SHAH 'ALAM II

original name 'ali Gauhar born June 15, 1728, Delhi, India died Nov. 10, 1806, Delhi nominal Mughal emperor of India from 1759 to 1806. Son of the emperor 'Alamgir II, he was forced to flee Delhi in 1758 by the minister 'Imad-ul-Mulk, who kept the emperor a virtual prisoner. He took refuge with Shuja'-ud-Dawlah, nawab of Oudh, and after his father's assassination in 1759 he proclaimed himself emperor. With the intention of seeking to capture Delhi, he demanded tribute from Bihar and Bengal and thereby came into conflict with the East India Company. After Shuja'-ud-Dawlah's defeat at Buxar (in Bihar state) in 1764, however, Shah 'Alam became the company's pensioner, in return for which he legalized the company's positions in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa (1765) by granting the right to collect revenue. Comfortably installed at the city of Allahabad, he sought Delhi, and in 1771 an agreement with the Maratha people of western India returned it to him. During 177282 his minister, Najaf Khan, asserted imperial authority over the Delhi territory from the Sutlej to the Chambal rivers and from the state of Jaipur to the Ganges River. In 1788, however, the chief of the Rohillas (warlike Afghan tribes settled in India), Ghulam Qadir, seized Delhi and, enraged at his failure to find treasure, blinded Shah 'Alam. Shah 'Alam spent his last years under the protection of the Maratha chief, Sindhia, and, after the Second Maratha War (180305), of the British. With power only inside his palace, he saved more than a million rupees in his treasury. He was called king of Delhi by the British, who maintained him out of sentiment and issued coins bearing his name to continue the charade for 30 years after his death.