Maratha Condition and Direction
The army amounting to five to seven lakh strong soldiers, many of them proven warriors in their own right, and Aurangzeb well beyond in his sixties, such was the arraignment of the war.
By: PruthvirajDhawad
New Delhi: “This is the kingdom which when attacked by such powerful adversary as Aurangzeb himself proved him to be ineffective. Aurangzeb bet his whole prowess, finances, wealth and his self-esteem to vanquish this kingdom. Still, due to the auspicious blessings of Mother Goddess, all of that proved unfruitful, and resulted in his devastated, dejected and demotivated end!”- Ajnyapatras (a repository of erstwhile imperial orders).
Even when Aurangzeb enjoyed the empire stretching up to twenty-two Subas, crores of rupees of annual revenue, seven to eight-lakh strong army, vast artillery etc. resources and facilities, he could not defeat the Marathas. The material means of the Marathas would not match even a small bit of that of Aurangzeb, still the Marathas emerged victorious in the end, and the Mughals were not only defeated, but had to return to Delhi empty handed, after burying their so-called emperor here in this soil. This was the strength that was created in the Marathas by Shivajiraje. No king, no kingdom, no treasury, no throne, no central authority, still Marathas kept on fighting. What for? For independence! Even the common public was now fighting to maintain the independence achieved after centuries upon centuries. One side was fighting for independence, while the other was fighting for expansion of its imperial boundaries. These two sides had been playing their winning and losing moves in the valleys and ravines of Sahyadri. This moral strength of self-esteem was created in the Marathas by Shivajiraje. And that’s why, any real assessment of Shivaji Maharaj’s life and character can only be done through a review of the actions of his successors after him.
Aurangzeb came down to Deccan to gulp down the Maratha kingdom in the year 1682. The army amounting to five to seven lakh strong soldiers, many of them proven warriors in their own right, and Aurangzeb well beyond in his sixties, such was the arraignment of the war. Around 1686-87, Aurangzeb vanquished Adilshahi and Qutbshahi. But he was unable to capture the Maratha kingdom. Marathas literally wrought a miracle. They kept a landed fortress like Ramshej constantly fighting for almost six years.
Around 1689 Sambhaji Maharaj was captured by the Mughals. He was paraded around by Muqarrab Khan. Aurangzeb killed him finally at the end of immense inhuman torture. A specific point to be noted here is, Aurangzeb was not your ordinary emperor. He had imprisoned his own father for ten long years. He had caused a torturous death for Shahjahan. He had five sons. He himself killed eldest of them by imprisoning him. Second son Akbar II ran away and joined forces with SambhajiMaharaj, and raised a standard of revolt against his own father with tacit help from the Rajputs. Three other sons left were – Mohammed Azam, Kaambaksh, Muazzam. Earlier he had defeated the true heir to the throne, his brother, Dara Shukoh, at the battle of Samugarh, and beheaded him. NazarBeigChilla had presented Dara’s severed head as a gift to Aurangzeb. Such killer of his own father, brother, son, Aurangzeb was extremely suspicious in nature. No point repeating what calamity would have befallen if Shivajiraje had been permanently ensnared in the house-arrest at Agra. He sent Zulfiqar Khan to capture Raigad around 1689. Raigad kept on fighting around six months. Finally, the Mughals won and captured Raigad. Queen Yesubai, ChhatrapatiSambhajiraje’s son Shahu, a couple of his other sons Madan Singh and Madho Singh, Shivajiraje’s wife Sakwarbai etc. people were captured alive by the Mughals. RajaramMaharaj, Queen Tarabai escaped towards Panhalgad, taking half the Mughal army on their backs in the chase. From there, the temporary Maratha council travelled to Jinji. But in just six months after the fall of Raigad, the Marathas came to their senses. This is evident in the erstwhile Marathi documents and letters. Marathas have evidently referred to the time’s situation in the letters of that time with utmost self-confidence that ‘The Swarajya matter is becoming especially interesting.’ Aurangzeb had captured Maratha throne, Maratha capital as well. In such a situation, the Marathas kept on fighting for eighteen long years. And this period of the struggle for independence became a towering inspiration for posterity. Around this time, an Italian travellerNicolaoManucci has noted in his memoirs, that the Maratha king had become so powerful in those time, that earlier Aurangzeb used to attack other minion states, while times had come when Maratha king was attacking the Mughals. Due to the continuous war-like situation for twenty-seven years, food-grain which used to be just 10-20 paise per sher (erstwhile equivalent of a kilogram), was now selling for 1-2 Rupees per sher. The struggle between the Mughals and the Marathas was thus a test of resources and the capability to withstand. The Mughal army had grown sick and tired in the Deccan, and were eager to return to their homes in the north. They were not willing to stay back in the Deccan, supporting this crazy campaign of their emperor. Little children who had been born on the campaign tents of the Mughals, were now twenty-five years of age. The old men who had started the campaign had died, and the young men since had aged. The imperial army was thus a home to three generations of soldiers. Panhalgad had become the undeclared capital of Swarajya. RamchandrapantAamatya was managing the administration from there. The Maratha battlefront was spread out from the banks of the Narmada right up to Thiruchirapalli. KrishnajiSawant had crossed the River Narmada even when Aurangzeb was alive.
