पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

SADASHIVRAO'S APPOINTMENT FOR NORTHERN INDIA 45
portion of Shuja's dominions or the land of the Ruhelas. When not threatened
by Shuja and when the Maratha armies were not in his neighbourhood, he
would not shirk from invading and occupying the Maratha districts in the
lower Doab.⁶³ He would never offend any party by his words and always
tried to keep himself on speaking terms with all. Ahmad Khan had come to
Abdali's camp but seeing that there was no work there for three months of
the rains he and also the Ruhelas, except Najib, left for their homes with
Abdali's permission.⁶⁴ From their homes they kept on writing to Bhau that
they had joined Abdali under duress. Bhau seems to have misjudged their
motives as they were always keeping up a correspondence with Bhau and
promising to join him under certain conditions. It is difficult to say whether
they actually feared the consequences of joining Abdali as against the Mara-
thas or were merely fooling him this time so as to save their dominions from
the armies of Govindpant Bundele and Gopalrao Ganesh Barve. But Bhau was
trying his best to take advantage of the enforced delay and hoping to separate
some of his allies from Abdali. Many Afghan sardars wrote to Bhau that they
would detach themselves from Abdali as soon as they found an opportunity
to do so. But Abdali kept a strict watch over them and never once allowed
them to move away from his camp. Bhau even tried to detach some of the
Afghan tribes who were accompanying Abdali with the hope of loot but were
not directly employed by him, and were actually starving. Ahmad Shah's
Durrani troops were at this time living on loot. Najib was supplying Abdali
with 200 maunds of grain and 15,000 rupees cash every day for his aid. But
this was sufficient for his personal slaves only. Bhau had ordered Govindpant to
engage them if they came over to his side and to send them to Bhau's camp
if necessary.⁶⁵ He had asked Govindpant to remain where he was and try to
move in such a way as to make Shuja and the Ruhelas leave Abdali's camp
for defending their threatened territories.⁶⁶ But the terror of Abdali's forces
was such that it made any move on Govindpant's part well-nigh impossible.
The Maratha officials in the Doab seem to have been completely demoralised
by the experience of the past four years, and no one was ready to take any
risk in the matter. This is clear from Sadashivrao Bhau's order to Govind-
pant in the middle of August to forbid any Maratha employed under him to
send back his effects to the Deccan, as Bhau had come to know of such a
move.⁶⁷ It meant that the Marathas living in those regions were not very
sanguine about the outcome of the war and feared the worst. This explains
the cause of the non-compliance of Sadashivrao Bhau's orders by Govindpant
and Gopalrao Barve. They were unable to do anything vigorously or enthu-
siastically because the overwhelming majority of the Maratha employees had
completely lost heart.
Notwithstanding such sombre atmosphere Sadashivrao Bhau was going
on with his plans of meeting Abdali after the rains. Though the hope of solv-
ing the political problem of the governance of India without resort to arms was
⁶³ Ibid. 1.236.
⁶⁴ Ibid. 1.237.
⁶⁵ Ibid. 1.257
⁶⁶ Ibid. 1.242
⁶⁷ Ibid. 1.223.