PORTUGUESE ANGLE

The news of the fall of Madras to the French reached Nanasaheb, who had to be in attendance to Shahu at Satara. He wrote to Pilaji Jadhavrao on 9 December 1746, that the French were likely to attack the British on the west coast at Mumbai and then, even the Maratha posts of Vasai or Versova, “In the Carnatic the Firangis (French) attacked and took the place of the British. Anwaruddin Khan sent an army, but this was also given a thrashing. They took a few more places. This means they might attack Mumbai or even Vasai and Vesave (Versova). Hence, I am sending you there. In Vasai, you can put wet wood with a little mud around the fort, do not send the horsemen to fight. You are aware of the powerful artillery of the Firangis. Versova is vulnerable to fire from ships, so strengthen it with brave soldiers. Our guns should fire at the ships, they may not be able to stand it. Once Sardars like you are there, the enemy will not be able to approach. I am sending (Sadashivrao) Bhau on a campaign to the Carnatic to distract the Firangis. I had written in the past that you should accompany Bhau. However, you are required at Vasai at this time… in the past the Firangi British had attacked Khanderi, but they were beaten back as the fort was manned by the brave.”

The moment Shahu dispatched Sadashivrao to the Carnatic, Naik got angry and began venting out his frustrations in front of Shahu. On 7 February 1747 a report read, “Babuji Naik is at Satara. He did not complete the ritual feast. The thinking is, present Rajashree with the feast, complete the ritual, and only then embark on the campaign. In Bhau’s campaign, there are twenty-thousand men. The moment Rajashree asked, where Naik would leave for after seeking farewell, Yamajipant informed, he would go towards the provinces of Shire, Chitradurga, Rajadurga, Harpanhalli. Upon hearing this, Rajashree said, ‘Let us see what happens.’”

We get information from Portuguese correspondence of the time about what was at stake. A letter from Goa to the Secretary of State in Portugal in February 1747, discusses a possible Maratha attack on their post at Daman. The Viceroy also asked for troops to attack Vasai but found that Nanasaheb had already sent additional troops to defend the place, “Nana has been detained in the court of Satara for more than a year now. It is learnt that Shahu was scared of him in his Pune court and wanted, therefore, to keep him away from the said court and near to that of Satara to watch him more closely, on account of the jealousy and caution that originated from his power. The junior and senior queens, wives of Shahu, had great animosity with Nana because of the dispute of some lands that the queens wished to gift to one of their persons. Nana was unyieldingly opposed to that gift. Nana began to corrupt the ministers of the Satara court by payment of money. He bribed all the maids of the queens with large sums of money and finally corrupted Shahu himself with very rich presents. He succeeded and planned everything according to his desire.”

Nanasaheb’s own letter of 22 February 1747 gives us his impressions of the matter. The Peshwa wrote to Ramchandrababa that he wished to restore the forts captured from Bhosales of Sawantwadi. However, at this time, it was not possible and the Firangis were not willing to do so. “The Firangi is untrustworthy, he must be taught a lesson, but it is not possible at the present time. We are, therefore, heading towards Bednoor.” This did not, however, prevent the Peshwa from providing the Bhosales with monetary support.

Nanasaheb was, for the Portuguese, the prime mover in the Maratha state. Many of their letters are written with an embedded animosity for the Peshwa. The letter further discusses the other ministers of the court, “Shripatrao (Pratinidhi), Minister of Shahu and enemy of Nana died. Naro Ram, another minister, has reached the decrepit age of eighty. The lone minister, young and intrepid, is Nana now. He has huge forces and a large amount of money. He can soon be master of the entire dominion of Shahu as well as that of Sambhaji II, which, put together will constitute a formidable potency.”

The Peshwa had been at Satara for over a year and a half. In Shahu’s court, Mahadoba Purandare was a partisan, however, Govindrao Chitnis, who had the king’s ear, was considered capable of an independent opinion. Govindrao played a vital role during this time to sound Maharaj about the real state of affairs.

To be continued…

NANASAHEB DEPOSED, RESTORED

Some of Shahu’s courtiers were not happy with the Peshwa’s close relationship with Shahu and an opposition began to build up. Raghuji Bhosale, Damaji Gaikwad, the senior queen Sakwarbai, and Yamaji Shivdeo, who was the Pratinidhi’s Mutalik formed an informal combine. They used to be on the lookout for opportunities to pollute Shahu’s heart against the Peshwa. During these crucial years, when Anglo-French rivalry flared up in the Carnatic, the Peshwa was immobilised at Satara.

