No More Learning

Lakshmi
Narayan, the third king of this dynasty (r. 1584-1622), had professed
allegiance to Akbar. A younger branch of the family had been
installed over its eastern districts or Kamrup, i. e. the country between
the Sankosh and Bar Nadi rivers, which the Muslim writers called
Kuch Hajo. In 1612, taking advantage of a contest between the
two branches, the Mughuls conquered and annexed Kuch Hajo, but
this brought them into collision with the Ahoms. These Ahoms were
a branch of the Shan race, who had crossed the Patkai range in
the thirteenth century and established a kingdom of their own over
eastern and central Assam. They were a hardy race of demon-
worshippers, expert in building stockades, plying boats, and making
night attacks. Their society was organised on a feudal basis, under
a number of official nobles, who cultivated their estates by slave
labour. Their army consisted entirely of infantry, stiffened with
elephants; but during their wars with Bengal they had learnt the
use of firearms. Their king was the patriarch of the clan and was
venerated as a semi-divine being. After much desultory fighting with
.
the Mughuls of Kuch Hajo, the Ahom king made peace in 1638,
recognising the boundary line of the Bar Nadi.
During the war of succession, when Bengal was depleted of soldiers
and left without a governor, the Rajas of Cooch Benar and Assam
had sent troops from the west and the east respectively to seize the
Mughul district of Kamrup lying between their realms. The Muslim


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234
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
local officers had fled away from their charge, and the Ahoms had
occupied Gauhati and plundered the whole district, driving out the
Cooch Behar forces. When the civil war ended, Mir Jumla was
appointed viceroy of Bengal (June, 1660), with orders to punish these
rebel rajas. Leaving Dacca on 11 November, 1661, with an army of
12,000 horse and 30,000 foot, and a flotilla of 323 vessels of different
classes, Mir Jumla captured the capital of Cooch Behar (29 Decem-
ber) without a blow, as the raja and his officers had vacated it in
terror. The kingdom was annexed to the Mughul empire, and then
the general set out (14 January, 1662) on the invasion of Assam.
His men had to undergo unspeakable hardship in making their way
through the dense jungle and across numberless streams, but all their
sufferings were shared by their chief. The Ahom army offered
feeble resistance and kept retreating up the Brahmaputra, so that
the imperialists captured the successive forts on the way-Jogigupha,
Gauhati, Srighat, Pandu, Beltala, Kajali, Samdhara and Simla-garh.
In a naval battle fought on 13 March Mir Jumla annihilated the
enemy's naval power, and finally on 17 March entered their deserted
capital Garhgaon. The spoils taken were immense : 82 elephants,
three hundred thousand rupees, 675 pieces of artillery, 1345 zam-
buraks (swivels), 6750 matchlocks, and 1000 odd boats, besides much
gun-powder and paddy.
The Raja of Assam and his nobles having fled far away to the
hills, Mir Jumla could not conclude any treaty with them, but
decided to hold the country during the coming rainy season. The
Ahom capital, containing all the artillery, elephants, stores and
property of the Mughul army, was occupied by a strong garrison,
while the general himself went into quarters at Mathurapur, a high-
lying village, seven miles south-east of it. Many outposts were set
up for guarding the routes. The fleet could not sail up to Garhgaon,
on account of the shallowness of the river near that city; it, therefore,
anchored at Lakhau, some eighteen miles north-west. This was the
fatal weakness of the imperialists' position.
During the rainy season, from May to October, the country was
flooded, the movement of troops by land became impossible, the
imperial outposts were isolated, and the Mughul army in Assam
had to live in a state of siege. No provisions or news could come
from Bengal or from the fleet, as the gun-boats were too heavy to
navigate the shallow river near Garhgaon and the roads were sub-
merged. For lack of proper food, cavalry horses and draught cattle
perished by the thousand. On 20 May the Ahoms captured the
outposts at Gajpur and thus cut off communications between the
Mughul army and navy. Around Garhgaon they concentrated and
kept the garrison in perpetual alarm by attacks almost every night.
Several assaults in force were delivered, and in one of them the
bamboo fence of the fort was pierced and half the enclosure seized.
1
1


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MIR JUMLA IN ASSAM
233
But all these attacks were finally defeated by the exertion of every
man in the garrison.
In August a terrible epidemic broke out in Mir Jumla's camp at
Mathurapur. Fever and flux carried off hundreds daily, reducing the
army to nearly a quarter of its strength; no suitable diet or comfort
was available for the sick. Coarse rice and the meat of commissariat
bullocks were the food of all from the general down to the humblest
soldier. Indeed, the whole of Assam was infected, and 230,000 of its
people died of disease that year. At last the garrison of Mathurapur
fell back on Garhgaon (27 August), abandoning their numberless sick,
But the refugees only infected the garrison of Garhgaon.
Through all these months, the fleet at Lakhau had maintained its
ascendancy on water and kept up its touch with Bengal, and when,
towards the close of October, the land became dry again, it pushed
up large quantities of provisions, under escort, to Garhgaon. Mir
Jumla now resumed the offensive and marched eastwards by way of
Solaguri to Tipam, the Ahom raja and his nobles having again fled
to the hills of Namrup. But the Mughul army to a man refused to
enter these hills of pestilence and unknown magical terror. The
general himself was seized with fainting fits. Fever and pleurisy
supervened, which quickly turned into consumption, and he con-
sented to make peace (December, 1662). The Ahom king agreed
to pay an indemnity of 20,000 tolas of gold, 420,000 tolas 1 of silver
and 110 elephants, to send a daughter to the imperial harem, to
cede to the Mughuls all the territory west of the Bharali river north
of the Brahmaputra and west of the Kallang river on the south
(i. e. more than half the province of Darrang, rich in elephants),
and to give hostages. The princess, hostages and first instalment of the
indemnity having reached his camp, Mir Jumla set out on his return
from Tipam on 20 January, 1663, a dying man, and died on 10 April
before reaching Dacca. His genius had shone with supreme radiance
during this campaign. No other general of that age conducted war
with so much humanity and justice, or kept his soldiers under such
discipline; no other general could have retained to the last the
confidence and affection of his subordinates amidst such appalling
sufferings and dangers. From the first day of the campaign he shared
with the meanest soldier all the privations of the march and siege
and brought premature death upon himself by incessant hard labour.
The Mughuls continued to hold his acquisitions in Assam for four
years after his retreat. But in 1667, the vigorous Ahom king Chakra-
dhvaj renewed the war and recovered all the lost territory, and
even captured Gauhati. Thus, the imperial frontier was pushed back
to the Monas river. A desultory war continued for nine years; but
the Mughul forces were hopelessly small, they had lost their supre-
macy on water, and their general Ram Singh (Raja of Amber) had
1 A tola weighs about 180 grains.


