Maratha Empire
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Flag of the Maratha Empire |
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Extent of the Maratha Confederacy ca. 1760
(shown here in yellow) |
The
Maratha Empire (also spelled
Mahratta) also known as the
Maratha Confederacy, was a
Hindu state of
India which existed from 1674 to 1818. It was founded by Chhatrapati
Shivaji in
1674 when he carved out an independent Maratha zone around
Pune from the
Bijapur Sultanate. After a lifetime of exploits and
guerrilla warfare with the
Mughal emperor
Aurangzeb, Shivaji died in
1680, leaving a Maratha kingdom of great extent but strategically and vulnerably located. The Mughal invasion started around
1682 and lasted till
1707.
Shahu, a grandson of
Shivaji became ruler until his death in
1749. At the time of death he appointed a
Peshwa (chief minister) as head of the state with certain conditions to follow. The Peshwas became the
de facto leaders of the Empire, while Shivaji's successors continued as nominal rulers from their base in
Satara.
The empire reached its greatest extent in the 18th century under Shahu and the peshwa
Balaji Baji Rao. The Maratha losses at the
Third Battle of Panipat in
1761 halted the expansion of the empire and reduced the power of Peshwa; The empire became a looser confederacy, with political power resting in a 'pentarchy' of five Maratha dynasties: The Peshwas of
Pune, the
Sindhias of
Malwa and
Gwalior, the
Holkars of
Indore, the
Bhonsles of
Nagpur, and the
Gaekwads of
Baroda. Maratha affairs of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were dominated internal rivalry between the Sindhia and Holkar, and by the three
Anglo-Maratha wars with the
British East India Company. The last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, was defeated by the British in the
Third Anglo-Maratha War, and the Maratha empire was largely annexed by British, although a number of Maratha states persisted as
princely states of British India until Indian independence in 1947.
The
Hindu Marathas long had lived in the
Desh region around
Satara, in the western portion of the
Deccan plateau, where the plateau meets the eastern slopes of the
Western Ghats mountains. They had resisted incursions into the region by the
Muslim Mughal rulers of northern India. Under their leader
Shivaji, the Maratha freed themselves from the
Muslim sultans of
Bijapur to the southeast, and became much more aggressive and began to frequently raid Mughal territory, sacking the Mughal port of
Surat in 1664. Shivaji proclaimed himself emperor
(Chhatrapati) in 1674. The Marathas had spread and conquered some of central India by Shivaji's death in 1680. But later lost it to
Mughal rulers and to the
British Empire.
In
1681,
Sambhaji, the elder of Shivaji's two sons and the unpopular one among Shivaji's courtiers (Sambhaji was a short tempered one. The courtiers preferred Rajaram who was milder), had himself crowned and resumed his father's expansionist policies. To nullify any
Rajput-Maratha alliance, as well as to resume his long relations with the
Deccan Sultanates, in
1682 the Mughal emperor
Aurangzeb himself headed south with his entire imperial court, administration, and an army of about 180,000 troops which proceeded to conquer the sultanates of Bijapur and
Golconda. In
1688, Sambhaji was caught, tortured, and then painfully dismembered.
Rajaram, Sambhaji's brother, now assumed the throne. In
1700 Satara, to which Rajaram earlier had moved the capital, came under siege and eventually was surrendered to the Mughals. At about the same time Rajaram died. His widow, Tarabai, assumed control in the name of her son Shivaji. A truce was offered which promptly was rejected by the emperor.
Tarabai heroically led
Marathas. By
1705,
Marathas had crossed the
Narmada River and entered
Malwa, then in
Mughal possession.
This
battle was a decisive one. The Mughals lost their eminent position on the
Indian subcontinent forever. The Marathas emerged as victorious after a long drawn-out and fiercely-fought battle. The soldiers and commanders who participated in this war achieved the real expansion of the Maratha empire. Internal feuds occurred later on, and continued until the Marathas were defeated by the
British in
1818.
After Emperor Aurangzeb's death in 1707,
Shahuji, son of the dismembered Sambhaji (and grandson of Shivaji), was released by
Bahadur Shah, the next Mughal emperor. He immediately claimed the Maratha throne and challenged his aunt Tarabai and her son. This promptly turned the now-spluttering Mughal-Maratha war into a three-cornered affair.
