Demise Of Ahmednagar And Acceptance Of Mughal Suzerainty By Bijapur And Golconda: History Of Medieval India

In 1628, Shah Jahan took the throne. At the same time as Bijapur and Golconda accepted Mughal Suzerainty, Ahmednagar suffered a crushing loss. He spent time in the Deccan during his revolt against his father as a prince and conducted two trips there. Shah Jahan was well-versed in the politics of the Deccan and had firsthand knowledge of it. 

 

•    Regaining the Deccan regions that the Nizam Shahi monarch had stolen was Shah Jahan's first priority as a ruler. Khan-i-Jahan Lodi, a senior and seasoned noble, was given the assignment.

 

•    Khan-i-Jahan On the other side, Lodi was ordered to appear in court when the enterprise was a failure. Soon after, he turned against Nizam Shah and joined him in revolt. Nizam Shah had dispatched him to drive the Mughals out of the remaining areas of Berar and Balaghat.

 

•    Shah Jahan was faced with a challenge when he granted shelter in this way to a prominent Mughal nobility.

 

•    It was evident that the Nizam Shahi monarch continued to refuse to recognize the Mughal position in Berar and Balaghat even after Malik Ambar's passing.

 

•    Shah Jahan came to the conclusion that as long as Ahmednagar was a sovereign state, there could be no peace for the Mughals in the Deccan.

 

•    This was a dramatic shift from the course of action taken by Akbar and Jahangir.

 

•    On the other hand, Shah Jahan was reluctant to enlarge Mughal domains in the Deccan beyond what was strictly essential.

 

•    He wrote to the ruler of Bijapur as a result, offering him roughly one-third of the state of Ahmednagar in return for his assistance in helping the Mughals organize their attack on Ahmednagar.

 

•    The diplomatic and military isolation of Ahmednagar by Shah Jahan was a sensible move. Additionally, he invited several Maratha sardars to enlist in the Mughal army.

 

•    The earliest attempts of Shah Jahan were successful. Malik Ambar killed and vanquished a number of famous Bijapuri nobles throughout his conquests.

 

•    Malik Ambar's humiliation in destroying Nauraspur and annexing Sholapur further enraged Adil Shah.

 

•    He agreed to Shah Jahan's suggestion and set up an army along the Nizam Shahi frontier to cooperate with the Mughals as a result.

 

•    Around this time, Jadhav Rao was treacherously killed on suspicion of collaborating with the Mughals. Jadhav Rao was a renowned Maratha noble who had defected to the Mughals during Jahangir's rule but had since returned to the Nizam Shah's service.

 

•    As a result, Shahji Bhonsale, his son-in-law (and Shivaji's father), as well as his family, deserted to the Mughal side.

 

•    He received a 5000 rupee mansab from Shah Jahan, as well as jagirs in the Poona district. Shah Jahan also enlisted the aid of other notable Maratha sardars.

 

•    Shah Jahan sent two sizable armies, one in the west in the Balaghat region and the other in the east in the Telengana region, to attack Ahmednagar in 1629. The Emperor himself moved to Burhanpur to organize their movements.

 

•    Large portions of Ahmednagar state were subjugated to the Mughals under persistent siege. One of the remaining outposts of the kingdom, Parenda, was under siege.

 

•    The Nizam Shah now sent a pitying appeal to Adil Shah, warning that if Parenda fell, the Nizam Shahi dynasty would be over, and then it would be Bijapur's time. He noted that the bulk of the realm was under Mughal rule.

 

•    A significant group at the Bijapur court had been worried by the steady Mughal advance in Ahmednagar. The Bijapuri men on the border, in actuality, had only observed the situation and had not actively taken part in Mughal operations.

 

•    The Mughals, on the other hand, have resisted giving Adil Shah the regions specified in the contract. As a result, Adil Shah did a backflip and made the decision to help the Nizam Shah, who consented to give him back Sholapur.

 

•    This political change forced the Mughals to raise the siege of Parenda and withdraw. The internal circumstances in Ahmednagar had changed, nevertheless, favouring the Mughals.

 

•    In an effort to convince Shah Jahan to make peace, the Nizam Shah recently named Fateh Khan, the son of Malik Ambar, as Peshwa.

 

•    Instead, Fateh Khan engaged in covert negotiations with Shah Jahan, who then ordered the death of Nizam Shah and the ascension of a puppet to the throne. In the name of the Mughal emperor, he also read the khutba and struck the sikka.

 

•    As a result, Fateh Khan received Mughal service, and the jagir around Poona that had been allotted to Shahji was now under his command.

 

•    Shahji as a result revolted against the Mughals. These things took place in 1632.

 

•    Shah Jahan nominated Mahabat Khan as the Mughal viceroy of the Deccan after Fateh Khan's submission and left for Agra.