## p. 236 (#270) ############################################

236
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
not his heart in the work, as he had been transferred to that pesti-
lential province as a punishment for his connivance at the escape of
Shivaji from Agra in 1666. After staying for some years at Ranga-
mati doing nothing, he was recalled to court in 1676. In 1679, the
Mughuls, taking advantage of the weakness of the Ahom kings and
dissensions among their nobles, recovered Gauhati by bribery, only
to lose it two years afterwards to the new and war-like king Gadadhar
Singh. Thus, Kamrup was finally lost to the empire. During Mir
Jumla's investment in Garhgaon, Cooch Behar had been recovered
by its raja. But when Shayista Khan came to Bengal as governor,
the raja made his peace (1664) by offering submission and half a
million rupees. Later in the century, the Mughuls annexed the
southern and eastern portions of the kingdom, including the present
districts of Rangpur and western Kamrup.
One of the tasks with which Mir Jumla was charged by the
emperor was the punishment of the pirates of Chittagong and the
recovery of Shuja's family. This work, which he did not live to
attempt, fell to his successor in Bengal, Shayista Khan. The Fenny
river was the boundary between the Burmese (Magh) kingdom of
Arakan and the Mughul empire, but during the reigns of Jahangir
and Shah Jahan the Magh pirates acquired complete domination
over the rivers and creeks of East Bengal. Their naval power was
strengthened by the settlement of Portuguese and half-caste (Feringi)
adventurers in Chittagong, who acted as the agents of the local raja
in these raids. “These pirates, both Magh and Feringi, used con-
stantly to come and plunder Bengal, carrying off the Hindus and
Muslims that they could seize, and employing some of the captives
in degrading tasks and selling others as slaves at the Indian ports. "
Deltaic Bengal was so long and so thoroughly devastated by them
that the riverside parts of the Backergunge and Dacca districts
remained desolate and bare of inhabitants even at the time of
Rennell's survey (1775).
The sailors of the Bengal navvara felt such a terror of the pirates that when-
ever a hundred war-boats of the former sighted only four of the latter, the
Bengal crews thought themselves lucky if they could save their lives by flight.
Latterly the Raja of Arakan had ceased to send his own fleet to plunder Mughul
territory, as he considered the Feringi pirates in the light of his servants and
shared the booty with them half and half. 1
Bernier describes these Portuguese as "Christians only in name; the
lives led by them were most detestable, massacring or poisoning one
another without compunction or remorse”. During their raids they
practised fiendish cruelty on the people, men, women and children,
whom they could catch, and their name Harmad (=Armada) is
associated with horror and loathing in contemporary Bengali lite-
rature. Their ravages caused great loss to the imperial revenue and
prestige in Bengal.
1 Sarkar, J. N. , in Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1907, p. 423.


## p. 237 (#271) ############################################

CONQUEST OF CHITTAGONG
237
Shayista Khan first set himself to create a navy anew, as the
Bengal flotilla had practically ceased to exist during the Assam war
and the subsequent confusion and maladministration, though there
was an annual grant of 142 million rupees for its maintenance. With
great energy within one year he built and manned a fleet of 300
vessels, and protected Dacca by water on the south. Next, he con-
quered the island of Sandwip, at the head of the Bay of Bengal,
as it was a convenient half-way house between Dacca and Chitta-
gong (November, 1665). He next bribed the Feringi colony of
Chittagong, who were then quarrelling with the local raja, to migrate
suddenly with their families and ships to Mughul territory (December,
1665)—the site of their new homes in Dacca town being still called
Feringi-bazar.
"The coming over of the Feringis gave composure to the minds
of the people of Bengal”, and on 24 December an expedition by land
and sea left Dacca for Chittagong, under the governor's son Buzurg
Ummed Khan and admiral Ibn Husain. The fleet moved close to
the coast, while the army marched parallel to it, cutting a way
through the jungle and naturally lagging some distance behind. The
brunt of the fighting fell on the fleet (288 vessels) or rather on the
forty ships of the Feringis which formed the imperial vanguard.
Two battles were fought at sea (2 and 3 February, 1666) in which
the Maghs were defeated and driven back upon Chittagong. A third
battle, in the river below that town, resulted in the entire Magh
squadron (135 vessels) of that region being captured. The fort of
Chittagong capitulated to the fleet on 5 February, when the land
force also arrived.
Chittagong was made the seat of a Mughul commandant and its
name was changed to Islamabad. Thousands of Bengal peasants, so
long held there in serfdom by the pirates, were now released and
restored to their homes. The Mughuls advanced up to the port of
Ramu, but soon abandoned it as too distant an outpost. Chittagong,
however, has remained attached to Bengal ever since.
Aurangzib was the champion of Muslim orthodoxy, and yet he
had to wage many wars with his fanatical Muslim subjects of the
north-western frontier. The causes were political and economic, not
religious. The Afghan clans living in and around the passes leading
out of India into Afghanistan have followed highway robbery as a
hereditary profession from time immemorial. Their fields yield too
scanty a sustenance for their fast growing numbers, and stout hearts,
strong muscles and cunning brains do not remain satisfied with the
poor and slow gains of agriculture, as compared with the plunder of
industrious and tame plainsmen and of rich traders passing within
easy reach. The Mughul emperors had learnt by bitter experience
that it was cheaper to bribe these hillmen, as a means of keeping
the passes open and the valleys at their foot safe, than to coerce the