MalharRamraoChitnis writes about the terror of Santaji and Dhanaji as follows:
“When the Mughals took their horses to water, they used to refuse to drink it. Mughal soldiers used to joke about this saying even the horses were seeing Santaji and Dhanaji in the water! They would attack (the Mughal camps) whether day or night, from any direction. All eight quartiles of the day, the Mughal army was always at high-alert. Even the Badshah would highly wonder sometimes, that the Maratha army was gaining strength. They would appear suddenly, raid the camp, fight like demons, and as the situation worsened, would vanish over the wind… If one dispatched additional supplementary forces in one region, other detachments would appear in completely different provinces, capture outposts and regions. This was not human. It was ghostly, demonic.”
The Marathas knew no limits and went up to raiding Badshah’s own imperial tent one day, even capturing the Mughal commander-in-chief alive, and extorting a ransom for him.
Around 1700, ChhatrapatiRajaram died atop Sinhagad. It was as if Emperor Aurangzeb got a fresh lease of life in his old age considering one more of the Maratha kings had died. This emperor had personally witnessed the death of two Chhatrapati kings in his Deccan campaign. However, Queen Tarabai kept harassing the Mughals for seven long years after this. The emperor was 83 years of age at this time. The 83-year-old emperor was sitting atop an elephant and had embarked on his war. There was no limit to the travails of the imperial army. The imperial forces were negotiating rivers and streams, mud and swamps. They were pulling their heavy cannon through the mountains and ravines of Sahyadri and lining them up in front of the forts. But the Maratha opposition would not relent. Even though the emperor had captured ten forts, only one of them had been captured through proper fight.
The Mughal armies used to invest these forts. The Marathas would keep the fort struggling until the onset of the monsoons. The moment monsoon began, the Marathas would relinquish the fort’s control to the Mughals in lieu of a huge ransom, and again capture it back the moment monsoons finished.
The emperor was now repenting to have himself stepped into Deccan. If he had eliminated Shivajiraja at Agra earlier, he had been spared of all these battles. He was not able to decide whether he should praise the Marathas or curse them. Finally, towards the end of an extremely dejected and hopeless life, witnessing his dream being crashed to smithereens, around 1707 Aurangzeb breathed his last at Ahmednagar.
Aurangzeb’s death gave a new turn to the politics of Hindustan. Actually, even now the danger to the Maratha kingdom had not finished completely. Who knew, the new emperor continued the ongoing war with fresh impetus! Aurangzeb had almost given up. But what of his sons? But the next few emperors proved to be especially eccentric. A war of succession began and Bahadurshah became the emperor. He used to be afraid of prisons and death itself. Who knows what deranged idea came to his mind, but one fine day, he ordered all the dogs in Lahore to be killed. He freed ShahuMaharaj in 1707 from captivity. He thought that due to Shahu’s release a kind of war of succession would begin amongst the Marathas themselves, and it so transpired as well. BalajiVishwanath and DhanajiJadhav joined Shahu’s camp by 1709, tipping the scales in his favour, and resulting in him becoming the Chhatrapati.
Aurangzeb’s empire was somehow holding on for namesake. Bahadurshah died in 1712 and Jahandershah became the emperor. This Jahandershah was extremely cruel and very salacious. He came under the influence of the court danseuse. He would run the empire under her watchful guidance. Her name was Laal Kunwar. One time she desired to see lamps lit on the banks of the River Yamuna. The Badshah ordered to light so many lamps that Delhi ran out of oil, but she continued to ask for more. She asked for more. Badshah ordered ghee to be used in the lamps instead, and Delhi ran out of ghee too. She then expressed a desire that she wanted to witness some people drowning. Badshah ordered eighty people to board a boat, and caused to overturn the boat right in the middle of the river. Only 2 of the eighty on-board the boat somehow survived. How would such emperor sustain his rule? His own nephew, Farrukhsiyar deposed him taking help from Sayyed brothers. The imperial court was now clearly divided into two camps. One belonged to the Shi’as and the other to the Sunnis. Badshah had conferred the position of the Vazir on Abdul Barah. He was the first Shi’a Vazir of the emperor. The imperial court had become a warehouse of conspiracies and plots. Once the Badshah actually dispatched the Sayyed brothers against Ajeet Singh and on the other hand sent a letter to Ajeet Singh that he should finish off Sayyed brothers. Overall both camps had a good enough measure of each other. The Sayyed brothers also were fed up of this emperor. Around this time, the Marathas made an entry into the politics of Delhi.
