of clans by differences of race, creed, and traditions, and often engaged in war with one
another. The addition of Sindh to his charge
brought Aurangzib in contact with the wildest
and most untractable Afghan and Baluch septs.
For many generations past the royal authority
had been hardly obeyed in the
western borderland even
in
Sindh its lawless population.
name, and the chieftains had
lived warred and raided as they liked. Aurangzib was not the man to brook disorder and
disobedience. But even he could do no more
than make a beginning. The cause of law and
order could get no local support among the
people governed; everything depended on the
strong arm of the ruler. It was impossible for
him, in the few years of a viceroyalty, to break
to peaceful life and law-abiding habits tribes
who had never before known any government
and who were in a fluid state of either expansion
or extinction. Only justice strictly administered
and backed by irresistible force for several
generations, could have crushed out the predatory
instincts of the Brahuis and Hots and taught
them to obey a higher power than their chieftains'
will. This moral transformation was reserved
for another age and another race of administrators. What Aurangzib, however, could do
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118
HISTORY OF AURANGZIB.
[CHAP. VI.