A gentleman in a time of intrigue - II

In the previous edition of The Friday Times, I had started my discussion of the life and times of Nizam-ul-Mulk as imperial power exercised from Delhi began to reach its limits.

Nizam-ul-Mulk was appointed Subedar (Viceroy) of all six subahs (provinces) of the Deccan in June 1713. These provinces included Khandesh, Berar, Aurangabad, Bidar, Hyderabad and Bijapur – encompassing most of the lands south of the Vindhya mountains. The Mughals never achieved their objective of subduing and settling the Deccan – despite an effort spanning some two centuries.

The Maratha revolt against what was perceived to be a northern occupation had created unrest in the area. The situation required the presence of a strong and prudent man. Nizam-ul-Mulk was just the man for the task.

Today, far removed from that time as we are, three centuries later, we have to stretch our imagination to understand the geopolitical conditions of the vast lands beyond the Narmada river. This had been the first river encountered by the Turkic pioneers of the Delhi Sultanate that was not part of the Indo-Gangetic system. I will briefly narrate here the conditions of the area in the five centuries leading to the establishment of the Hyderabad State.

The Muslim Turkic Delhi Sultanate was established in 1206 and it took those rulers some 100 years to turn their attention to the south – when Alauddin Khilji raided the ancient city of Devagiri in Maharashtra. He then despatched Malik Kafur, his slave general, to force the kingdoms of the Deccan to become Khilji vassal states. It needs to be emphasised here, for historical correctness, that the characterisation of Malik Kafur in Bollywood film Padmaavat is far from truth – in fact, very far indeed. Malik Kafur was an able army general who defeated the Mongols a number of times, saving India and its inhabitants from being ravaged by those invaders.

The Indo-Turkic Tughlaq dynasty, that followed the Khilji dynasty, continued their hold over the Deccan. Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the second Sultan of the dynasty, extended his rule to the upper reaches of Tamil Nadu but soon realised the futility of controlling the Deccan from far away Delhi. He forcibly, and grievously, shifted his capital from Delhi to Devagiri in 1330 AD and renamed it Daulatabad. However, the Delhi Sultanate had to abandon its short-lived foray into Deccan due to the logistics of controlling various parts of the large Sultanate. Tughlaq shifted the capital back to Delhi in 1335, practically abandoning the Deccan. Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah, the Tughlaq general in Daultabad, found the circumstances favourable to revolt in 1347, founding the Bahmani Sultanate that his dynasty ruled till 1527 before it split into six Deccan Sultanates. It was a paradigm that Nizam-ul-Mulk was to follow 375 years later. History repeats itself – and not necessarily according to Karl Marx’s axiom.

Starting with Akbar, the Mughals were also obsessed with expanding southwards into the Deccan. They laid avaricious eyes on the immense riches and revenues that the area promised. In fact, Emperor Jahangir stated his reasons for conquering a diamond mine in these words, and I quote, “I ordered to take the province out of the possession of that unknown and insignificant individual.” That insignificant person was the raja of that area but Jahangir, in his imperial arrogance, couldn’t possibly consider any other ruler worthy of holding a diamond mine!

The east-to-west width of the Empire from Kandahar in the west to Dhaka in the east is about 2,600 km - which is more than the distance from Lisbon on the Atlantic Ocean to Moscow

However, Mughal Hindustan was a huge realm and it is easy to underestimate its geographical spread. For reference, consider that the distance from Kabul in the north west below the Hindu Kush range, through Delhi at the heart of the Subcontinent, to Kanyakumari at the southernmost tip of the peninsula is 2,500 km – which is greater than the entire European continental spread from the heel of Italy in the Mediterranean in the south to Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland in the north. Similarly, the east-to-west width of the Empire from Kandahar across the Koh-e-Sulaiman in the west to Dhaka at the Gangetic-Brahmaputra-Meghna confluence in the east is about 2,600 km – which is more than the distance from Lisbon on the Atlantic Ocean, through Paris at the heart of Europe, to Moscow below the Ural Mountains. The rulers in Delhi had the desire to control this vast region but didn’t have the means to achieve it. Even the better equipped British didn’t attempt this grand design and instead relied on the compliant local rulers to do it for them. The futile southern enterprise of the Mughals, especially of Aurangzeb, ruined their financial and military resources, and led to the weakening and dissolution of the empire.

Learning nothing from history, Aurangzeb spent the greater part of his life in the Deccan. He, too, shifted his capital south to Fatehgarh and renamed it Aurangabad, ironically a mere 16 km southeast of the ruins of the Tughlaq capital of Daulatabad. Fatehgarh was originally known as Khirki, established by the African slave turned ruler, Malik Ambar, who had defied attempts by Jahangir to occupy Ahmadnagar. Aurangzeb spent the last 26 years of his life in the Deccan and had realised the futility of his military efforts in the area. His wars cost a hundred thousand lives per year and the maintenance of his vast armies stripped the Deccan of its resources. He died in Ahmadnagar and was buried in Khuldabad. His favourite wife, too, is buried in Aurangabad in the tourist-popular tomb known as Bibi ka Maqbara, a replica of the Taj Mahal. The Mughal venture in the Deccan was a failure. A mere 17 years after the death of Aurangzeb, Nizam-ul-Mulk created the independent state of Hyderabad with its first capital at Aurangabad.

