Sunday, 12 April 2009

Rahim Khan Afghan mercenary of north India


Rahim Khan Afghan mercenary of north India, joined shobha singh principally for plunder. His patron Sobha Singh was a petty zamindar of Chetwa-Barda pargana of the district of Midnapore and had rebelled and killed Krishnaram Ray, the zamindar and the chief ijaradar of Burdwan around June 1695. Sobha Singh began to raise troops with the money plundered from Krishnaram's house. Ghulam Hussain Salim has placed the advent of Rahim Khan around this time. By the third week of November 1696, Sobha Singh's troops included seven to eight thousand horsemen, all probably Afghan mercenaries. The sudden death of Sobha Singh, of a fall from high terrace before the end of November 1696, made his uncle Maha Singh the leader of his forces. The real leader, however, was Rahim Khan, under whose leadership the rebels became far more aggressive and undertook unrestricted plunders, particularly of the rich towns of northern Bengal.
Maha Singh tried to normalise the situation by assuring the merchants and collecting revenue in the usual fashion. It seems that the rebels had divided their forces as well as the areas of operations. While Maha Singh concentrated on the seizure of the Hughli fort and the areas below it on the Bhagirathi, Rahim Khan shifted his operations in the northern part of the Bhagirathi.
By the end of November 1696, rebel forces led by Rahim Khan had pushed towards Makhsudabad. On the way, they had defeated a
mansabdar coming with 5000 horse and 5000 foot and plundered the city of Makhsudabad. By then the merchants fled and the trading activities had entirely stopped. Salimullah, the late eighteenth century historian, has given the credit of the victory to Rahim Khan.
With an army rapidly swelling to ten thousand horse and equal number of foot, the rebels had reached the outskirts of
rajmahal without opposition. They had also sent 2000 horse to Cottapore to prevent Zabardast Khan, who was coming with a Mughal army from Dhaka crossing the Ganges. The western bank of the Bhagirathi, with its rich and open market towns, lay completely at the mercy of the marauding Afghans. (1st of 3rd part)

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