In such a situation at the Chhatrapati’s court, all the courtiers became extremely concerned about the future arrangement in the kingdom’s administration, and various different schemes began getting played. Maharaj was, however, unhappy with the Peshwa. The possible reasons were: the two queens complaining about the Peshwa, Shahu felt the Peshwa had worked against Babuji Naik, and finally, Nanasaheb’s inability to pay off the royal debts. Sakwarbai also complained about Nanasaheb’s loose personal life and his fondness for luxury and compared Maharaj’s growing debts with the Peshwa’s riches.

In one of the letters, Nanasaheb himself has mentioned about Raghuji’s suspicious nature. Two years since the month of August 1745, Nanasaheb did not venture far, and remained around Pune and Satara. On 5 December 1746, Sadashivrao Bhau was dispatched to the Carnatic. Nanasaheb was at Satara to keep a watch on his activities at the beginning of 1747.

In 1746 itself, Shahu had begun testing the Peshwa’s loyalty. The Shahu Bakhar narrates a peculiar anecdote. Once when Shahu had gone for a hunt, he sat fishing by a lake, ignoring the Peshwa who was behind him. Then, he rose and went back and sat on his throne. From there, he rose and reached his palace. Halfway to his room, he left his slippers. There was no servant nearby. The Peshwa picked up the slippers and took it to the Rajashree. Seeing this, Shahu was pleased.

The Bakhar account continues with another narrative. The Peshwa reached Satara on one occasion with a five to seven thousand-strong army, met Shahu, and camped outside the town. Shahu suddenly called the Chitnis and said, “Write a note to the Pradhan, he has been removed from the post. So, he should deposit the stamps, seals, ceremonial dagger, the Zaripatka standard, etc. insignia to the messengers that have been sent for deposition in the Jamdarkhana (royal treasury).”

The messenger went to the Peshwa, who was about to have a bath. Pradhanpant read the letter, got up rightaway, handed over the stamps, seals, dagger and Zaripatka to the messengers and sent them on their way. Nanasaheb then left camp, erected a smallish hut away from the main camp, got his meal prepared there separately. Forty or fifty of his servants joined him there. He wrote a letter to Maharaj, “I would have come immediately and sat by your feet, but I have an army with me, and need to hand it over to somebody. Request you to write whom should I hand over the government workshops and army which belongs to the central government. I’ll do so accordingly and come to meet you.”

Maharaj replied, “I will send a clerk to take charge. Until then, stay there.”

Ten or twelve days passed in this state. All the administrative activities came to a standstill. The news began spreading all over. Officers of Maharaj enquired, “Has the Pradhan committed a mistake? What is the thought of the future!”

To this Maharaj replied, “I do not wish to give him the post. I will revert to Pingle (Bahiropant Pingle was the Peshwa before Balaji Vishwanath was appointed in 1713; here, the reference is to his descendants).”

The officers said, “This news might have already reached the Hindustan province or will definitely reach. There are many affairs going on all over India by officials beholden to the Peshwa. He has Sardars installed everywhere, who have their internal disputes. Therefore, either grace him or grant the office to someone else, and they should tighten the loosened state. There will be chaos if this news leaks out.”

Here, Nanasaheb sent a request through Chitnis and Mantri, “We are staying outside the camp in a separate tent. Request you to order us to present ourselves at your feet, or give us some other way to serve you.”

Maharaj replied, “What Nazar (offering) do you offer?”

Nanasaheb replied, “We are alone here. Whatever the government’s authority and power, has been deposited to the government. My house and property belongs to the Sarkar (Maharaj). Bring it all as a Nazar (offering).”

The only reply that was received for this was, “We wish to grant the office of the Pradhan to someone else.”

After this, Nanasaheb wrote the next letter to Maharaj as follows, “At the service of your feet, Balaji submits many requests. The sad option written in Maharaj’s letter was informed to us. We are the Swami’s children. Why does the Swami even writes giving options to us? It is not like we exist independent of the Swami. Whatever loyalty we hold with your feet, we get outcomes in accordance to that. What further to write. Submitting this.”

A few days later, Shahu dispatched some messengers and summoned Nanasaheb. The Peshwa took only one assistant, came, paid his obeisance and stood respectfully before him. “Please order me any service at your feet. However, do not push me away from your feet.”

Shahu was pleased. This convinced Maharaj, that he was a truly loyal servant, and would never waver from his path. He rose and said, “You are my true and loyal servant. I will never keep you away.”

Maharaj ordered all the royal honorifics, insignia to be brought there, conferred all of them upon him, and restored him to the office of the Pradhan. The Peshwa laid his head at Maharaj’s feet. Maharaj said, “I wanted to test your loyalty. Truly you are the son of Bajirao and the grandson of Balaji Vishwanath. I am pleased by your service and loyalty.”

He also gifted the Peshwa with protocol robes, gemstones etc.

