the Rohillas first ‘ordered that Prince Akbar and Prince Sulaiman Shukoh should be bound and whipped by the carpet spreaders … so that blood gushed from their mouths and noses. Shah Alam exclaimed, “whatever is to be done, do it to me! These are young and innocent.” Then Ghulam Qadir said to some truculent Afghans, “Throw this babbler down and blind him.”’122

  Shah Alam looked straight at Ghulam Qadir and asked: ‘What? Will you destroy those eyes that for a period of sixty years have been assiduously employed in perusing the sacred Quran?’123 But the appeal to religion had no effect on the Afghan.

  Those men threw him down, and passed the needle into his eyes. They kept him down on the ground by striking him with blows from sticks, and Ghulam Qadir asked derisively if he saw anything. He replied, ‘Nothing but the Holy Koran between me and you.’ All night long he and his children and the women of his palace kept up loud cries. Ghulam Qadir remained that night in the Moti Mahal and hearing these cries, he writhed like a snake, and directed his servants to beat and kill those who made them. But the men dreaded the questioning of the day of judgement, and held back their hands.

  The next day, Ghulam Qadir said to Bedar Shah, ‘Come out and I will show you a sight.’ Ghulam Qadir then went to Shah Alam, and said, ‘Find me some gold, or I will send you to join the dead.’ Shah Alam reviled and reproached him, saying, ‘I am in your power, cut off my head for it is better to die than to live like this.’

  Ghulam Qadir Khan jumped up and, straddling his victim’s chest, ordered Qandahari Khan and Purdil Khan to pinion his hands to his neck and hold down his elbows. With his Afghan knife [contrary to the usual practice of blinding with needles] Qandahari Khan first cut one of Shah Alam’s eyes out of its socket, then the other eye was wrenched out by that impudent rascal. Shah Alam flapped on the ground like a chicken with its neck cut.

  Ghulam Qadir then gave orders that the needle should be passed into the eyes of Prince Akbar, Suleiman Shikoh and Ahsan Bakht. The imperial ladies then came out from behind their curtains, and threw themselves at the feet of Ghulam Qadir; but he kicked them in the breasts and sent them away saying, ‘Pinion all three and I will consider what to do with them another time.’ He then ordered some followers to beat them until they were senseless and throw them back into prison. Then he called for a painter, and said, ‘Paint my likeness at once, sitting, knife in hand, upon the breast of Shah Alam, digging out his eyes.’ He then forbade his attendants to bring any food and water, either to Shah Alam or his sons.124

  That night three valets and two water-carriers tried to relieve the Emperor’s thirst. Ghulam Qadir ordered all five, in succession, to be killed, and their bodies left to rot where they had fallen, next to the sobbing Emperor.

  On the 25th, Ghulam Qadir turned his attention to the imperial princes. Just as he may once have been turned into a catamite, so now it was his turn to humiliate the males of the royal house. Twenty of the princes, including the future Emperors Akbar Shah and his son, Bahadur Shah Zafar, were then forced to sing and dance for the Rohilla officers: ‘However much they attempted to refuse his demands, he would not listen, merely commenting: “I’ve been hearing, for some time now, wonderful reports about your dancing and singing!”’

  Then Ghulam Qadir turned to the guards and barked: ‘If they dare to make any more excuses, have their beards shaven off, indeed, have their whole bodies clean shaven!’ The princes and their sons had no choice but to obey the order, and so started making music and dancing, gyrating their hips and shoulders and necks. He was aroused and delighted by their performance and asked: ‘What reward would you like me bestow on you?’ They replied: ‘Our father and our children have urgent need of food and water, we would be grateful for your permission to have these provided.’

  He signed an order to that effect, dismissed his henchmen, and settled down to go to sleep with his head on the knees of the Crown Prince Mirza Akbar Shah, having taken off his sword and dagger and placed them within sight and reach of the princes. He closed his eyes for an hour, then got up and gave each of the princes a violent slap, calling out derisively: ‘You are prepared so passively to swallow all this, and still you delude yourselves that you could become kings? Huh! I was testing you: if you had one little spark of manly honour in your heart, you would have grabbed my sword and dagger and made quick work of me!’ Heaping them with abuse, he dismissed them from his presence and sent them back to prison.125

  In despair, a few of the princes threw themselves over the ramparts of the palace and were drowned in the Yamuna. In time, several others died from hunger: ‘Salty the Eunuch (Namakin Khwaja-sara) entered to announce that a ten-year-old child of Shah Alam had just expired of thirst and hunger. But the Rohilla shouted: “Just dig a hole where it fell and throw it in, and don’t bother to change the clothes it was wearing!”’126

  In the days which followed, Ghulam Qadir broke the last remaining taboo as he turned his attention on the sacred, forbidden royal women. On 29 August, the Dowager Empress Malika-i-Zamani Begum was stripped of her clothes and left in the sun without food or water. The same day a number of the younger princesses were stripped naked, minutely searched ‘in every orifice’, fondled, flogged, then raped. Victorian translations of the sources have censored these passages, but the Persian original of Khair ud-Din tells the whole brutal story. One evening, Ghulam Qadir was told of ‘the beautiful daughters of Mirza Hika and Mirza Jhaka; so that evening, he had those poor unfortunates brought to the Moti Mahal and had them placed before him without veil or covering, and lost himself in gazing on their beauty’.

