Maratha Confederacy

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 the British Empire, although a number of Maratha states persisted as princely states of British India until Indian independence in 1947.

Shivaji (c. 1627-1680)

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.

Raja Chatrapati Shivaji's successors

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.

Shahu (c 1707-1749)

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.

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.

Peshwa Baji Rao I (1720-1740)

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.

Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao (1740-1761)

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 Decline of the Empire

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.

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.

Legacy of the Empire

Often painted as kind of loose military organisation , in fact the maratha empire was revolutionary in nature.It did bring certain fundamental changes started by the genius of its founder the celebrated Shivaji.They can be summarised as below:

• Shivaji and almost all maratha kings and general including peshwas followed a true secular policy.It was not dependent on whims and fancy of individual
• Since its start, many persons of talent were inducted in maratha empire which made it one of the most socially mobile empire.Please note that ruler of Indore was a Dhangar, a tribal, rulers of Gwalior and Baroda were from ordianry peasant families,peshwas of Bhat family were from ordianry backgrounds.
• Marathas miliatrily controlled huge tracts which threw out the yoke of mughals.Today's India is more or less synonomous with the areas of Maratha confedercy
• It created a legacy of fighting against the invaders.It is worth to mention that many leaders of freedom movement from maratha lands
• Maratha prince played a vital role in the integration of Indian states.
• It created a legacy of continous social changes.All major social policies of India originated from maratha land eg.women education(Baroda),reservation for backward classes(Kolhapur),problems of peasants(pune)

Maratha rulers

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)