To be continued…

BRITISH ATTACK PONDICHERRY

The easy collapse of Madras was on account of the little attention the British had given to their defence. For three years, before Madras was captured by the French, the British at Fort St George had no officers commanding their military. It was in December 1746, after the fall of Madras, that the Directors at London decided to appoint the fifty-year-old veteran Captain Stringer Lawrence – who had seen some action in Europe and had been recommended to them – to India. It was another year before Lawrence could reach India. Officials at Fort St David were already training troops to defend the fort. One of these was the twenty-one-year old Robert Clive, who was promoted to ‘Ensign’ in March 1747. The minute of his appointment said, “Mr Robert Clive, Writer in the service, being of Martial Disposition, and having acted as a volunteer in our late engagement, we have granted him an Ensign’s Commissions upon his application for the same.”

Meanwhile, in March 1747 the factors at Fort St David wrote to the Nizam-ul-Mulk seeking his help and accusing the French and the Nawab of Arcot for abetting the invasion against them. The Nizam gave a directive to Anwaruddin Khan – which reads remarkably similar to a letter written by Shahu to Chimaji Appa and Bajirao in the aftermath of the capture of Vasai. It supports the general impression prevalent about the British nation at that time, and tells us why they were generally supported not just by the Peshwa but also the Nizam. The Nizam’s order read, “The British nation, from ancient times, are very obedient and serviceable, besides which, they have always proved to be a set of true people and it is very hard that they meet with these troubles, misfortunes, and destruction. I, therefore, write you to protect, aid, and assist them in all respects and use your best endeavours in such a manner that the French may be severely chastised and rooted off, that His Majesty’s sea-port town may be restored to their right, establish themselves in their former place, as before, and carry on their trade and commerce for the nourishment of the place.”

Naseer Jung went a step further and wrote to Anwaruddin that he was sending an army to punish the French, recover Madras and give Pondicherry to the British. The letter heralds the alliance of Naseer Jung with the British in the not too distant future. To secure Naseer Jung’s help, a sum of one hundred thousand rupees was paid by the British to obtain “one thousand of your horsemen to assist and defend the British.”

In the same month that the Nizam sent his letter to Anwaruddin Khan, and just when Dupleix’s expedition against Fort St David was at the gates of the fort, a British squadron under Commodore Griffin approached the Coromandel coast – arriving from Aceh, a port on the north-western tip of the island of Sumatra. The French had to rush back to protect Pondicherry, which had been denuded of all its troops. The capture of Fort St David once again failed, and it became a springboard for future exploits by the British on the Coromandel coast. Also, it was Anwaruddin’s youngest son Mohammed Ali who helped the British to survive on the eastern coast, and this was to develop into a strong alliance in the years to come. More important for the British was the arrival of the portly middle-aged (now) Major Stringer Lawrence to take command of the garrison at Fort St David.

The mission to wipe out the British on the east coast failed as Dupleix had no support at sea. After he lost the support of Anwaruddin, Dupleix planned to enter the politics of the Carnatic on his own account. He began to scout for a rival to Anwaruddin for appointment as the Nawab of the Carnatic. With Chanda Saheb’s family in Pondicherry, he decided to seek the release of Chanda Saheb from the Marathas. Dupleix wrote to Shahu, Nanasaheb Peshwa, Raghuji Bhosale, Fatehsingh and Shripatrao Pratinidhi and agreed to ‘endeavour to collect’ the amount for which Chanda Saheb would be ransomed by the Marathas and ‘ensure the money reaches you’. The letters written in early December 1746, began diplomatic moves in the Maratha courts that were destined to bring the absentee aspirant to the Carnatic, to fight and become the Nawab of Arcot.

The Anglo-French war continued in the Coromandel. The second French attack on Cuddalore was defeated by an ambush planned by Stringer Lawrence, and in 1748 a coordinated land-and-sea attack was launched against Pondicherry under the command of the British Admiral Boscaven. An attack on the outlying fort of Arriankuppam led to the “loss of a hundred British white soldiers” – during its defence led by Jacques Law and La Touche. The small fort was captured by the British. However, firing on the British fleet from the Pondicherry fort led to its retreat.

As British troops approached Pondicherry, Dupleix wanted to demolish some places of worship to strengthen its defences. Ananda Ranga Pillai, a devout Hindu and Dupleix’s interpreter, was shocked to find Dupleix order the destruction of the Hindu temple of Ishwaram, for reasons of military strategy. Pillai noted that Dupleix could not do the same to a nearby mosque, as he was warned that not only would he find himself without sepoys, but they would fall upon the workers and all perish together. Ananda “sadly reflected that it was unfortunate for the Tamils that they had not acted with the same vigour and courage.”

