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