Mogulnama: Rangoon Dur Ast

These 150 years are little written about and less read. Yet their study is essential to understand the future shape of events. In the south, the Peshwas and their generals tried during the whole of the 18th century to replace the Mughals on the Dilli gaddi; in the north, the Sikhs rode furiously around in a confused frenzy to carve a kingdom. Both failed; the Marathas slaughtered at Panipat by Ahmed Shah Abdali, and the Sikhs pushed back to the Sutlej by the British. In a well-researched book, Cheema resurrects the six major padshahs of the period and the khichri of unprincipled ambition of the court’s Turani and Irani umra; the Rajputs, the Bharatpur Jaats, the faction-ridden Marathas and the Sikhs, that swamped these unfortunate children of Babar.