A little later, Dupleix sent out sorties to repel the British and during one such affair, Paradis, the Swiss officer who had defended Madras against Mahfuz Khan, was mortally wounded. The first recorded act of ‘valour’ by Robert Clive occurred during this skirmish before Pondicherry. When the French grenadiers attacked the British, they had three platoons, of which one was under Clive. The other two platoons abandoned post and the French crept forwards. Clive – although he went back for more ammunition at one stage – stood his ground, with two bullets passing through his hat and coat. This was to be the last British attempt in that decade to take Pondicherry, as the two nations shortly signed the treat of Aix-la-Chapelle declaring peace in Europe.

As long as the Anglo-French war of Europe spilled over on the Coromandel coast, young men who had come from England always had the chance to double up with a military career in addition to their poorly paid job as writers. While Dupleix continued his attempts to remove the British from the east coast, Robert Clive acquitted himself well against French attacks. Moreover, Clive now had the guiding hand of the veteran Stringer Lawrence to guide his future career.

To be continued…

BATTLE OF THE ADYAR

While Dupleix and Bourdonnais were still quarrelling over the fate of Madras, Nawab Anwaruddin was unhappy at the turn of events. Dupleix had written to him that Madras would be captured from the British and given to him. The Nawab began to suspect that he had been cheated. He, therefore, sent an army with his son Mahfuz Khan to evict the French from Madras. It was given the large size of the Nawab’s army, considered a simple campaign that would teach the French a lesson.

The river Adyar south of Fort St George, separated the two armies and Dupleix, probably egged on by the former Nevayat nobility sheltering in Pondicherry, decided to take a stand against Mahfuz Khan. On 31 October 1746, a five-hundred-strong army with three hundred Frenchmen and two hundred trained sepoys from the Coromandel left Pondicherry for the defence of Madras. Paradis, a Swiss officer with Dupleix, led the French force. Simultaneously, letters were dispatched to the Nawab at Arcot and Mahfuz Khan – including one from Madame Dupleix – seeking a peaceful resolution to the problem. Nevertheless, the stage was set for an army or a European trading nation to challenge the Nawab of the Carnatic.

Mahfuz Khan approached Madras from Shriperumbudur, asking the local Nayaks to join his army. He first reached the walls of Madras with his 3000-strong army and cut off the food and water supply of the town. The French guards, who were ordered to remain within the fort, fired at them from the walls. As the shortage of food and water began to affect the defenders, the French commander at Madras decided to oppose the Nawab and sent out 400 men with two field guns. The intention was to remove the enemy from the water tank. Seeing the small French army, the Nawab’s cavalry recklessly charged at them. Undaunted by the sight the French moved forward slowly. Once the cavalry was in range of their guns, the French fired with their field pieces.

Until then, guns had not been of much use in a battle against an Indian cavalry force. The usual loading time of a musket being about fifteen minutes, ordinarily an Indian cavalry could reach the musketeers and begin their fearsome slaughter with swords and spears. However, the Nawab’s cavalry was caught in a second volley that came in a far quicker time from the French gunners. The rapid loading and firing time of the French guns stopped the advancing Mughal cavalry. A third and a fourth volley followed in rapid succession. This time, the Nawab’s cavalry, which was sustaining considerable damage among its ranks, turned around and fled headlong across the Adyar river, losing seventy men and all their baggage. As for Mahfuz Khan, on hearing the gunfire, he mounted his elephant and fled from the scene.

This did not quite end the battle. Early next morning, Dupleix’s four hundred and fifty Europeans under the command of Paradis reached Madras. Not seeing their own men south of the Adyar, they crossed over early next morning, and came face to face with ten thousand of the Nawab’s men. Undeterred, Paradis kept advancing in what then seemed an unequal battle. He then let loose a volley and followed it with an infantry charge. The effect was stunning. The ten-thousand strong army turned and fled.

This rout of a Mughal army by a much smaller French contingent at the Adyar was to dictate battles in the years to come. The Nawab’s army was unaccustomed to a battle fought with European field pieces and muskets. The French sustained no losses in men. Dupleix was ecstatic. To Ananda Ranga Pillai, he exclaimed, “… even if there were 400 men, 50 of our soldiers could easily defeat them. You know very well the disposition, character and quality of the people of this country.”

Emboldened by his success, Dupleix now decided to send an army against Fort St David, a few miles south of Pondicherry. The old Nawab Anwaruddin sent his youngest son Mohammed Ali with 2500 horse and some British troops to chastise Dupleix. Although Paradis had proved himself to be a good commander, he had to hand over the command to Major General Bury, who outranked him. However, before they reached the town of Cuddalore, Bury was driven back by the British. This forced Dupleix to seek peace with the Nawab and send him a gift of mangoes – to which Anwaruddin replied he would have preferred Madras.