## p. 238 (#272) ############################################

238
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
robbers. A sum of 600,000 rupees was annually allotted by Aurang-
zib's government for paying subsidies to the various border chieftains
and headmen of families. But even these political pensions did not
always ensure peace on the frontier. In every generation some
leader of ungratified ambition would gather together a band of fiery
youths and raid the imperial territory or the villages of his rivals.
The pressure of growing population made peace and a static condition
impossible on this frontier.
Early in 1667 the Yusufzai clan, living in Swat and Bajaur and
the north Peshawar plain, rose under Bhagu, who crowned a pre-
tended scion of their ancient kings under the title of Muhammad
Shah, and crossing the Indus above Attock invaded the Hazara
district, and attacked the imperial outposts there. Other Yusufzai
bands plundered the western Peshawar and Attock districts. Then
they came over to the south side of the Indus at Harun, in order to
prevent any Mughul force from crossing into their country at this
ferry. But Kamil Khan, the commandant of Attock, defeated and
expelled them with heavy slaughter (11 April). Next month Shamsher
Khan, with a larger army, crossed the Indus, entered the Yusufzai
country, and leaving an entrenched camp at Und ravaged the corn-
fields in the level country of Mandrawar. Then advancing farther
he captured many of their villages, burning down the houses, looting
the property and destroying all vestiges of cultivation, up to the
Panjshir river.
At the beginning of September the supreme command was assumed
by Muhammad Amin Khan at the head of a large force, and his
hard blows quieted the rebel clansmen for some years.
In 1672 the tactless action of the commandant of Jalalabad caused
another explosion among the Khyber clans. The Afridis rose under
their chieftain Akmal Khan, a born general, who crowned himself
king and proclaimed a holy war against the Mughuls, summoning all
the Pathans to join the national movement. Muhammad Amin Khan,
now governor of Afghanistan, was enveloped and attacked by the
Afridis at 'Ali Masjid (1 May) and cut off from his water supply.
Disorder seized the Mughul army; horses, elephants and men became
mixed together in confusion. Then the Afghans charged down the
hillside, completing the ruin of the imperialists. Muhammad Amin and
some of his higher officers escaped, but everything else was lost : ten
thousand men were slain, the entire camp property, valued at twenty
million rupees, was plundered, and 20,000 men and women (including
the viceroy's mother, wife and daughter) were dragged into captivity.
This signal success lured more recruits to Akmal's banners, and the
rising rapidly spread through the entire Pathan land "from Attock
to Qandahar”. Khush-hal Khan, the poet and hero of the Khattak
clan, now joining Akmal, became the leading spirit of the national
rising and inspired the tribesmen with his pen and sword alike.


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WARS WITH FRONTIER AFGHANS
239
The emperor degraded Muhammad Amin Khan, and recalling
Mahabat Khan from the Deccan sent him to Kabul as viceroy for
the fourth time. But this general made a secret pact with the Afghans
on condition of mutual forbearance, and so the Khyber route
remained closed. Aurangzib was displeased and sent Shuja'at Khan
in independent command of a large force with abundant artillery
(November, 1673). He was a man of humble birth who had risen
to the emperor's favour by his ability, and therefore the high-born
officers regarded him with jealousy, while he treated them with
insolent contempt. This led to a lack of co-operation between them
and a Mughul disaster on 3 March, 1674, when Shuja'at Khan was
cut off in the Karapa pass, but the remnant of his force was rescued
by Jasvant Singh's Rajputs.
To restore imperial prestige in this quarter, Aurangzib himself
went to Hasan Abdal (6 July, 1674) near Peshawar, and stayed there
for a year and a half directing the operations. Mahabat Khan was
removed from the viceroyalty, and under the master's eyes imperial
diplomacy and imperial arms alike succeeded. Many clans were
bought over with pensions and posts for their headmen, while the
lands of the refractory were ravaged by strong detachments operating
from Peshawar. Thus, in a short time the Ghorai, Ghilzai, Shirani
and Yusufzai clans were crushed, and others peacefully submitted.
Great deeds were done by the Turki general Uighur Khan, who had
often before distinguished himself in fighting the Afghans. He first
defeated a Mohmand attack and ravaged their homes; but his
attempt to open the Khyber pass failed after heavy fighting near
‘Ali Masjid. He next occupied Ningrahar and opened the Jagdalik
pass, expelling the Ghilzais from it. Afghan mothers used to hush
their babies to sleep with Uighur Khan's dreaded name.
In the spring of 1675, Fidai Khan in coming back from Kabul
was attacked at Jagdalik; his van was defeated and its baggage
carried off by the enemy, but his courage and steadiness saved the
rest of the army, while reinforcements under Uighur Khan turned
the check into a victory. But in June next Mukarram Khan while
operating near Khapush in the Bajaur country was lured into an
ambush and repulsed with heavy losses. At the end of August there
were two local reverses; the thanadar of Jagdalik was slain and that
of Barangab and Surkhab was driven out of his post with severe
loss of men. But all the Mughul positions in Afghanistan were
strengthened, and by December, 1675, the situation had sufficiently
improved to enable the emperor to leave the Punjab for Delhi.
The good work done by his army under his eyes was confirmed
by his happy choice of an extraordinarily capable governor for
Afghanistan. Amir Khan, the son of Khalil-ullah, was appointed
viceroy of Kabul in 1677 and continued to govern the province with
signal ability and success till his death in 1698. He set himself to


