Thirty Years for a Child He Carried Out of Delhi

Jaswant Singh of Marwar died in 1678 in Afghanistan, on imperial service, with no living son. Two of his widows were pregnant.

Aurangzeb moved before the children were born. Marwar was placed under imperial administration, the state simply taken, on the grounds that there was no heir, and a governor appointed. It was the largest Rathore kingdom in Rajasthan, and it had been an imperial ally for generations. Jaswant Singh had died in the emperor's own service.

Then one of the widows gave birth to a boy, and he was named Ajit Singh, and there was now an heir.

The delegation

The Rathore nobles took the infant to Delhi and asked, formally, that he be confirmed in his father's titles and estates. Among them was Durgadas Rathore, a nobleman of no exceptional rank, the son of a minister, not a prince.

Aurangzeb's answer was that the child would be safest growing up in Delhi, at court, under his own eye.

Everyone in the room understood what that meant. A Rajput heir raised in imperial custody would come of age as whatever the empire had made him.

And Marwar would be administered in his name until then. Which is to say permanently.