To be continued…

MADRAS FALLS

In September 1746, the Anglo-French war began off the Coromandel coast. Commodore Barnett was dead by then and was succeeded by Captain Peyton. When the French fleet that was sent to attack Madras came face to face with Peyton, he panicked at seeing their new row of guns and fled the battle, heading for Bengal. When the British fleet did not reappear, the French fleet under Bourdonnais approached Madras and opened fire. The three hundred men in the fort were hardly fighters. A stray French shot opened the locks of an arrack godown and the British troops proceeded to get themselves drunk.

The Nawab once again asked Dupleix not to attack the British. To this diktat, Dupleix airily replied that he was planning to capture and then hand over Madras to the Nawab. Five hundred French troops, alighting from their ships led the force and called for the surrender of Madras. The British Governor Morse, not the most active of men, asked the Nawab for help. Meanwhile, the French attacked. The firing from land forces and from the sea unnerved the British and Morse decided to negotiate with the French.

A daughter of Madame Dupleix who was married to an Englishman lived in Madras, and she wrote to La Bourdonnais that Morse was ready to talk of surrender. The French occupied the city of Madras on 21 September 1746. La Bourdonnais seemed to be willing to settle for a ransom from the British for the city, and began negotiating the amount with a private gift for himself. La Bourdonnais, interested in loot rather than establishing a long-term political state, had thoroughly looted the village of St Thome along with his brother.

Even the capture of Madras did not really spur the French into making any plans to build an Indian Empire. The entire focus then was to secure an advantage in trade over the British. Bourdonnais was seriously contemplating selling Madras back to the British. His relations with Governor Dupleix, however, were far from cordial. Dupleix refused to acknowledge the Naval chief as his equal. When his victorious ships reached Pondicherry, Dupleix – by firing only fifteen guns in welcome – signalled his own superior rank to Bourdonnais. This led to acrimony between the Governor and the chief of the Navy, at a time when the French needed unity of command. An incisive observation by Ananda Ranga Pillai in his diary says, “The Governor and he entertain a mutual dislike for one another. The former is aggrieved because M de la Bourdonnais does not regard himself as his subordinate, maintains a guard of honour of troopers, keeps at his residence a party of soldiers and troopers, and conducts everything independently, and without consultation with him, whilst M de la Bourdonnais holds that he is on a par with the Governor, and is consequently entitled to all the honours accorded to that functionary.”

The dispute between the Governor and Bourdonnais was eventually settled with an early onset of the northeast monsoon that wrecked the French ships and drowned 1200 men, effectively ending Bourdonnais’ power-base. Leaving Madras in the hands of Dupleix’s troops, La Bourdonnais sailed back to the Isle of France, ending his involvement in Indian affairs. On his way home, Bourdonnais was even taken prisoner by the British. Later, he was paroled and sent to France, where he was charged with maladministration and imprisoned for three long years in the Bastille. He died shortly after his release in 1753.

The capture of Madras had raised French hopes. Dupleix himself wished the destruction of British trade in India. However, he had disobeyed Anwaruddin Khan and feared an attack. And on the departure of the French fleet, Dupleix feared a British reprisal. He considered a complete removal of British interests on the east coast, therefore, as the best way forward.

Dupleix cancelled La Bourdonnais’ treaty for the handover of Madras and transferred all the British to Pondicherry. Among the British prisoners was young Robert Clive. When La Bourdonnais’ agreement about Madras was cancelled, Clive broke his parole and escaped from Pondicherry to reach Fort St David, a small British fort near Cuddalore just a few miles from Pondicherry. Ironically, this place had once been offered for sale to the French by the Maratha ruler Rajaram in 1690. They did not have the money to pay for it and the British merchants quickly moved in to buy from the Marathas. It was here that Clive joined other Englishmen in preparations to defend themselves from another assault by French troops. To kill British trade, Dupleix also tried to remove all the traders at Madras to Pondicherry with their goods. Although this did not meet with success, French officials enriched themselves with the plunder of Madras.

To be continued…

BACK STORY – ROBERT CLIVE

The era of Benoit Dumas saw off the threat to Pondicherry from the Marathas in 1741 without any recourse to arms. Governor Dumas retired to France ushering in the Governorship of François Dupleix. Dupleix was no stranger to India, having stayed in Pondicherry and later successfully managed the French affairs at Chandernagore. He arrived at Pondicherry at a turbulent time. When Anglo-French rivalry had spread across the world, from the Americas to Asia.

It was just two months after Anwaruddin Khan was appointed as Nawab of Arcot – and Bhaskarram was assassinated in Bengal – that the British East India Company ship Winchester reached Madras. It was the end of a long journey that began on the Thames on 10 March 1743. The ship left along with a sister ship named Princess Louisa, which was wrecked six hundred kilometres off the West African city of Dakar with all lives lost. The Winchester, however, survived the winds and storms, but was swept towards Brazil, where it ran aground and needed extensive repairs. From May 1743 to February 1744, the ship was in Brazil. It could then head for the Cape of Good Hope, where after a brief halt of eleven days, it endured the rough crossing of the Indian Ocean and reached Madras on 31 May 1744. It was a warm evening when the ship dropped anchor, and next morning, a boy-man not yet nineteen years old, landed on Indian soil with the designation of ‘writer’. His name was Robert Clive.

