Battle of Khajwa

01Jaswant Singh’s night

After Samugarh, Aurangzeb had imprisoned his father and crowned himself. His brother Shuja came up the Ganga from Bengal with an army and many guns. Aurangzeb met him at Khajwa, between Allahabad and Fatehpur. Raja Jaswant Singh of Marwar, who had fought against Aurangzeb at Dharmat and then submitted, was in his camp. On the night before the battle Jaswant Singh plundered Aurangzeb’s baggage and marched off with his Rathores, hoping to throw the camp into panic.

02The battle

Aurangzeb kept his nerve and held his army together. On 5 January 1659 the two armies fought. Shuja’s guns did damage, and his elephants charged Aurangzeb’s centre, but Aurangzeb stood his ground on his own elephant and the line held. Shuja, seeing his attack fail, left the field. Mir Jumla pursued him down the Ganga to Bengal and through it, and in 1660 Shuja fled to Arakan, where he and his family were killed the next year.