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240
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
win the hearts of the Afghans and enter into social relations with
them with such success that the chiefs of the clans gave up their shy
and unsocial manners and began to visit him without any suspicion.
Every one of them looked up to him for advice in conducting his
domestic affairs. Under his astute management, they ceased to
trouble the imperial government and spent their energies in inter-
necine quarrels. Once he broke up a confederacy under Akmal
Afridi by secretly instigating the chieftain's followers to ask him to
divide the conquered territory among them. When Akmal declined
on the ground of the insufficiency of the land, the disappointed hill-
men began to return home. And when at last he did make a division,
his other followers left him because of his having shown greater
favour to his own clansmen. Much of Amir Khan's administrative
success was due to the wise counsel, tact and energy of his wife
Sahibji, a daughter of 'Ali Mardan Khan.
The emperor triumphed in Afghanistan by following the policy
of paying subsidies and setting clan against clan. Amir Khan's
diplomacy broke up the confederacy under Akmal, and when that
able leader died the Afridis made terms with the empire. The Khyber
was kept open. But Khush-hal Khan Khattak continued the war
single-handed for many years afterwards, till his own son betrayed
him to the enemy. The fallen chieftain solaced his exile and captivity
by composing stinging verses against Aurangzib.
This Afghan war made the employment of Afghans in the ensuing
Rajput war impossible, though they were just the class of troops
required in that field. Moreover, it relieved the pressure on Shivaji
by draining the Deccan of the best Mughul soldiers and generals for
service on the north-west frontier. The Maratha king took advantage
of this diversion of his enemy's strength to make his dazzling conquest
of the Carnatic (1677) unchecked.
The most important feature of Aurangzib's internal administration
was his deliberate reversal of the policy of his predecessors towards
his non-Muslim subjects and vassal princes, which change of policy
is generally held to have caused the swift downfall of the empire
after his death. But with him it was not a matter of personal caprice
or earthly gain. According to the orthodox interpretation of the
Quranic law, it is the duty of every pious Muslim to "exert himself
in the path of God", or, in other words, to wage holy wars (jihad)
against non-Muslim countries (dar-ul-harb) till they are turned into
re ms of Islam (dar-ul-Islam). In theory the conquered infidel
population is reduced to the status of slaves, but in practice even
idol-worshippers were allowed to share in the modified form of
protection which early Islam granted to the “People of the Book"
(viz. Jews and Christians). A non-Muslim lived under a contract
(zimma) with the state; life and property were spared to him by the
Commander of the Faithful, but he had, in return, to undergo certain


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TEMPLE DESTRUCTION ORDERED
241
political and civil disabilities and pay a capitation tax; he was not
allowed to wear fine dresses, ride on horseback, or carry arms; he
must behave respectfully and submissively to every member of the
dominant sect; and he could not be a citizen of the state. He was
under certain legal disabilities with regard to testimony in law courts,
protection under the criminal law, and in marriage. He must avoid
any offensive publicity in the exercise of his faith and must not erect
any new temple. For not embracing Islam, he had to pay commuta-
tion money (jizya) with marks of humility (Quran, ix. 29). This tax
has been called by some modern writers a fee for exemption from
military service; but the analogy is entirely false, because the army
of the Mughul empire was a purely mercenary body and in no sense
a conscript force or a nation in arms. There was no compulsion on
the Muslim population to enter the army in India, and no fine on
those Muslims who did not enter it; every soldier, Muslim or Hindu,
enlisted voluntarily, and every soldier, Muslim no less than Hindu,
drew the regular salary.
Such was the legal position of the Hindus under Muhammadan
rule. But in practice they enjoyed religious freedom in many periods
through the moderation or indolence of their rulers. When an enemy
capital or rebel stronghold was captured, the temples of the place
were demolished or turned into mosques; but Hindu temples in
general were left unmolested except by certain bigoted sultans like
Firuz Tughluq or Sikandar Lodi.
In his Benares farman, granted on 10 March, 1659, before his
throne was secure, Aurangzib had declared that his religion forbade
the building of new temples but did not enjoin the demolition of
long-standing ones. But his own action both before and after his
accession had not respected this distinction. When acting as governor
of Gujarat (1645), he had not only demolished the new temple of
Chintaman (at Saraspur) but also several old ones. During his second
viceroyalty of the Deccan he had pulled down the temple of Khande
Rao on a hill south of Aurangabad. His first step after his accession
was to forbid old temples to be repaired (1664). A little later his
iconoclastic zeal burst forth in full force. On 19 April, 1669, he
issued a general order to "the governors of all the provinces to
demolish the schools and temples of the infidels and put down their
teaching and religious practices strongly”. Officers were sent to
every pargana to demolish the local temples and the governor had
to send the report of the execution of the order under the seal of
the gazi and attested by pious Shaikhs of the locality. The censors
of public morals (Muhtasibs) appointed to every subdivision and city
had it as their normal duty to go round and destroy Hindu places
of worship within their jurisdiction. So large was the number of
official temple-breakers that a darogha (superintendent) had to be
placed over them to guide and unite their activities. Besides number-
18


## p. 242 (#276) ############################################

242
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
less minor shrines throughout the empire, all the most famous Hindu
places of worship now suffered destruction: the temples of Somnath
at Patan, Vishvanath at Benares and Keshav Dev at Muttra.
Even the loyal state of Jaipur did not escape, sixty-six temples being
demolished at Amber. During the Rajput war, in Udaipur and
Chitor alone in two months 239 temples suffered ruin by his order.
The work of destruction was often accompanied by wanton dese-
cration, such as the slaughtering of cows in the sanctuary and causing
the idols to be trodden down in public squares. 1
On 12 April, 1679, an edict was issued reimposing "the jizya tax
on the unbelievers with the object of spreading Islam and over-
throwing infidel practices". For the purpose of assessment the non-
Muslim population was roughly divided into three classes, poor,
middle class and rich, with incomes below 200 dirhams, 200-10,000
dirhams, and above 10,000 dirhams respectively, the rate of taxation
being 12, 24, and 48 dirhams a year. 2 The professional classes,
merchants and landowners were ranked as rich, and artisans as poor.
The last class paid the tax only when their income exceeded the cost
of maintaining their families. Women, children below fourteen years
of age, slaves, beggars and paupers were exempt from the tax; blind
men, cripples and lunatics paid only when they were “rich"; monks
were untaxed, unless they belonged to wealthy monasteries, in which
case the heads of these houses had to pay. All government officials
were exempted from the tax. A crowd of Hindus that gathered in
Delhi, blocking the road from the fort-gate to the Jami' mosque and
appealing to the emperor to withdraw the tax, was trodden down
by elephants when they did not disperse in spite of warning. A tem-
perate and closely reasoned letter of protest from Shivaji had no
better success. “Many Hindus who were unable to pay turned
Muhammadans to obtain relief from the insults of the collectors. . .
Aurangzib rejoices" (Manucci). The heaviness of the tax interfered
with the adequate flow of grain to the imperial camp bazaars in the
Deccan later in the reign.
We have certain figures from which we can judge of the compara-
tive burden of this religious impost. In Gujarat the land revenue
yielded 11 million rupees and the jizya 500,000. In the city of Bur-
hanpur (1682) the total assessment under this head seems to have
been over 850,000 rupees. The police were under orders to chastise
those Hindus who delayed in making payment.
Similarly, the customs duty was regulated to put pressure on the
Hindus. It was originally fixed at the uniform rate of 21/2 per cent.
ad valorem for all, but in 1665 it was doubled for the Hindu merchants,
1A list with dates and authorities is given in my History of Aurangzib, vol.
II. chap XXXIV, Appendix V.
1
2. A dirham weighed about 47 grains of silver or rather more than a quarter
of a rupee, S. H. Hodivala, J. A. S. B. 1917, p. 45.
1
1
1
1