Robert Clive was born in 1725 to Richard and Rebecca at Styche, but his childhood was spent with his aunt at Manchester. At the age of nine, when his aunt died, he moved to London to live with his parents. ‘High-spirited’ is a word used by chroniclers of Clive, who mention some of his exploits in school that involved ‘climbing up a church wall to place a stone on a spout projecting from a gargoyle.’ Employment in the British East India Company – founded in 1600 but enlarged when it was reconstituted in 1709 – was an attractive career for a young man in England at the time. Its trade was nearly a fifth of all of Britain’s imports, it was close to the Government and a job in the Company was considered lucrative. The Company paid poorly but expected its employees to make their profits by private trade. Richard Clive could get Robert a job as a ‘writer’ in the company and his first appointment was at Madras. On his way to India, besides being grounded off Brazil and losing the sister ship in a storm, he also managed to fall overboard and lose his ‘silver-buckled shoes, hat and wig’. On his first day in India, therefore, one finds Clive buying a hat, a wig, and a pair of silver buckles, among other sundries.

At Pondicherry, the French did not have the defences the city needed against any British attack. The situation in Europe was fluid, but in 1744, war finally broke out with England and France opposed to each other in the war of Austrian succession. In reality, this was a battle to win the lucrative slave trade to the Americas and win territory in the new continent. The norm so far had been to insulate the Indian colonies from the wars. However, French trade in India was rising rapidly and could soon prove a threat to the British interests, and this would soon bring a European war to India.

In 1744, it was England that broke the convention and had a fleet sail to India under Captain Peyton. Dupleix – as indeed the British Governor Morse of Fort St George in Madras – depended on these fleets from Europe to tilt the balance of power in India. Bernard La Bourdonnais, the French naval commander had begun from France with a fleet to India some time earlier, however, when he reached the French-controlled Isle of France (now Mauritius), he was ordered to send his ships back by his rivals at the French court. Annoyed but helpless, La Bourdonnais sent the ships back, but commenced to build a new fleet at the Isle. This was the fleet that Dupleix requisitioned later, in his hour of need.

Anwaruddin Khan was already an old man when he became the Nawab of Arcot. Although the Nizam had been disappointed with the murder of the young Nawab Sadatullah II, he found no better choice than Anwaruddin to take his place. In the process, however, he ended the dynastic aspirations of the Nevayats and created a divide in the Carnatic. Of the Nevayats, Chanda Saheb was still in Maratha custody and striving to get his freedom, while Murtuza Ali remained at Vellore.

Anwaruddin was not oblivious to the rivalry between the French and the British. In 1745, he visited Pondicherry as well as the British port of Fort St David nearby, and wrote to Madras forbidding any hostilities between the two European powers. Governor Morse of Madras replied saying he would “not be the first” to disobey the Nawab. However, in the next year, matters got out of hand. The defences of Madras were, of course, quite ‘deplorable’. Commodore Barnett who had just been appointed to command the British ships in India in 1745 felt, “Such is the naked defenceless condition of the settlement on this the Coromandel coast, that a small reinforcement of the garrison of Pondicherry would put the enemy in condition to take this and St David in a few hours if there was no ship of war to protect them.”

To be continued…

ANGLO-FRENCH RIVALRY

Although the East India Company began operations at Surat on the west coast of India in the early seventeenth century, on the eastern side they began their trade at Machhlipatnam, sharing space with the more successful Dutch Company. Dutch and Portuguese rivalry, along with their inability to secure the local rulers’ support, soon forced the British to scout for a new place. Francis Day, one of their constituents, chose Madraspatnam further south. Madras was not a good harbour. However, the local Nayak rulers offered a good deal with favourable trade and customs’ duties, and permission to start a mint; all for a rent of two thousand Pagodas per annum. Francis Day had another reason to choose Madras. His mistress lived nearby at St Thome.

Soon, the British built Fort St George, which became the chief place of settlement for the Company in the south. The Dutch and the Portuguese were already there and the competition for trade sometimes became too intense. It was as late as in 1665 that the French formed their trading Company and the first French ships arrived in India.

In those years of European rivalry, Louis XIV of France ‘lured’ King Charles II of England to a treaty against the Dutch by sending him an ‘artful beauty’ named Louise Keroualle, and she succeeded in getting the English king to ‘sell’ himself to the French sovereign. Louise from all accounts was a formidable lady. She worked her way to become the English king’s chief mistress and also acted as a French spy, besides genuinely caring for Charles II. The Anglo-French alliance against the Dutch, a fellow Protestant state, was resented by the English people at the time.

