पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

2 PANIPAT 1761
the Emperor and the Khoja in preference to the Wazir It is important to
note this fact because on the basis of it the Peshwa's ambassador at the Delhi
Court and the military guard under Antaji Manakeshwar had to take the side
of the Emperor and fight for him against the Wazir in 1753, when Safdar
Jang rebelled against his master, though by that time Khoja Jawed had been
assassinated The Marathas were to receive the Chauth of the north western
provinces already usurped by the Afghans These included the Mughal Subahs
of Sind, Multan, and Lahore, as well as the districts of Hissar, Sambal, Morada
bad and Budaun then under the control of the Ruhelas and other refractory
nobles The claim to one fourth of the revenues of these lands could be made
good only by conquest, of which there was only a remote possibility To induce
the Marathas to accept this hazardous adventure, something more tangible was
necessary Therefore the other two refractory Subahs of Ajmer and Agra in
the possession of the Rajput and Jat chiefs were given to the Peshwa Previous
to this, the Emperor had tried to make good his claim to these lands by send-
ing Mir Bakhshi Salabat Khan in 1749, but he had to return disappointed
after spending more than two years in those regions without collecting any sub-
stantial amount of tributes After ruining this great nobleman, Khoja Jawed
had bestowed the Subahs on Ghazi ud din Khan, the eldest son of the Great
Nizam ul mulk and Intizam ud daulah, the eldest son of the late Wazir
Qamar ud din Khan These two noblemen, though heads of the Turani party
after their fathers' deaths, were militarily of no consequence When it was
found in the crisis of Abdali's invasion that none of them was useful to the
State, the Khoja had to make a compromise with the rival Wazir and bestow
the Subahs on the Peshwa, while entering into a contract with him, as related
above
The transfer of the Subahs was facilitated because the dispossessed
Ghazi ud din had another move in his mind, to make good his claim to the
Viceroyalty of the Deccan as the eldest son of the Great Nizam The Wazir
Safdar Jang wanted to get his son, the boy Shuja ud daulah nominated to
the post, but the Peshwa had to set up a rival to Salabat Jang, a son of the
Nizam, for which purpose Shuja was not useful, as the grandees of the Dec-
can, especially the Maratha Sardars of the Nizam, would not side with a per-
son who bore no relationship with him The Khoja had in fact created a coun-
terpoise to the Irani Shia party of the Wazir by buying the Maratha support
to the Turani Ghazi ud din and the Emperor The Muslim party had gained
a great point in bestowing the Subahs of Ajmer and Agra on the Hindu Mara-
thas as against the overbearing and refractory Rajputs Thus they had set
the Hindus against each other and made a common, solid, Hindu front against
the Muslims impossible The far reaching effects of this fundamental move
were seen in the next decade (1752 61) The refractory Rajputs came closer
to the Muslim party and fought with the Marathas incessantly Panipat was
an outcome of it
The Peshwa's desire to get complete control of the Deccan by setting up
a weak pro-Maratha son of the Nizam as Viceroy, was foiled by the usual
Muslim tactics of assassinating the person and calling in foreign help as that