In
1713 Farrukhsiyar had declared himself Mughal emperor. His bid for power had depended heavily on two brothers, known as the
Saiyids, one of whom had been the governor of
Allahabad and the other the governor of
Patna. However the brothers had a falling-out with the emperor. Negotiations between the Saiyids and Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath, a civilian representative of Shahu, drew the Marathas into the vendetta against the emperor.
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Ruins of the Raigad fort, which served as a capital for Maratha Empire. |
An army of Marathas commanded by Parsoji Bhosale, and Mughals, marched up to Delhi unopposed and managed to depose the emperor. In return for this help, Balaji Vishwanath managed to negotiate a substantial treaty. Shahuji would have to accept Mughal rule in the Deccan, furnish forces for the imperial army, and pay an annual tribute. But in return he received a
firman, or imperial directive, guaranteeing him
Swaraj, or independence, in the Maratha homeland, plus rights to
chauth and
sardeshmukh (amounting to 35 percent of the toal revenue) throughout
Gujarat,
Malwa, and the now six provinces of the Mughal Deccan. This treaty also managed to secure release of Yesubai,
Shahuji's mother from mughal prison.
After Balaji Vishwanath's death in April,
1719, his son,
Baji Rao I was appointed as Peshwa by Chattrapati
Shahuji.
Shahuji, was one of the most lenient emperors. He possessed a strong capacity for recognising talent. In fact he caused a social revolution by bringing new talent into power irrespective of the poor background of its possessor. This was one great sign of the social mobility of the
Maratha empire, which enabled their rapid expansion.
A clerk, such as Balaji or his son, and ordinary men like Shinde or Holkar, owed their positions to the aura of this great prince. Until his death, in 1749, he controlled the
Maratha empire with strong hands. Despite opposition from other court factions, he recognised the talent of Baji Rao and gave him the imperial army, which was so well-trained and experienced from its long and hard battles.
Baji Rao, true to the expectations of his master, carried out his duties well. They reached
Rajasthan in
1735,
Delhi in
1737, and
Orissa and
Bengal by
1740. Baji Rao died in
1740, after a series of conquests that had consolidated the power of the Marathas.
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Extent of the Maratha Confederacy ca. 1760 |
Baji Rao's son,
Balaji Bajirao (Nanasaheb), was appointed as a Peshwa by Shahu. The period between
1741 and
1745 was one of comparative calm in the
Deccan.
Shahuji died in
1749.
Nanasaheb encouraged agriculture, protected the villagers, and brought about a marked improvement in the state of the territory. Continued expansion saw Raghunath Rao, the brother of Nanasaheb, pushing into
Punjab, in the wake of the Afghan withdrawal after
Ahmed Shah Abdali's plunder of Delhi in
1756. In Lahore, as in Delhi, the Marathas were now major players. By
1760, with a defeat of the Nizam in the
Deccan, Maratha power had reached its zenith.
The Peshwa sent an army to challenge the Afghans, and the Maratha army was decisively defeated on January 13, 1761 at the
Third Battle of Panipat. Their internal feuding cost them greatly in this battle. The battle checked Maratha expansion, prevented the capture of Delhi, and encouraged the fragmentation of the empire. Even today the phrase in Marathi, "meet your Panipat", has a similar meaning as the phrase "meet your Waterloo" does in English.
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Shaniwar Wada: The palace of the Peshwas, founded by Peshwa Baji Rao I. The view looks towards the entrance gatehouse and outer walls of the palace, with a vegetable market on the open space in the foreground. Cira 1860 |
After 1761, young Madhavrao peshwa tried his best to rebuild the empire in spite of his frail health. In a bid to effectivley manage the large empire, semi-autonomy was given to strongest of the knights. Thus, the autonomous Maratha states of the
Gaekwads of
Baroda, the
Holkars of
Indore &
Malwa, the
Scindias (or Shinde's) of
Gwalior (and
Ujjain), Pawars of Udgir and Bhosles of
Nagpur (no blood relation with
Shivaji's or
Tarabai's family) came into being in far flung regions of the empire. Even in the
Maharashtra itself many knights were given semi-autonomous charges of small districts which led to princly states like Sangali, Aundh, Miraj etc.
