This is the story of the transformation of Swarajya to Samrajya. While I have retained GS Sardesai’s ‘Marathi Riyasat Vol 3’ as the foundational source for my narrative, I have also referred to Dr Uday S Kulkarni’s ‘The Era of Bajirao’ to augment the narrative so that the story is enriched. This is a full disclosure at the beginning of the series itself to avoid any accusations of plagiarism later. All rights laid at the feet of my Gurus, and I do not have any ambition to make commercial use of the story anywhere.
The eighteenth century relates a story of the collapse of one empire and the rise of another. The Marathas from the Deccan had begun to enter the plains of Hindustan by the close of the seventeenth century. While at the close of the eighteenth, they were the power that held the country in their charge, from Sirhind to the borders of Mysore, from Gujarat to Odisha. They were the last indigenous empire in India, and not the phantom that occupied the Red Fort at Delhi. Decisions influencing large swathes of populations in India for most of the eighteenth century were taken at Pune.
On 20 February 1707, Emperor Aurangzeb died at Ahmednagar. This was a transformational moment in the Maratha and overall Hindustan’s history. One cannot understand the importance of this transformation unless one looks at the internal and external situation at that time clearly. There were a very few rulers as capable as Aurangzeb on the face of this earth. Only through his religious bigotry, he destroyed his own life as well as the Mughal Empire along with it. It is necessary to understand what all elements were involved in his miserable death, and how they later played out.
The huge struggle mounted by the Marathas for twenty-seven long years, exposed the hollow foundations of the Mughal power, and through this, the Marathas were blessed with the self-realisation that they could establish their own power in the whole country.
Sambhajiraje’s assassination did not help the Badshah even one bit. Instead, due to that, the Maratha nation got an extraordinary vitality. The fact, that their Chhatrapati, their nation’s leader, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s son, was killed by the Badshah through inhuman torture, generated a huge desire for vengeance in the hearts of all the Marathas. Due to this life-threatening struggle and their shared calamity, a national unity took shape amongst the Marathas. The experiment of powerless defeating the powerful succeeded. The hopes of the nation increased. It got invaluable experience of war. It became clear how valour, guerrilla warfare, and tactics help a nation’s progress.
The Badshah himself was aware of this. He had only one pawn in the game in the form of Shahu. He kept thinking about only this sole concern night-and-day about how to make use of this pawn. He could not succeed in his motive to convert Shahu and align him to the Empire. He was convinced that he would not be able to draw any benefit by killing him like Sambhajiraje. Then, the only idea that remained was turning him into a tributary of the Mughal Empire, and through him engineering a split in the Maratha unity.
“On the first day of the waning moon fortnight of the month of Magha, i.e. 18 January 1706, he released Shahu from prison, dispatched him to capture Kondhana along with Zulfiqar Khan, and himself went on to stay at Ahmednagar. Immediately in the month of Chaitra, Dhanaji fought with the imperial army.”
But Shahu did not accept the adventure of the above freedom. While he was still in the Badshah’s camp, Aurangzeb himself died. After this, Aurangzeb’s second son Azamshah performed the Badshah’s last rites, and immediately ascended the throne on 5 March. He embarked on the journey back to the north to defeat his elder brother. Shahu and the other family members accompanied him on his journey to the north. While leaving the Deccan, Azamshah appointed Daud Khan Panni at Bijapur, imperial Mansabdar Raibhanji Bhosale at Aurangabad, and Chin Qillich Khan alias Nizam-ul-Mulk at Burhanpur, as Subedars and established control over Deccan. However, the chief Subedar of Deccan was still Zulfiqar Khan who went to the north with Azamshah. Zulfiqar Khan was the only Mughal sardar who had complete knowledge about the Maratha leadership, and Deccanese customs and behaviours since the time of Sambhajiraje. He had always intended to declare himself independent in the Deccan if the situation demanded. Due to this, he had established a special relationship with Daud Khan for many years.
To be continued…
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