## p. 243 (#277) ############################################

PERSECUTION OF HINDUS
24 3
and two years later abolished altogether in the case of Muslims, with
the result that the revenue suffered still more from many Hindu
merchants collusively passing off their goods as the property of
Muslims. A third instrument of the policy of luring his subjects to
embrace Islam was the granting of stipends and gifts to converts, and
the offering of posts in the public service, liberation from prison in
the case of convicted criminals or captive rebels, or succession to
disputed estates and principalities on condition of turning Muslim.
Some Muhammadan families in the Punjab still hold letters patent
by which their Hindu ancestors were expressly granted posts as
qanungo or revenue inspectors as a reward of apostasy, qanungoi ba
shart-:-Islam. In 1671 an order was issued that the revenue collectors
of crown lands must all be Muslims and that the Hindu head-clerks
and accountants in all provinces and taluqs (estates) should be dis-
missed in order to make room for Muhammadans. The enforcement
of this order was found to be impossible on account of the lack of
competent Muslims, and therefore the emperor had later to tolerate
Hindus in half of these public posts. In 1668 Hindu religious fairs
were forbidden throughout the empire, and in 1695 all Hindus, with
the exception of Rajputs, were forbidden to ride in palanquins, on
elephants or good horses, and to carry arms.
Forcible opposition to temple destruction was offered only in
Rajputana, Malwa, Bundelkhand and Khandesh, which were remote
from the centre of the imperial authority, and even there only when
the emperor was not present. But we read of reprisals in the second
half of the reign by certain Rajput and Maratha chiefs, who de-
molished converted mosques in retaliation or stopped the chanting
of the call to prayer in their locality. In some places the jizya
collector was expelled after plucking his beard out.
The first extensive outbreak of Hindu reaction against this policy
of persecution took place among the sturdy Jat peasantry of the
Muttra district, where the local commandant 'Abdun-Nabi was a
bigoted oppressor. In 1669 the Jats rose under a leader named Gokla
of Tilpat, killed 'Abdun-Nabi, and after keeping the whole region in
turmoil for a year, were suppressed only after a bloody contest with
a strong imperial force under Hasan 'Ali Khan. In 1672 came the
Satnami rising, which, by disturbing the Narnaul district close to
Delhi and interrupting the grain supply of the capital, produced a
much greater sensation than its importance justified. These people,
popularly called Mundiyas or "shavelings" from their practice of
shaving off all the hair, even the eyebrows, from their faces, were a
unitarian sect forming a close brotherhood among themselves, honest,
industrious and earnest like the Puritans. A petty wrangle between
a Satnami peasant and a foot-soldier of the local collector at once
swelled into a mass-conflict through the soldier's violence and the
solidarity of the Satnamis. The quarrel soon took on the colour of a


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241
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
holy war against the destroyer of Hinduism. An old prophetess
appeared among the sectaries and promised them invulnerability
through her spells. The movement spread like wildfire. The local
officers sent out troops in small parties, which were successively
defeated, and the victories only raised the confidence of the rebels
and confirmed the tale of their magical powers. Narnaul was looted
and a rebel administration set up in the district around it. The alarm
even reached Delhi. Superstitious terror of the Satnamis' magical
power demoralised the imperial troops. At last Aurangzib was
roused. He sent a large army under Ra'dandaz Khan with artillery
and a detachment of the imperial guards. The emperor, who had
the reputation of a saint working miracles ('Alamgir, zinda pir), wrote
out prayers and magical figures with his own hand and ordered these
papers to be sewed on to the banners of his army in order to coun-
teract the enemy's spells! After a most obstinate battle, two thousand
of the Satnamis fell on the field, many more were slain in the pursuit,
and the country was pacified.
The Sikh sect which Baba Nanak (1469-1538) had founded at the
beginning of the sixteenth century was entirely transformed from a
religious body into a military brotherhood in the course of the
seventeenth century. Though Aurangzib's policy and action com-
pleted this change, it had begun earlier than his reign and was in
fact latent in the racial character of the main element of the Sikh
population, namely the Jats. Nanak had merely aimed at spiritual
liberation by means of humility, prayer, self-restraint, searching of
the heart and fixed gaze on the one God-"the True, the Immortal,
the Self-existent, the Invisible, the Pure" (alakh niranjan). He
rejected idols and incarnations as abominations and denounced set
prayers and dead ritual. In fact, he made a surprising approach to
the basic principles of Islam, though he denounced the Muslims of
his age as base perverts and his modern followers are bitterly anta-
gonistic to that sect. Nanak's successors in the leadership of the
sect-or rather the largest branch of it-were called Gurus, and the
line ended with the tenth Guru, Govind Singh (d. 1708).
The early Gurus won the reverence of the Mughul emperors by
their saintly peaceful lives. But their successors aspired to a temporal
domination for themselves and made military discipline take the
place of moral self-reform and spiritual growth. Under Arjan, the
fifth Guru (1581-1606), the number of Sikh converts greatly increased,
and with them the Guru's wealth. He organised a permanent source
of income : his agents were stationed in every city from Kabul to
Dacca where there was a Sikh to collect the tithes and offerings of
the faithful and transmit this spiritual tribute to the central treasury
at Amritsar. The Guru lived like a king and was girt round by a
body of courtiers called masands (a Hindi corruption of the
Muhammadan title masnad-l-a'la). At the same time he completed


