Sultan Muhammad Akbar - The Rajput War

The Rajput War

Jaswant Singh, who was Maharaja of Jodhpur, was also a high-ranking Mughal officer. He died at his post on the Khyber Pass on 10 December 1678. He died without leaving male issue, but two of his wives were pregnant at the time of his death. The succession was thus unclear. When the news of the death reached Aurangzeb, he immediately dispatched a large army (9 January 1679) to occupy the state of Jodhpur. One of the division of this army was commanded by Akbar.

Aurangzeb occupied Jodhpur ostensibly to secure the succession for any male infant born to Jaswant's pregnant widows. He declared that such rightful heir would be invested with his patrimony upon coming of age. However, relations between Jaswant and Aurangzeb had not been very happy, and it was feared that Aurangzeb, a notorious bigot, would annex the state for good on this pretext. Indeed, incumbent officers in Jodhpur state were replaced by mughal officers. Many temples in Jodhpur were broken and the idols were carried to Delhi, where they were placed at the entrance of the Jama Masjid so that they could be trampled underfoot and defiled by the Muslims. After thus effectively annexing the largest Hindu state in northern India, Aurangzeb reimposed the jaziya tax on the non-Muslim population (2 April 1679), almost a century after it had been abolished by his tolerant ancestor Akbar I. All this made the emperor extremely unpopular among the Rajputs.

One of Jaswant's pregnant wives was duly delivered of a son, who was named Ajit Singh. Officers loyal to Jaswant brought his family back to Jodhpur and rallied the clan to the standards of the infant. The Rajputs of Jodhpur (Rathore clan) forged an alliance with the neighboring Rajput state of Mewar (Sisodia clan). Maharana Raj Singh of Mewar withdrew his army to the western portion of his kingdom, marked by the rugged Aravalli hills and secured by numerous hill-forts. From this position, the smaller but faster Rajput cavalry units could surprise the Mughal outposts in the plains, loot their supply trains, and bypass their camps to ravage neighbouring Mughal provinces.

In the second half of 1680, after several months of such setbacks, Aurangzeb decided on an all-out offensive. Nicolao Manucci, an Italian gunner in the Mughal army, says: "for this campaign, Aurangzeb put in pledge the whole of his kingdom." Three separate armies, under Aurangzeb's sons Akbar, Azam and Muazzam, penetrated the Aravalli hills from different directions. However, their artillery lost its effectiveness while being dragged around the rugged hills and both Azam and Muazzam were defeated by the Rajputs and beaten back.