THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIREaround became as much of a threat to the Mughals as the light cavalry of
the Marathas. The Mughal government, with its cumbersome army, was
not in a position to suppress this kind of unrest effectively.
Aurangzeb’s successor would have had to be a second Akbar in order to
cope with this situation and to reconcile the people. But Aurangzeb’s son
Akbar, who had set out to do just that, had fled and died in exile in Persia.
It was Aurangzeb’s eldest son, Muazzam, who ascended the throne at the
age of 63 and, by the name of Bahadur Shah, ruled for just five years: he
was unable to forestall the dissolution of the empire. Trying his best to
come to terms with the Rajputs and the Marathas, he installed Shivaji’s
grandson, Shahu, as raja of Satara. He could not, however, quell the
resistance to Mughal rule in this way; rather, he promoted it unwittingly.
Shahu appointed a competent minister (peshwa), the Chitpavan Brahmin
Balaji Vishwanath, who instilled a spirit of cooperation into the quarrelsome
Marathas and put the Maratha state on a sound footing. Balaji’s son, Baji
Rao, succeeded his father at the age of 19 and held this high office from
1720 to 1740. He proved to be a bold warrior and an eminent strategist of
the same calibre as Baber and Shivaji. After some initial infighting in which
he defeated the commander (senapati) of the Maratha army, he emerged as
the supreme political and military leader of the Marathas. Shahu and his
successors in Satara were overshadowed by the Peshwa dynasty which ruled
the country like the Shoguns of Japan, the monarch retaining only
ceremonial functions. Baji Rao rushed with his cavalry to Delhi, which he
captured in a surprise attack only to leave it a few days later. This was a first
indication of the fact that the Marathas, though able to destroy the Mughal
empire, were unable to hold it on their own.
Baji Rao was not only courageous; he was also clever and calculating.
He never got caught in an untenable position. This is why he left Delhi as
quickly as he had seized it. His possession of the imperial capital was
meant only as a demonstration of his power; when he withdrew from there
he built up his position in northern and western India to the south of Delhi.
This enabled his generals—Scindia, Holkar and Gaekwar—to emerge as
maharajas of Gwalior, Indore and Baroda at a later stage. Baji Rao had a
very special relationship with the chief minister (vezir) of the Mughal
empire, Nizam-ul-Mulk—a politician who was at times the greatest rebel
against the empire and at others its last great supporter. At first the two
men hated each other intensely; eventually, they gained more and more
respect for each other. Baji Rao several times trapped the chief minister’s
army and extracted ransom and territorial concessions from him instead of
fighting for an empty victory. During such negotiations the old vezir and
the young peshwa got to know each other very well. Following Shahu’s
advice gleaned from his years in the Mughal court, Baji Rao saw in Nizam-
ul-Mulk the most important figure on the chessboard of Indian politics.
The vezir had the same idea about Baji Rao.