In 1719, Sayyed Abdullah came to know that the emperor had ordered to imprison both Sayyed brothers. Abdullah ordered Sayyed Hussein Ali to collect all his armies and return back from Aurangabad. Sayyed Hussein Ali met Maratha diplomat ShankarajiMalhar. He used to work for Hussein Ali. Hussein Ali who was against the Marathas started thinking of taking their help to checkmate the emperor himself. Shankaraji fixed the terms of the treaty on behalf of the emperor at Satara. In it there were six most important terms.
- All of Shivajiraja’sSwarajya, along with all his forts need to be handed over to Shahuraje.
- The region recently captured by the Marathas, viz. Khandesh, Gondwana, Berar, Hyderabad and Karnataka should be included in the Maratha Swarajya.
- Marathas to be granted the rights to collect Chauth and Sardeshmukhi in the areas that were owned by the Mughals in the Deccan. In lieu of the Chauth rights, Marathas were to keep their fifteen-thousand strong force for the emperor’s help and in lieu of the Sardeshmukhi rights, they were to take care of the thieves in the Mughal realms.
- Shahuraja was not to cause unnecessary trouble to Sambhajiraja at Kolhapur.
- Marathas to pay ten lakh rupees per year as tribute to the emperor.
- Shahuraja’s mother and family were still in Mughal captivity at Delhi, they should be released and dispatched to their home.
PeshwaBalajiVishwanath, ShankarajiMalhar, and Sayyed Hussein Ali, all came together and came up with a brilliant idea. ‘SiyarulMutakhareen’ describes the said revolution in detail. The Marathas spread a rumour that Moinuddin Hussein, son of Aurangzeb’s son Akbar is in Maratha captivity. There was no such Mughal prince in Maratha captivity. Hussein Ali informed the emperor that if the Maratha hostages in Mughal captivity are released, then this Moinuddin would be handed over to the Emperor. The moment he heard that the Marathas were holding such a prince hostage, Farrukhsiyar became afraid. He realised that there could be a revolt under the banner of this Mughal prince. The Marathas made this fake prince sit atop a great giant elephant in Aurangabad and paraded there. People used to pay their obeisance to this fake prince every day. Finally, all this entourage reached Delhi. The people in Delhi also threw themselves at the feet of this ‘Aurangzeb’s grandson’. Hussein Ali proclaimed that ‘Once Maratha hostages are released from captivity, Moinuddin would be handed over.’ The Emperor was completely shaken to the core due to all this. The Maratha forces also clashed with Amin Khan’s men in the city’s roads, around 1500 Marathas were killed in this skirmish. In it, SantajiBhosale and BalajipantBhanu were the two prominent ones in this.
The emperor had to agree to all the demands put forward by Marathas. Yesubai, ChhatrapatiShambhuraja’s wife was released from the Mughal captivity after thirty years. Marathas were paid fifty lakh rupees as the campaign reparations. Thus, in just about 13 years after Aurangzeb’s death, Marathas had made their grand entrance into the Delhi politics. This strength, this self-confidence had been acquired by the Marathas through the 27-year war that they fought with Aurangzeb. The Marathas had realised now that even if they were not able to completely destroy the enemy, they had the power to at least make him pay a heavy price. This was what ShivajiMaharaj’s coronation, his ascension to the independent Maratha throne did for a people crushed under the Sultanate rule for three hundred years.
References:
1) मराठीरियासतखंड१व२
2)झंझावात :- निनादबेडेकर
3)मराठ्यांचेस्वातंत्र्ययुद्ध :- डॉजयसिंगरावपवार
4)मराठ्यांच्याइतिहासाचीसाधने:- वि.का.राजवाडे
5)History of Aurangzeb, Jadunath Sarkar
6)StorioDe Mogor:- NiccolaoManucci
7) आज्ञापत्र:- रामचंद्रपंतअमात्य
8)मोगलमराठासंघर्ष:- सेतुमाधवरावपगडी
9)छत्रपतीसंभाजीएकचिकित्सा:- डॉजयसिंगरावपवार
10)सेनापतीसंताजीघोरपडे:- डॉजयसिंगरावपवार