In 1775 the
British East India Company, from its base in Bombay, intervened in a succession struggle in Pune, on behest of Raghunathrao (alias Raghobadada), which became the
First Anglo-Maratha War: that ended in 1782 with a restoration of the pre-war status quo. In 1802 the British intervened in
Baroda to support the heir to the throne against rival claimants, and they signed a treaty with the new Maharaja recognizing his independence from the Maratha empire in return for his acknowledgement of British paramountcy. In the
Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-1805), the Peshwa Bajirao the second signed similar treaty. The
Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817-1818), a last-ditch effort to regain soverignity, resulted in the loss of Maratha independence, and left Britain in control of most of India. The Peshwa was exiled to Bithoor (near Kanpur, U.P.) as a pensioner of the British.The Maratha heartland of Desh, including Pune, came under direct British rule, with the exception of the states of
Kolhapur and
Satara, which retained local Maratha rulers. The Maratha-ruled states of Gwalior, Indore, and Nagpur all lost territory, and came under subordinate alliance with the British Raj as
princely states that retained internal soveriegnty under British 'paramountcy'. Other small princely states of Maratha knights were retained under British raj as well.
Nana Sahib, the last Peshwa, was born as Govind Dhondu Pant and was the adopted son of Peshwa Baji Rao II. When Baji Rao died in 1851, the company, according to an earlier ruling of not recognizing the adopted sons of a deceased ruler stopped Baji Rao's pension. Nana Sahib was deprived of not only his pension but also hollow titles, his seal and yearly allocation of even blank cartridges for his guards. For the next few years Nana kept sending petitions to the Company for resumption of his pension while entertaining British officers at his palace in Bithur, without any success. The ideas of Azimullah Khan, his secretary, to attempt to recover his throne and the predictions of his guru, Dassa Bawa, that one day he will be victorious, and his own dreams of grandeur may have encouraged him to take the bold course of siding with the rebels of 1857. He led the revolt from Kanpur with ferocity. When Kanpur was taken, he along with his most trustworthy chiefs, soldiers and servants went to reinforce Bareilly and then to Gorakhpur. A huge number of Marathas can still be found along the Indo-Nepal border. Nana Sahib himself was never found.
The name of the empire today is preserved in the Indian
state of
Maharashtra, which was created in 1960 as a
Marathi-speaking state.
The Royal House of Chhatrapati Shivaji
*Chhatrapati
Shivaji (
1630-
1680)
*Chhatrapati
Sambhaji (-1689)
*Chhatrapati
Rajaram (-1700)
*Chhatrapati Shivaji (alias Shahu, Son of Chatrapati
Sambhaji, )
*Chhatrapati
Ramaraja (nominally, grandson of Chatrapati Rajaram - Queen Tarabai)
The Royal House of Kolhapur
*Queen Tarabai (wife of Chatrapati
Rajaram)
*Chatrapati Sambhaji (son of Chatrapati
Rajaram from second wife)...
*Chhatrapati
Shahu Maharaj...
Peshwa
*
Balaji Vishwanath*
Bajirao the first (brother Chimaji-appa)
*
Balaji Bajirao (brother Raghunathrao, Cousin Sadashivrao-bhau)
*
Peshwa Madhavrao (elder brother Vishwasrao)
*Narayanrao Peshwa (younger brother of Madhavrao, murdered by uncle)
*Raghunathrao Peshwa (uncle of Narayanrao, ousted in coup named "Barbhai" conspiracy)
*Sawai Madhavrao Peshwa (son of Narayanrao)
*Bajirao the second (son of Raghunathrao)
*Amritrao Peshwa (brother of Bajirao the second, for a short period during Yashwantrao holkar's siege of Pune, Bajirao reinstated by British later)
*Nanasaheb Peashwa the second (adopted son of Bajirao the second, lived in
Uttar Pradesh in exile)
*
History of India*
Shaniwar Wada*
History of South Asia*
Military history of India*
Maratha Clan System
