पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

THE MARATHAS IN THE PANJAB AND BEYOND 17 When, after waiting for two months, Dattaji realized the impasse in which he had been placed by Najib, he thought of punishing him. By this time, however, Najib had formed his impregnable lines behind natural impedi- ments on the bank of the Ganges at Sukartal and from that secure position defied the might of the Shindes. From this place of refuge he built a causeway for himself across the Ganges and thus kept open his line of communication with the Ruhela regions beyond. From these he secured supplies and also military help. He engaged Dattaji in this manner for four months, till the latter was obliged to raise the siege in order to meet Abdali coming down from the Panjab in December, 1759. Sabaji was governing the Panjab with some ten thousand troops, a force quite inadequate to hold the line against the Afghan tornado. Abdali had sent his general Jahan Khan in advance with fifteen thousand troops from Peshawar and himself followed by way of Shikarpur in Sind along the right bank of the Indus. They had first to deal with the Sikh rebels. The Sikhs defeated Jahan Khan's vanguard and killed two thousand of his troops. Seeing that he could not possibly hold his own, Sabaji precipitately fell back from Batala and returned by way of Ambala and Kunjpura to Dattaji's camp at Sukartal on the Ganges. This was in the beginning of November 1759. Only the corps of Bapuji Trimbak which had been stationed at Multan had no time to run away and hence was caught in the Doab. It had come up to Firozpur on the Satlaj, where it was overtaken by a party of the Afghans who cut it to pieces. Only five hundred out of a total of six thousand returned on foot, unclad and underfed, all their property including horses having been plun- dered by the Afghans. They came a month and a half later and met Dat- taji near Thaneshwar where he had proceeded to meet Abdali, by breaking up his camp at Sukartal, in the last week of December 1759. The Bhau Bakhar vividly describes the horror felt by Dattaji Shinde and his troops when they saw their comrades returning in such a wretched condition. The en- thusiasm for fighting with Abdali faded away and all thought it as an evil omen of forthcoming disaster. This was the beginning of the end of the Panjab episode in Maratha history. That episode had occupied only a brief period of one and a half years and carried the Maratha standards up to Pesha- war, but the cost of this glory was out of all proportion to the gains, and ended with the great setback of Panipat a year later.