भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

who ultimately became the former’s right hand man. Abdali had
accompanied Nadirshah in his above-mentioned raid against India. After his
return to Persia, Nadirshah was soon killed in 1747. In the confusion that
was caused subsequent to Nadirshah’s death, Ahmadshah Abdali usurped
all power and since he was an Afghan, Ahmadshah proclaimed himself an
Afghan Emperor making Kabul his capital (1747 A.D.).
The Rohillas and the Pathans
1042. Now, there had been an incessant internal rivalry about the
acquisition of the imperial throne of Delhi and consequent mutual hatred
between the Moghals and the Afghans (Pathans), who chiefly led the
Muslim administration throughout the large tracts of India from Punjab,
Delhi, Farukhabad to Rohilkhand—sometimes quite openly, at other times
covertly! The former Sultanates of Delhi were Afghans. It was after
extirpating the last of the Afghan dynasties, that the victorious Moghal
conqueror, Babar, had attained the imperial power over Dehli (as has already
been shown in this book earlier). Nevertheless, several Afghan Sardars
dominated even this Moghal administration. Amongst these Afghans, the
Rohillas and the Pathans had their own states of varying sizes. Later on,
when the conquering Maratha armies soon began to establish, one after
another, Hindu state all over the Northern half of India and reached Delhi
and when in the political affairs of Delhi, practically not a blade of grass
could move without the Maratha support, all those Muslim factions became
absolutely one at least in the early years of the Maratha preponderance in
order to subvert it. Yet later, still the dissentient and scheming amongst these
Muslim leaders, secretly sought for the Maratha help for the destruction of
their co-religionist opponents.
The first invasion of India by Abdali
1043. Abdali was closely watching these developments in Delhi. He knew
full well that the Pathans over there were highly perturbed lest the hated
Marathas might leave a vestige of their own existence, unless in the
meanwhile, the Pathans overthrew the Moghal imperial authority over
Delhi, and on its ashes raised their own. They could find only one way out
of this predicament: to invite the new Afghan emperor, Ahmadshah Abdali
who had all along supported their political moves. So, the Pathan-Rohilla
leaders sent letters to Abdali, importuning his armed help, if at all Islam in
India was to be saved. Abdali, too, had cherished the ambition to strangle
the moribund Moghal imperial authority in Delhi and to revive in its place