Attendant Lords by T.C.A. Raghavan

Author:T.C.A. Raghavan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2018-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

Soon thereafter, we find the dispatch of four diplomatic missions – to Khandesh, Ahmednagar, Bijapur and Golconda. The Mughal envoy was directed to go to Khandesh first and then to Ahmednagar – a clear indication of Mughal priorities. This was natural as the Faruqi dynasty in Khandesh, with Burhanpur as its capital and the nearby fortress of Asirgarh as its garrison, straddled northern India and the Deccan. None of the four kingdoms accepted Mughal suzerainty; the ruler of Khandesh, however, sent a daughter to be married to Prince Salim and those of Golconda and Bijapur sent gifts. But in Ahmednagar, Burhan-ul-Mulk’s behaviour with the Mughal ambassador was not even conciliatory. When he returned to court and reported this to the emperor, the stage was set for a military assault in 1593.

Prince Daniyal was appointed to command the expedition and Abdur Rahim was assigned to accompany him. Abdur Rahim was perhaps the obvious choice for this role: he had approached the emperor several times since his Gujarat days for permission to lead a campaign into the Deccan. Simultaneously, Prince Murad – then governor of Malwa – was ordered to ‘make preparations for the conquest of the Deccan Kingdoms and that when the soldiers had been gathered together from every side near him, he should carry out the order’.5

There were delays on the part of both the princes and an impatient Akbar contemplated leading the Deccan campaign himself. When Abdur Rahim was summoned by the emperor to account for the delay, he suggested that it was better for the rains to cease before beginning the march: ‘… the KhanKhanan … represented that the time for the army to enter the Deccan was after the rains. Water and forage would then be plentiful and corn cheap. On this account there was slowness of movement.’

It is more likely that the delay was on account of Abdur Rahim’s reluctance to proceed with a military expedition with an impossible command structure of two princes in the army and the younger one (Daniyal) in charge. It is possible that Akbar had assigned the command to both the princes since he felt that the Deccan was too big a potential prize to leave to one alone; victory would have elevated the strength and prestige of that prince greatly. Did the emperor fear that this would set up a rival power centre to him? More likely, he may have felt that credit for victory in the Deccan to either of his younger brothers would provoke Prince Salim into further acts of defiance. Whatever the compulsions, Akbar decided to lead the campaign himself, then changed his mind and appointed Prince Murad as the leader of the expedition. The representations of Prince Murad, that as the older brother he could not be expected to serve under Daniyal, may have prevailed. Subsequent events, however, demonstrated that this too was not a tidy arrangement.

The task assigned to Prince Murad and Abdur Rahim was to bring the weight of their combined forces to bear on Ahmednagar.

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