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GROWTH OF SIKH SECT
246
the two sacred tanks at Amritsar, built the first temple for enshrining
the Holy Book (Adi Granth)—-on the site where the Golden Temple
now stands and gave the final shape to their Scriptures by com-
piling a volume of hymns from the works of the principal Indian
saints. But in the last year of his life he made the mistake of blessing
the banners of Khusrav, the rival of Jahangir for the Mughul throne,
and even gave him money help. On the defeat of the rebel, Jahangir
fined the Guru two lakhs of rupees for his collusion with treason.
The Guru refused to pay and died under torture, which was the
usual punishment of revenue defaulters in those days (1606).
His son Har Govind (1606-45) “constantly trained himself in mar-
tial exercises and systematically turned his attention to the chase".
He increased his bodyguard to a small army. He next provoked war
with Shah Jahan by encroaching on that emperor's game preserve
and attacking the servants of the imperial hunt. The first few forces
that were sent against him were defeated by his followers, and his
fame spread far and wide, inducing many men to enlist under his
banners, as they said that no one else had power to contend with
the emperor. But finally his house and property at Amritsar were
seized and he was forced to seek refuge at Kiratpur, in the Kashmir
hills, where he died in 1645. Then followed the peaceful pontificate
of Har Rai (1645-61), a disputed succession between his sons, and
the early death of his chosen heir Har Kishan (1661-64). A wild
scene of rapacity and disorder broke out among the Sikhs; "twenty-
two men of Batala claimed the right to succeed him; these self-made
Gurus forcibly took the offerings of the Sikhs”. But after a time
Tegh Bahadur, the youngest son of Har Govind, succeeded in being
recognised as Guru by most of the Sikhs. After fighting under Ram
Singh (of Amber) in the Assam war he came back to the Punjab
and took up his residence at Anandpur.
While residing here, he was roused to action by Aurangzib's acts
of religious persecution. The emperor had ordered the temples of the
Sikhs to be destroyed and the Guru's agents (masands) to be expelled
from the cities. Tegh Bahadur encouraged the resistance of the
Hindus of Kashmir and openly defied the emperor. Seized and
taken to Delhi, he was called upon to embrace Islam, and on his
refusal was tortured for five days and then beheaded on a warrant
from the emperor (December, 1675).
Now at last an irreconcilable breach took place between the Sikhs
and Islam. Govind Singh, the tenth and last of the Gurus, was not
a man to leave his father's death unavenged. He organised the sect
into the most dangerous and implacable enemy of the Mughul
empire and of the Muslim faith. All his thoughts were directed to
turning the Sikhs into soldiers, to the exclusion of every other aim.
He constantly drilled his followers, gave them a distinctive dress and
a new oath of baptism, and began a course of open hostility to Islam.


## p. 246 (#280) ############################################

246
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
!
He harangued the Hindus to rise against Muslim persecution and
severely put down the adoration of Muhammadan saints to which
Sikhs and many Hindus were addicted. As he told his mother, "I
have been considering how I may confer empire upon the Khalsa”,
as the Sikh army was called.
This change he was able to effect because most of his converts
were Jats, the best raw materials for soldiers under proper training
and leadership, naturally fearless, hardy, amenable to discipline, and
ready to march anywhere and face any danger at the prospect of
plunder. Already their religious teaching had knit the Sikhs together
by an implicit faith in their spiritual head and a sense of the closest
brotherhood. Caste distinctions among them were abolished under
orders of Govind and all restrictions about food and drink discarded.
The Sikhs felt themselves to be a chosen people, the Lord's elect,
superior to every other sect. Everything was, therefore, ready for
converting the sect into a military body obedient to the death to its
chief and ever ready to surrender the individual conscience to that
of the Guru. It was as if Cromwell's Ironsides were inspired by the
Jesuits' unquestioning submission to their Superior's decisions on
moral problems.
In the hills of the northern Punjab Govind passed most of his days,
constantly fighting with the hill-rajas from Jammu to Garhwal or
with Mughul officers and local Muslim chiefs who had entered the
hills. Large imperial forces were sent from Sirhind to co-operate
with the hill-rajas against him; but they were usually defeated. His
army went on increasing, as recruits from the Punjab plains flocked
to him for baptism; and he even enlisted Muhammadans. Anandpur,
his stronghold, was five times invested. In the last attack, after
undergoing great hardship and loss, the Guru evacuated the fort
and then entered the Punjab plains, closely pursued by the Mughuls.
At Chamkaur, with only forty followers, he was besieged in a Jat
cultivator's house; but two of his sons were slain and he fled again,
from place to place like a hunted animal, undergoing many adven-
tures and hairbreadth escapes. His two remaining sons were put
to death by the governor of Sirhind (1705). Then the baffled Guru
with a few faithful guards made his way to the Deccan by way of
Bikaner, but returned to northern India on hearing of Aurangzib's
death. In the war of succession among that emperor's sons, he took
the side of Bahadur Shah, and accompanied that monarch when he
marched to Golconda against Kam Bakhsh (1707). Here the Guru
took up his residence at Nander on the Godavari, 150 miles north-
west of Hyderabad, and here he was stabbed to death by an Afghan
follower in 1708.
With him the line of Gurus ended no doubt, but his parting
instructions to his followers had been to make the Sikhs independent
of a supreme leader and to turn them into a military democracy:
1
1
1


