90Financial Collapse and Restatement of the Imperial Myth The Persian invasion in 1739 substantially drained the wealth of the Mughal empire. Whatever was left in the imperial treasury was distributed among those mansabdars and risaladars (commanders of small army units) who had not received their emoluments for years. It was promised that their debts to the traders would be cleared after the victory over Nadir Shah.77 Again, in the wake of the invasion, foodgrains became scarce.78 This was followed by an indiscriminate massacre and the sack of Delhi by the Persian soldiers. Noted ganjs and mandis (grain markets) of the city, namely, Azimganj, Ganj Shahdara, and Ganj Khas Mahal were turned into ruins. After that prices in Delhi soared so high that even one or half a ser of foodgrains could not be had at a rupee.79
(p.53) Though the Mughal empire is reported in a contemporary account to have a jama (assessed revenue) of over 40 crore of rupees in our period, the imperial treasury at Delhi possessed little in 1740.80
In 1741 when Nadir Shah sent his agents to collect the effects of Shuja-ud- Daulah and Sarfaraz Khan, the governors of Bengal, the revenue that was sent from this province to the court was very small and the emperor was advised to write to Nadir Shah for an exemption so that he could spend the Bengal treasury on the necessities of the court. It is, however, to be noted that the emperor
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managed to secure some amount in debt from Sita Ram and the other traders of Delhi and handed over twenty lakh rupees to the agents of Nadir Shah.81 After that the Mughal empire headed towards total financial collapse. In the wake of the Maratha inroads into Bengal, the revenue of the province which had so far been the mainstay of the imperial economy ceased to come. Excessive rain causing heavy damage to the standing rabi crops in 1747 further complicated the difficulties.82 In 1748 when Muhammad Shah died the empire was totally bankrupt.83 But Safdar Jang, the governor of Awadh, could still afford to spend over Rs 40,00,000 on the marriage of his son, Shuja-ud-Daulah in 1745,84 while the Delhi merchants continued to be able to help the emperor in need.
It is true that Nadir Shah’s invasion, on the one hand shook Delhi to its foundation, on the other it also awakened the emperor and a section of the nobility to the need of recouping the central army to avoid such humiliation in future. They made some attempts in this direction, but in vain. This is illustrated, among other things, from the pathetic failure in raising a new royal army. The raising of the army began with ten thousand sawars (cavalry) and piyadas (infantry) with a monthly payment of Rs 50 to each trooper. Soon the strength of the army increased and a number of eminent nobles, such as Sad-ud-Din Khan, (p.54) Hafiz-ud-Din Khan, Muhammad Sa‘id Khan, Azam Khan and his sons and Bairam Khan and Sarbuland Khan were given the commands of its different units. As the sword (shamsher) was the mark of the branding (dagh) of the horses of the army, it came to be known as the risala-i shamsher dagh. In the meanwhile, the old troopers who had dispersed in 1739 also collected together and reformed the old imperial army (risala). Since Delhi did not receive enough revenue from the provinces to pay the emoluments of the new recruits and the old troopers together, the strength of the new risala was reduced to 50 per cent. Yet the central exchequer could not meet the pay-claims of the troopers of the new risala. In 1743 Amir Khan, therefore, convinced the emperor of the futility of spending such a sum on a standing army. The risala was subsequently disbanded without the payment of the arrears of nine months to the soldiers. Eventually, Asad Yar Khan, the noble-in-charge of the risala, had to dispose of some of his own assets and thus paid the arrears of the mutinous troopers.85
The emperor’s order to Safdar Jang to lead an expedition to assist Ali Virdi Khan against the Marathas probably again represented an assertion of the centre’s authority over the province in the 1740s. According to some contemporary accounts, Safdar Jang was deputed by the emperor primarily to collect the revenue that had been withheld by Ali Virdi Khan in Bengal.86 The Rohilla campaign in 1745 at the instance of Safdar Jang and Amir Khan was also an expression of the same endeavour. In this context it may also be noted that the emperor was an active party in court politics in the 1740s. His attempt to reorganize the army, recall Amir Khan, his favourite, from Allahabad, together with the appointment as mir atish (imperial artillary chief) of Safdar Jang, who was a friend of Amir Khan, and finally his connivance at the assassination of
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Amir Khan, all indicated an effort towards the restoration of the pivotal position of the emperor.87
Nonetheless, these steps could hardly help in restoring the imperial power. A major reason for the dismal result was obviously the (p.55) financial crisis of the imperial centre. However, the unusual part taken by the nobles, who had staked their interests principally in one or another province, in court politics is worth considering. In 1745 it was Safdar Jang, the governor of Awadh, who emerged as the chief supporter of the emperor. But ironically, Safdar Jang, virtually as an independent ruler of Awadh, himself represented one of the agencies of disintegration of the imperial structure. The ambivalence inherent in Safdar Jang’s position is revealed in the case of the Rohilla campaign. Safdar Jang, as mir atish at the centre advocated the policy of coercion as against compromise, while in Awadh, as its governor, he extended the privileges to the as yet new categories of local magnates in order to conciliate them and build up his power base.
The case of Safdar Jang’s interest in the centre highlighted the necessity of maintaining the imperial framework. Those who had greater ambitions in the regions aspired for higher offices at the court, since it was still the only source of legitimate political authority. Awadh, the Punjab, Farrukhabad, Anola and Benaras, as we shall see later, had emerged as virtually autonomous principalities in north India. But ‘legally’ these principalities were tied with the Mughal court. Whatever the nature of the forces of disintegration, the person of the Mughal emperor represented order and authority, albeit symbolically. The news of the death of Muhammad Shah in 1748 led to a breakdown of ‘law and order’.88 Thus, even in the 1740s, not only the nobles who had carved out their principalities, but also the Marathas vied with each other in securing office at the Mughal court.
The necessity of emphasizing imperial symbols was inherent in the kind of power politics that emerged in different parts of the erstwhile Mughal empire in the eighteenth century. As the emergence of the new power structures in the provinces followed the decline of the long accepted legitimate imperial organization of the Mughals, each of them, in proportion to its strength, looked for and seized opportunities to establish its dominance over the others in its neighbourhood. But each of them also resisted any such attempt by the other. For legitimacy, they sought the ‘hegemony’ of the Mughal central government which had (p.56) come to coexist with their ambitions. In one of the regions of our study, for example, which we shall see in detail in Chapter 7, the rise of the Benaras zamindari synchronized with the emergence of the new subadari of the governor of Awadh, the latter being obviously more powerful and capable of suppressing the former. In a bid to avert such a danger, the zamindar of Benaras tried to establish direct access to the emperor. Similarly, the Afghans of Farrukhabad and Anola on the western borders of Awadh tried to protect their
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interests in the region by seeking legitimacy from Delhi. In the absence of a new paramount power it served regional interests to sustain the myth of Mughal imperial authority. This feature of political developments in our period not only provided continued nourishment to the symbols of imperial authority, but also reactivated politics at the Mughal court in the 1740s. The nobles who had carved out principalities for themselves in the provinces attempted to obtain high offices at the centre in order to sustain their local/regional positions. This, however, represented also a failure of developments in these areas which could not evolve anything other than the Mughal paradigm within a limited context.