In 1672, French ships reached Indian shores and they captured the town of St Thome near Madras from the Qutubshah of Golconda, where they began their trade. The Dutch were still at war with the French, and after two years, succeeded in evicting them from the place. Not long after, the French under François Martin outbid the Dutch and established their colony at Pondicherry in 1675. It was in 1677 that Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj came to the Carnatic, and the Marathas occupied the region for the next two decades, until the fort of Jinji was surrendered to Mughal forces in 1698.

François Martin built Pondicherry, and although it was lost to the Dutch for a brief period, it became the principal French settlement in India. In 1688, Chandernagore was established on the river Hooghly in Bengal by obtaining a Firman from Aurangzeb. From 1713 onwards, the French and the British lived in peace in India, both earning handsome sums from their business activities. The key was to obtain cotton cloth to export to Europe and sell European broadcloth and woollens to India. The demand for woollens in a place like Madras can be easily imagined. Dedicated weavers who would supply goods to the traders were the key to massive profits. If the traders abandoned the place due to war, the colony also suffered.

This disturbance of trade and profit was the key to the conflicts with Indian powers as well as among the Europeans, and to the trading companies progressively building their own local militia with a few imported guns. Soon the French Navy and the Royal Navy began to participate in Indian wars. The companies were not on their own; while the British Company was supported by Parliament for the profit they brought Britain, the French Company was under the control of the King and his ministers. In a way, therefore, the British Company had greater latitude and independence before they were ‘controlled’ by Parliament.

The distance and time for a message to be replied from home countries took several months, and in the meanwhile, the situation in India often changed. The local Governor, therefore, had to take decisions on the spot. It was this autonomy that made the European Governors such powerful decision makers. Even then, without the support of the nation’s Navy, they could not achieve much.

During this time, the Nawabs of the Carnatic also depended on the French Governor Benoit Dumas for the security of their families and treasures. The friendly relations that existed between Arcot’s Nevayat Nawabs and the French colony, however, did not last. On the departure of Dumas, Dupleix took over as the Governor of Pondicherry in 1742, and as we shall see, Nawab Anwaruddin began to move away from the French.

To be continued…

BACK STORY – ANWARUDDIN KHAN

At this time the Peshwa and Raghuji were struggling with each other in Bengal. Due to this, Satara forces could not arrive to help Murarrao Ghorpade. In March 1743, the Nizam took control of Arcot, and dispatched a challenge to Murarrao asking him to hand over Tiruchirappalli. His huge army laid siege to the fort. However, well-stocked with provisions that could withstand a long siege, he refused to hand over the city and the fort. The siege dragged on for six months without any impact on the fort. The Nizam realised that the fort could not be taken by force. He, therefore, began negotiations with the embattled Murarrao. The Nizam offered Murarrao two lakh rupees and the fort of Penukonda, not far from his base at the fort of Gutti, if he handed over Tiruchirappalli. With no succour on the way, Murarrao accepted the offer, evacuated the fort on 29 August 1743, and handed it over to the Nizam. The transaction was described by Ananda Ranga Pillai, “By these means Asafjah, who is an astute man, gained his object, but at the same time Murarrao gathered renown.”

This way, the Nizam removed Murarrao and took control of Tiruchirappalli on 29 August 1743. He unfurled the Badshah’s standard there. Meanwhile, the Maratha army went ahead to block him, but there was no battle. At first, the Nizam appointed a trusted aide named Khwaja Abdullah as the Regent to the boy Nawab at Arcot. However, the very next morning Khwaja Abdullah collapsed and died. The Nizam, therefore, summoned an old hand in his service named Anwaruddin Khan to take over the guardianship of the young Nawab. Anwaruddin had joined the Mughal army in the reign of Aurangzeb, and over the years had shown ample evidence of courage and loyalty to the Nizam. As a security for his good behaviour, however, Anwaruddin’s third son Mohammed Ali remained as a hostage at Hyderabad.

Anwaruddin Khan’s ability had been tested more than once in the preceding years. Babuji Naik was keen to obtain a Jagir in the Carnatic and had come with a large army towards Hyderabad, where in the Nizam’s absence, just a small army remained. Babuji sent a letter to Anwaruddin Khan asking him to pay the usual tribute and close the matter. Anwaruddin refused and preferred a war to paying any tribute and with a small army confronted Babuji Naik and defeated him at Andole, some ninety kilometres from Hyderabad.

After Bajirao’s campaign near Shrirangapatnam in 1726, Shahu had not entrusted the Peshwa with an invasion of the south. With Babuji Naik’s defeat, the Peshwa’s involvement in the Carnatic was to begin.