 

•    When Mahabat Khan was met by the combined opposition of Bijapur and the neighborhood Nizam Shahi nobility, especially Shahji, he found himself in a tough situation. The fort at Daulatabad was also strongly sought after by Bijapur, which made a generous offer to Fateh Khan in exchange for the fort's surrender. Other places were likewise difficult for the Mughals to hold onto their positions.

 

•    As a result, there was a battle between the Mughals and Bijapur over control of Ahmednagar's prostrate body.

 

•    To seize Daulatabad and provide for its garrison, Adil Shah sent a sizable force under the command of Randaula Khan and Murari Pandit. Shahji was also hired by Bijapur to irritate the Mughals and cut off their supply.

 

•    The combined efforts of the Shahji and Bijapuri troops, however, proved ineffective.

 

•    Daulatabad was invaded by Mahabat Khan in 1633, who eventually compelled the garrison to give up.

 

•    The Nizam Shahi dynasty was practically ended as a result.

 

•    Even still, the Mughals' issues were not resolved. Shahji brought up a Nizam Shahi prince to govern in the same manner as Malik Ambar.

 

•    Adil Shah convinced several Nizam Shahi nobles to hand over their forts to Shahji and sent a troop of seven to eight thousand cavalry to aid him.

 

•    Many of the Nizam Shahi troops who had been disbanded joined Shahji's army, which now had 20,000 horses.

 

•    With their aid, he harassed the Mughals and took over huge portions of Ahmednagar state.

 

•    Shah Jahan has made the decision to personally address the issues in the Deccan. He came to see that Bijapur's attitude was the key to the problem.

 

•    He sent out a sizable army to attack Bijapur as a result, and he also sent signals to Adil Shah, promising to renew the previous arrangement that divided Ahmednagar's territory between Bijapur and the Mughals.

 

•    Shah Jahan's push into the Deccan and the stick-and-carrot strategy led to another change in Bijapur politics.

 

•    A new treaty, or ahdnama, was signed with Shah Jahan when the anti-Mughal leaders, including Murari Pandit, were driven from their positions and slain.

 

•    Adil Shah consented to this treaty by acknowledging Mughal suzerainty, paying a twenty lakh rupee compensation, and refraining from meddling in Golconda's affairs, which had been placed under Mughal protection.

 

•    In the future, the Mughal emperor would be consulted to settle any disputes between Bijapur and Golconda.

 

•    If Shahji accepted to join the Bijapuri service, Adil Shah promised to cooperate with the Mughals to subdue him and to imprison him in the south, far from the Mughal boundary.

 

•    In return, Ahmednagar gave Bijapur annual territory payments of roughly 20 lakh huns (equal to 80 lakh rupees).

 

•    A solemn Farman with the emperor's palm was also delivered by Shah Jahan to Adil Shah as a guarantee that the stipulations of the agreement would never be violated.

 

•    Shah Jahan also signed a pact with Golconda, concluding the Deccan settlement. The king decided to omit the name of the Iranian emperor from the khutba but included the name of Shah Jahan.

 

•    Qutb Shah was required to be obedient to the emperor. Golconda had remitted the four lakh huns in annual tribute that it had been paying to Bijapur.

 

•    Instead, in order to get the Mughal emperor's protection, it was necessary to give him two lakh huns annually.

 

•    Statesmanlike agreements were made in 1636 with Bijapur and Golconda. They essentially made it possible for Shah Jahan to carry out Akbar's main objectives.

 

•    The Mughal emperor's suzerainty was now acknowledged throughout the nation. The Deccani states were able to extend their borders southward thanks to peace with the Mughals.

 

•    In the decade that followed the treaties of 1636, Bijapur and Golconda overran the lush and fertile Karnataka region from the Krishna to Tanjore and beyond. Over this region, a variety of small principalities were in power.

 

•    The Rayal, the former monarch of Vijayanagara, was nominally owed allegiance by many of them, including the Nayaks of Tanjore, Jinji, and Madurai. A number of campaigns were started by Bijapur and Golconda against these states.

 

•    With the help of Shah Jahan, they came to an agreement to split the lands and booty taken by their soldiers in the proportion of 2/3 to Bijapur and 1/3 to Golconda. They frequently disagreed, but the conquest work went on.

 

•    These two states more than doubled in size in a short period of time, reaching the height of their dominance and prosperity.

 

•    The rulers would have experienced a protracted period of peace in the Deccan if they had been successful in establishing their dominance over the territories they had conquered.

 

Rapid growth eroded any internal coherence these states may have had. Ambitious nobility in Bijapur started to create spheres of power for themselves, including Shahji, his son Shivaji, and Mir Jumla, the top nobility in Golconda. The Mughals wanted payment for their benevolent neutrality throughout the expansionist era of these nations after learning that the Deccan's power dynamics had been disrupted. These developments culminated in 1656 with the death of Muhammad Adil Shah and the accession of Aurangzeb as the Mughal viceroy of the Deccan.