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MARWAR SEIZED BY AURANGZIB
247
“I shall always be present wherever five Sikhs are assembled".
Hence, isolated bands of Sikhs, each acting under an independent
sardar, continued to harass the Mughul officers and raid the Punjab
and the upper Gangetic Duab almost to the end of the eighteenth
century.
Marwar was the foremost Hindu state in Aurangzib's empire. Its
chieftain was Jasvant Singh Rathor, who enjoyed the unique rank
of Maharaja and whom the death of Jay Singh Kachhwaha in 1667
had left without a rival as the foremost Hindu peer of the Mughul
court. Jasvant's audacity in confronting Aurangzib at Dharmat and
treachery to him at Khajuha had evidently been condoned by the
emperor, who had afterwards given him high and responsible posts.
When Jasvant died (20 December, 1678) in command of the out-
post of Jamrud, Aurangzib at once seized his kingdom and placed
it under direct Mughul rule, and himself moved to Ajmer in order
to be close enough to Jodhpur to overawe Rathor national opposition.
The success of the emperor's plan for the forcible destruction of
Hinduism required that Jasvant's state should sink into a tame de-
pendency or a regular province of the empire, and Hindu resistance
to the policy of religious persecution should be deprived of a possible
head and rallying point.
The death of Jasvant while serving with his contingent and captains
in far-off Afghanistan had left his state without a head, and no
opposition was offered to the vast and well-directed imperial armies
that poured upon the land. In February, 1679, the emperor learnt
that two of Jasvant's wives had given birth to two posthumous sons,
but he was not to be moved from his policy by any claims of legitimate
succession. Marwar having been brought under control, he returned
peace of mind to Delhi (12 April), and on that very day imposed
the jizya on the Hindus after more than a century of abeyance.
A little later the throne of Marwar was sold to Indra Singh, the
servile chieftain of Nagaur and a hereditary partisan of the Mughuls,
but the Mughul administrators and generals in occupation of the coun-
try were retained there, as Indra Singh enjoyed no local support.
In June Jasyant's family and retainers with his surviving infant
Ajit Singh reached Delhi, the other son having died in childbed.
The rights of Ajit were again pleaded before Aurangzib, but he only
ordered the child to be transferred to the imperial harem with a
promise to give him a grant and investiture as raja when he came
of age. According to one contemporary account, the throne of
Jodhpur was offered to Ajit on condition of his turning Muslim, and
this we can believe from the authentic record of a similar offer made
to the captive Shahu in 1703. The loyal Rathors determined to
rescue their late chieftain's heir by sacrificing their lives. Their
leader and guiding genius was Durga Das, the son of Jasvant's minister
Askaran, whose character displayed a rare combination of the dash
in


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248
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
and reckless valour of a Rajput warrior with the tact, diplomatic
cunning and organising power of the best Mughul ministers. But
for his twenty-five years of unflagging exertion and skilful contrivance,
Ajit Singh could not have secured his father's throne. Fighting
against terrible odds, he kept the cause of his nation triumphant,
without ever looking to his own gain.
On 25 June Aurangzib sent a strong force to seize the Ranis and
Ajit and lodge them in the state prison of Nurgarh. The Rathor plan
was to effect the escape of their prince sacrificing their lives in a
series of desperate rear-guard actions. First Raghunath Bhati with
a hundred desperate troopers made a sortie from Jasvant's beleague-
red mansion in Delhi and for a time drove back the imperialists,
while Durga Das, seizing the momentary confusion, slipped out with
the Ranis dressed in male attire and rode away directly for Marwar.
By the time Raghunath's party was killed to a man, Durga Das had
covered nine miles. When he was overtaken, Ranchhor Das Jodha
faced round and checked the pursuers with the lives of his band.
This happened thrice. In the evening the weary Mughuls abandoned
the murderous chase and Ajit was safely conveyed to Marwar and
lodged in a secure place of hiding. Aurangzib brought up a milk-
man's infant in his harem as the true Ajit, gave him the significant
name of Muhammadi Raj and proclaimed Durga Das's protégé to be
a bogus prince. At the same time Indra Singh was deposed for
manifest incapacity to rule the Rathors, and the whole of Marwar
was placed under a Mughul commandant, who was at first the
governor of Ajmer and later of Gujarat.
The emperor again went to Ajmer (5 October) and sent a strong
force under his son prince Akbar to reconquer Marwar. Its van-
guard, led by Tahavvur Khan, after a three days' fight near Pushkar,
destroyed the brave Rathors of the Mairtia clan who barred his path.
Thereafter the Rajputs always carried on a guerrilla warfare from
their lurking places in the hills and deserts, without venturing on
pitched battles. The whole country was soon occupied by the impe-
rialists, anarchy and slaughter were let loose upon the doomed state;
all the great towns in the plain were pillaged; the temples were
thrown down.
Aurangzib intended the annexation of Marwar to be a preliminary
step to the conquest of Mewar. He had already called upon the
Maharana Raj Singh to pay the poll tax for his entire state. The
Maharana and his clansmen, the Sisodias, felt that if they did not
stand by the Rathors now both these first-rate Rajput clans would
be crushed one by one and all Rajputana would lie helpless at the
emperor's feet. Moreover, Ajit Singh's mother was a niece of the
Maharana. While Raj Singh was making his war preparations,
Aurangzib struck the first blow. Seven thousand picked troops under
Hasan Ali Khan marched from Pur, rayaging Mewar and clearing
s


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INVASION OF MEWAR
249
a way for the main Mughul army. The Rajputs could make no stand
against the excellent Mughul artillery served by Europeans. Raj
Singh abandoned the low country and retired with all his subjects
to the hills. The Mughuls took possession of his capital Udaipur and
the famous fort of Chitor, demolishing all the temples there. Hasan
‘Ali entered the hills north-west of Udaipur and inflicted a defeat
on the Maharana (1 February, 1680), capturing his camp and much
property.
The emperor, deeming the power of Mewar crushed, returned
from that kingdom to Ajmer in March, while one strong army
(probably 12,000 men) under prince Akbar held the Chitor district
and another occupied Marwar. But the imperial outposts were too
far scattered to be defended easily, and nearly the whole of Rajputa
was seething with hostility. The Mughul positions in Mewar and
Marwar were isolated from each other by the intervening Aravalli
range, whose crest Raj Singh held in force and from which he could
make sudden descents and surprise Mughul divisions on the east or
the west as he pleased, while the Mughuls in transferring troops from
Chitor to Marwar had to make a long and toilsome détour.
Prince Akbar had been left in Chitor in charge of all the Mughul
posts east of the Aravalli and south of Ajmer. But his force was too
small for the effective defence of this vast region. A marked increase
of Rajput activity began with the emperor's retirement to Ajmer;
they made raids, cut off supplies and stragglers, and rendered the
Mughul outposts extremely unsafe. In terror of the enemy's prowess,
the Mughul troops refused to enter any pass, detachments shrank
from advancing far from their base, and the command of outposts
went begging. About the end of May, Akbar's camp near Chitor
was entered at night and some slaughter done in it by a Sisodia band.
The Maharana descended to the Bednor district, threatening Akbar's
communications with Ajmer, while another army under his son
Bhim Singh ranged the country, striking swift blows at weak points
and cutting off grain supplies coming from Malwa. A fortnight after
the surprise of his camp, Akbar himself was defeated with severe loss.
At these signal instances of Akbar's incapacity the emperor trans-
ferred him to Marwar, and gave the Chitor command to Prince
A'zam. The plan of war adopted now was to penetrate into the
Mewar hills in three columns : from the eastern or Chitor side by
way of the Deobari pass and Udaipur under A'zam; from the north
by way of lake Rajsamudra under Mu'azzam, and from the western
or Marwar side through the Deosuri pass under Akbar. The first
two of these generals failed to achieve their tasks.
Prince Akbar took post at Sojat in Marwar on 28 July, but could
not repress the Rathor bands that spread over the country, closing
the roads to trade and disturbing every weak post. His instructions
were to occupy Nadol, the chief town of the Godwar district, and


