पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

46 PANIPAT 1761
very remote, still peace parleys continued throughout. Najib Khan's proposal
forwarded through Shuja was to hand over the regions beyond Sarhind to
Abdali and hand over the Delhi affairs into his hands Shuja wanted the
Chancellorship as well as the command over the army of the Mughal Em
pire ⁶⁸ But Najib would never allow the military command to pass out of his
hands Bhau's idea was to fix the boundary at Attock, leaving Peshawar and
Kabul to Abdali, while the imperial defence would be left as it was, meaning
through the agency of the Marathas But Bhau was not obstinate on any
point. He knew that no one could have everything his own way In diplo
macy "give and take" is necessary and inevitable, and therefore he still hoped
to find a via media out of the impasse
The condition in the middle of September was as follows There was
no money left in the government treasury nor was any forthcoming from the
revenue collectors like Govindpant Bundele Bhau knew the economic con
dition of the region surrounding Delhi very well and understood the difficulties
of recovering government dues in the then conditions of northern India Be
sides the military trouble due to war with Abdali, nature also had some say
in the affair Hail storms and certain pests had that year destroyed the crops
in many parts and there was a consequent deficit in revenue collection ⁶⁹ The
dismissal of old collectors like Naro Shankar and his brother and recently of
Mahadaji Govind Kakirde⁷⁰ appointed in his place, had adversely affected the
Maratha revenues in Bundelkhand Bhau also suspected the sincerity of the
collectors who, he thought, were withholding payments with a view to take
advantage of the difficulties of the government ⁷¹ They would pay after the
event instead of before it, as they were not sure of the result of the war and
hoped to profit thereby As the army was starving and not even a week's
payment out of the month could be made to them, Bhau had recourse to the
politically disastrous action of taking out the silver ceiling of the Diwan i khas,
and minting it into money He was able to secure only nine lakhs by this
process and thereby feed his army for one month only It seems this action
was tom tomed as insulting to the Mughal throne by the Muslim partisans of
Najib, and it inflamed the Muslim population in the surrounding regions
against the Marathas As a matter of fact, the Wazir Ghazi ud din had already
taken out a part of that very ceiling previously when he was in need of money,
and Bhau was not the first vandal to touch it as made out by partisan his-
torians ⁷² But none seemed to have noticed the Wazir's act while all flared
up against Bhau's behaviour When the famous peacock throne of Shah Jahan
was taken away by Nadir Shah or when the whole palace and its inmates
were completely stripped of their effects by Abdali, none seemed to have thought
these as an insult to the Mughal throne then, possibly because the spoliators
were devout Muslims
68 Purandare 1.389
69 Shinde 1.222 Purandare 1.386.
70 Satara 2.291 Dabholkar Mss. 152.
71 SPD 27.234.
72 Ibid 27.257