  He then invited in his like-minded most intimate henchmen into that private place to show them those peerless beauties and then gave them each to be enjoyed at leisure and in sin. When Bedar Shah heard what was going on, he beat his head and chest and sent a mace-bearer to that lying trickster to stop it. The official came back making excuses, saying: ‘What can a servant like me say to a warlord like him?’

  Bedar Shah then appealed to Ghulam Qadir in person, shouting: ‘You cannot behave like this, it’s outrageous, even to the daughters of your enemy! The sins of the fathers are not to be visited on their children! Not once did Shah Alam even look disrespectfully at your father’s daughters or sisters! Stop behaving like this!’ But Ghulam Qadir just threw a stone at him: ‘I want to have these girls sent into my harem as my concubines, to fuck them at will! I want to give all the princes’ daughters to my Afghans: from their sperm will arise a new generation of young men, manly and courageous! During the sack of Pathargarh, the royal officers behaved much worse than this with my father’s serving-maids! Just think you are witnessing a return of those times when my henchmen grab the princesses and take them off to their own quarters to enjoy them without even a token marriage ceremony.’127

  As Azfari put it: ‘If even a fraction of the calamities and misfortunes of this time be described, if it be heard, anyone hearing it would go deaf. And if your hearing were to survive, and if you were still capable of compassion, your gall bladder would surely burst with sorrow.’128

  It took until the middle of September for Mahadji Scindia to gather sufficient troops and war materiel to come to the Emperor’s aid. It was again the monsoon and progress was slow for, as usual, the flooded roads made all movements impossibly difficult. It was not until the 21st that the Maratha force arrived at Shahdara. There they liaised with Anupgiri’s warrior Gossains and a battalion of sepoys sent from Sardhana by the Begum Sumru and the man with whom she had taken up since the death of her husband in April 1778. This was an Irish mercenary called George Thomas, ‘the Raja from Tipperary’, a one-time cabin boy who had jumped ship in Madras and made a name for himself as a talented artilleryman and caster of cannon.

  To lead his attack on Ghulam Qadir, Scindia had sent two of his most trusted lieutenants. One was Rana Khan, who seventeen years earlier had found Scindia bleeding to death in a ditch after the Battle of Panipat, and had carried him to safety. In thanks for saving his l
ife and nursing him back to health, Scindia had trained up this Muslim former bhisti, or water-carrier; and his own talents and bravery led to his rapid promotion to be one of Scindia’s most senior generals. The other leader of the rescue operation was the refined Savoyard mercenary Benoît de Boigne, who had just been begun training up a modern infantry army for Scindia.

  On 29 September, when the relief force crossed the river, to their surprise they found the city gates open. They made their way through the eerily deserted city, then took up position surrounding the Red Fort, besieging and blockading it as they waited for their artillery to make its slow progress through the monsoon-clogged roads.

  Three days later, at noon on 2 October, just as Scindia’s siege guns were nearing the city, the Delhi skies were rent asunder by a monumental explosion: ‘The sound of it brought to mind the trumpet call of the angel of death on the Day of Judgment,’ wrote Azfari. ‘The darkening of the day from the explosion of the magazine, whose flying gunpowder, cannon, doors and walls blighted the air with dust and fumes, brought to mind the Quranic verse: “When the sun is shrouded in darkness.” The toppling of the battlements of the fort, the breaking of the doors and walls and the collapse of sturdy roofs in the area – all could be rendered by the verse: “And the mountains will be like fluffy tufts of wool.”’

  Inhabitants of my area of the fort, due to their great proximity to the magazine, were killed in large numbers; but several of my brothers and one of my aunts, by the grace of God, were still alive, though they had suffered heavy injuries. The sky was dark as cannon, rocks, bricks and plaster rained down from the air. The sound of groans and cries rose to the sky: we recognised the voices shrieking in distress, but could not see each other’s faces for the dust and smoke. The sound of this terrifying explosion was audible as far away as Bahadur Garh, twenty miles from Delhi. Each man shook and asked: ‘Has the sky fallen down on the earth?’129