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250
AURANGZIB (1658-1681)
from this new base penetrate eastwards into Mewar by the Deosuri
pass and invade the Kumbhalgarh region, where the Maharana and
many Rathors had taken refuge. Akbar reached Nadol at the end
of September, but for nearly two months did nothing. At last the
emperor in wrath sent the imperial paymaster to his camp to enforce
a forward movement. It was only then that Akbar advanced to.
Deosuri and, sending his lieutenant Tahavvur Khan ahead, forced
the Jhilwara pass (2 December). The next step would have been to
push on eight miles southwards to Kumbhalgarh and drive the
Maharana out of his last refuge. But it was not done. There followed
a lull of inactivity for five weeks, during which the prince's trea-
sonable plot was fully hatched, and at last on 11 January, 1681, he
united with the Rathor and Sisodia contingents and proclaimed
himself emperor of India !
Smarting under repeated censure from his father for his failure
in war and seeing no means of defeating the Rajputs, Akbar had
early lent a ready ear to the tempting invitation of the Rajputs to
seize the Delhi throne with their help. Tahavvur Khan was the
intermediary of these treasonable negotiations. The Maharana Raj
Singh and Durga Das told the prince how his father's bigoted attempt
to “root the Rajputs out” was threatening the stability of the Mughul
empire, and urged him to seize the throne and restore the wise
policy of his forefathers if he wished to save his heritage from
destruction. They promised to back him with the armed strength
of the two greatest Rajput clans, the Sisodias and the Rathors. The
death of Raj Singh (1 November) and the succession of his son Jay
Singh interposed a month's delay in the execution of this plot. But
when Tahavvur reached Jhilwara, the negotiations were resumed
and quickly concluded. The new Maharana promised to send half
his army under his brother for the attack on Aurangzib, and 12
January, 1681, was fixed for the march on Ajmer. Two days before
that date Akbar wrote a deceptive letter to his father saying that
two Mewar princes and the Rathor leaders had come to him begging
him to secure the emperor's pardon and peace for them, to present
them to the emperor and personally to intercede with him for them,
and that with this object he was marching on Ajmer. Then Akbar
threw off his mask. Four theologians in his pay issued a decree under
their seals, declaring that Aurangzib had forfeited his throne by his
violation of the Quranic law! Akbar crowned himself emperor
(11 January, 1681) and next day started for Ajmer with his new
Mewar and Marwar allies, dragging most of the imperial officers
in his camp with him in this act of rebellion.
At this time Aurangzib at Ajmer was very slenderly protected :
his faithful sons were far away and even the imperial guard had been
detached on a distant expedition. His immediate retinue consisted
of a few thousands of unserviceable soldiers, personal attendants,


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PRINCE AKBAR'S REBELLION
251
clerks and eunuchs. He had loved Akbar above all his other sons,
and now in the bitterness of disillusionment he cried out, "I am now
defenceless. The young hero has got a splendid opportunity. Why,
then, is he delaying his attack? ” But Akbar was not the man to
seize this opportunity by a rapid dash on the imperial camp; he
began to spend his days in pleasure and took a fortnight to arrive
near Ajmer. Every day told in Aurangzib's favour. Loyal officers
from far and near strained every nerve to reach him by forced
marches, and on the day of Akbar's arrival in his neighbourhood,
prince Mu'azzam joined the emperor, doubling his strength. In the
meantime, Aurangzib, with wise audacity, had refused to shut him-
self up within the walls of Ajmer, but advanced into the open, and
taken up his position at Doraha, ten miles south of that city.
Despair and defection now reigned in the camp of Akbar. As he
came nearer, increasing numbers of Mughul officers began to escape
from his army to the imperial camp: only the 30,000 Rajputs re-
mained true to him. Arrived within three miles of Doraha (25 Jan-
uary), he halted for the night, after fixing the next morning for the
decisive battle. But during that night, Aurangzib's cunning diplomacy
secured the completest victory for him without any resort to arms.
Tahavvur Khan was the vazir and life and soul of Akbar's govern-
ment, that prince being a vain sluggard. Tahavvur's father-in-law
'Inayat Khan, then in the imperial camp, was made by Aurangzib
to write him a letter, urging him to come to the emperor, with a
promise of pardon for the past, otherwise his wives and sons, held by
Aurangzib as hostages, would be ruined. In the darkness Tahavvur
stole away alone from his tent without informing either Akbar or
Durga Das, arrived at the imperial camp about midnight, and was
killed by the emperor's attendants in a wrangle when he wanted to
enter the presence without being disarmed.
Meanwhile, Aurangzib had written a false letter to Akbar, praising
him for having so successfully carried out the emperor's stratagem
of luring all the Rajput fighters within his reach, and now instructing
him to place these Rajputs in his van in next morning's battle so
that they might be easily crushed between the imperial forces and
Akbar's own troops. As contrived by the emperor, this letter fell
into Durga Das's hands, who read it and in surprise went to Akbar's
tent for an'explanation. That prince was reported to be asleep and
his eunuchs refused to wake him. Durga Das next sent some men to
call Tahavvur, when it was discovered that the soul of the whole
enterprise had secretly gone over to the emperor some hours before.
The prince's sleep was taken to be a ruse. The intercepted letter
was believed to have been verified by these facts.