The Mughal attempts to subdue the Deccan Sultanates gave rise to many prominent resistance figures. One of them was Chand Bibi, who still stands tall for her heroic resistance to Jahangir to prevent the fall of her capital city of Ahmadnagar. She lost her life in this struggle. The second figure is that of former slave Malik Ambar, who defied first Jahangir and then Shah Jahan in defending his Ahmadnagar Sultanate against Mughal onslaughts. His success in defying the Mughals can be gauged by the numerous hateful entries made against him by Jahangir in his autobiography. Malik Ambar also recruited thousands of Maratha soldiers in his guerrilla forces to carry out hit-and-run attacks against the superior Mughal armies. One of these Maratha leaders was Shahaji Bhonsle, father of Chhatarpati Shivaji, the first Maratha king. Today Shivaji is revered as a hero by Hindus in India and despised as a villain by Muslims in Pakistan. However, his life’s work was a great revolt, initiated by Muslims leaders like Chand Bibi and Malik Ambar, against Mughal occupation.

When Zulfiqar Khan was the Subedar of the Deccan during the reign of Bahadur Shah, the Maratha insurgency was widespread. The Subedar had appeased the Maratha chief Shahu, son of Shivaji, by granting him the right to collect two taxes from the whole of the Deccan, namely chauth or one-fourth of the produce and Sardeshmukhi, which was 10 percent of the chauth collected. Similarly, another chief Nemaji Sindhia had been raised to the rank of a 7-hazari (a mansab of 7,000 troops) for fighting on behalf of Bahadur Shah against Aurangzeb’s youngest son Kam Bakhsh. Sindhia was allowed to collect taxes around Aurangabad and he later extended his control north as far as Malwa in central India. To compound the problem, the Mughal deputy Subedar, Daud Khan Panni, was also in league with the Maratha chiefs and was expropriating 2 million rupees per year.

The first thing that the honest Nizam did in Delhi was to deposit in the treasury over a million rupees that had he had gathered as taxes on his return journey

The Marathas were to gain further military strength as Mughal authority eroded rapidly. However, instead of consolidating their kingdom in the south, where they belonged, they turned their attention towards north India, first to Madhya Pradesh and then to Awadh and the Punjab. By over-extending their military might, they exposed themselves to the superior Afghan forces at the Battle of Panipat, losing the flower of a generation on the battlefield. They were then humbled by the British during the Anglo-Maratha wars. By 1818, they had become loyal vassals of the East India Company.

Nizam-ul-Mulk, for his part, rarely acted rashly to project military power. Although he lost several battles and much territory to Marathas and Mysore, he was able to carve out and preserve a large state through creative diplomacy and fine acumen.

Immediately on his arrival at Aurangabad, Nizam-ul-Mulk started reorganising the administrative machinery of the six provinces of the Deccan. The Marathas had appointed their qamdishdars (revenue collectors) to collect the chauth and to exact tolls from merchants and travellers who desired security from plunder, and upon every cart and bullock passing through the territory. These qamdishdars could get military support from the Maratha Subedars who had established a sort of parallel government in the Deccan. The first thing that Nizam-ul-Mulk did was to consolidate his position in Aurangabad and to suppress the authority of the local Maratha collectors. He repudiated the treaties entered into by Zulfiqar Khan and Raja Shahu, declaring them inconsistent with the authority vested in the Mughal Subedar of Deccan. However, as will be seen in the third part of this series, the Marathas had become militarily too strong for the Nizam’s resources.

The politics of the fractured Marathas were as baffling as any puzzle. Reading their history at this stage makes one’s head spin. In short, their leaders were constantly fighting and double-crossing each other, cheating and suspecting others of doing that. Adept at diplomacy, Nizam-ul-Mulk took advantage of these divisions and was able to exert his control over various factions.

Nizam-ul-Mulk then flung himself into the task of setting in order the finances of the Deccan. He did not increase the burden of taxation on the peasantry; in fact he greatly reduced it by his rigid supervision and by relentless punishment of those servants of the State who made dishonest gains. He was determined to leave the peasantry unmolested by petty officials and to organise the collection of revenue in such a manner as to stimulate the production of wealth.

While he was engaged in correcting the political and financial conditions of the province, the palace intrigues at Delhi caught up with him. He received a recall to the court in May 1715, informing him that the younger of the Syed brothers, Hussain Ali Khan, was on his way to replace him as the Subedar. The Emperor had made this appointment to separate the intriguing brothers and had removed the more ambitious of the two from Delhi.

The Nizam was aggrieved that he was deprived of his rightful position in the Deccan while he was busy introducing his reforms in the administration and collection of revenues. He, however, immediately left Aurangabad for Delhi. On the way, near Burhanpur, the Nizam was informed that some Maratha chiefs were illegally exacting chauth from the peasants. Ever dutiful, he abandoned the march, pursued the chiefs and punished them. He then resumed his march, reaching Delhi in mid-June. He was received with honour at the court. The first thing that the honest Nizam did in Delhi was to deposit in the treasury over a million rupees that had he had gathered as taxes on his return journey.

The elder Syed brother visited him to say, “You deserve the Vizierate more than anybody else, not to mention the Subedari of the Deccan [...] Now any subah you like will be yours for the mere asking.”

Nizam-ul-Mulk was disgusted with the atmosphere of intrigue at the court and preferred to retire to the Faujdari of Muradabad where he had his jagir (fief).

He lay dormant away from the court but once again he would get a recall. Four years and four Emperors later, he was reappointed as Subedar of the Deccan, paving the way for him setting up his own independent state of Hyderabad.

Parvez Mahmood retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on social and historical issues. He can be reached at parvezmahmood53@gmail.com