A Persian source, which perhaps belongs to the early days of Nanasaheb’s appointment as the Peshwa, states that Nanasaheb Peshwa began from Pune with a large army and intercepted the Nizam’s army. The records of this campaign are scant in Marathi letters, and it is only Anwaruddin’s biographer Burhan who gives some details of this campaign. The Peshwa’s army completely surrounded the Nizam and forced a siege. Seeing his demoralised army, the Nizam advised a payment of tribute. However, Anwaruddin remained silent. Noticing his silence, Shahanawaz Khan, a minister with the Nizam said to him, “The silence of the Saheb, what does it mean? Pandit Pradhan is no Babuji Naik. The one is not to be compared to the other, the other was a drop, this is the sea.”

The chronicle by Burhan that eulogises Anwaruddin then goes on to describe how he decided to stand forth boldly before the large army. Nanasaheb, dropping the plan of war, came and met the Nizam, who greeted him with “a Khilat, Itr and Paan”, and all the “formalities of conversation and conventions of friendship,” were adhered to. The later rise of Anwaruddin Khan is attributed to this stoic resistance on his part.

Returning from Tiruchirappalli, the Nizam took rest for some months at Arcot. While he was here, the British and the French sent him some gifts to keep him happy. His huge army established their terror everywhere. The disorder that had prevailed in the region, had caused the western trade to stop completely. He appointed his grandson Muzaffar Jung on the administration of the Balaghat ranges in the Carnatic by giving him Jagir at Adoni. By March 1744, the Nizam felt assured enough to leave the Carnatic and returned to Golconda.

The Carnatic would have settled down but for an assassination soon after. The Nizam’s arrangement at Arcot did not last for long. Among the old soldiery were some disgruntled Afghan mercenaries. The occasion chosen for their revolt was the wedding of one of the Nawab’s relatives. As the boy Nawab along with his many relatives arrived at the venue and took their appointed seats, the Pathans with their leader Abdul Khan made a boisterous entry and demanded an immediate payment of their arrears. Anwaruddin Khan had not yet reached the venue. Hirasat Khan, one of the nobles, tried to reason with the Pathans, but they refused to let the young Nawab leave the place.

As tempers rose, a rough soldier grabbed the young Nawab’s robe, which prompted an altercation between the Afghans and the Nawab’s party. Just then, Anwaruddin’s procession was also seen arriving. A young nephew of Hirasat Khan said to Abdul Khan, “You wretch! Is it for you to draw the Nawab’s robe and force him to sit down? Here comes the procession of the Nawab. He will have you beaten like dogs.”

The retort was sufficient for a sudden flaring of tempers. Swords and daggers were drawn. Hirasat Khan along with Abdul Khan and several others were killed. The boy Nawab was stabbed to death. Sixteen of the Pathans were killed in the ensuing melee. Anwaruddin Khan came on the scene and ordered an immediate retribution against the Pathans. He then sorrowfully reported his failure to protect the Nawab to the Nizam. The common people of the city whispered that Anwaruddin and Murtuza Ali had a role in the entire episode. Although the Nizam was highly displeased, he found no person other than Anwaruddin worthy of being appointed as the next Nawab. The Walajahi dynasty of Arcot thus began with Anwaruddin Khan.

To be continued…

FALSE ‘PIRACY’ CHARGE

Piracy along the west coast was practised by the men from the Malabar, Gujarat, as well as Europeans for long. The events of 1685 when two Gujarati merchants returning from Mocha laden with goods were robbed on the high seas sent all of Surat into a tizzy. The British Topikars (those who wore hats) were suspected and Aurangzeb launched a war on the British, who took shelter on the islands on the sea where no Mughal could reach them. The four-year war between them from 1687 led to the British attacking all Mughal merchant ships plying in the Arabian Sea. Soon, even American pirates sailed from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean region, with the Danes plying in the Persian Gulf.

Although a truce was called in 1690, piracy did not cease. In 1690, after Sambhajiraje was captured and killed by Aurangzeb, the Maratha Navy was practically taken over by the Siddis, and save the sea-fort of Colaba, held by Kanhoji Angre, the rest of the Maratha territory, including their capital Raigad was taken by the Mughals.

In 1692, some Englishmen landed at the port of Mangrol, near Junagadh, and began to sell goods at a suspiciously cheap rate. The townspeople lulled them by an offer of a feast and informed the local Governor, who sent them in chains to Agra. An order was passed whereby all European commerce was to be stopped at Mughal ports. There remained, of course, a strong British presence among pirates, and the name of Captain Kidd comes down to us as one of the prominent ones among them.

Despite the stoppage of commerce, in an incident in 1695, Aurangzeb’s own ship Ganz-i-Sawaiee was taken by British pirates with all its goods, and several Muslim ladies travelling on it were dishonoured. Once again, a ban on all commerce at Surat was ordered. As a consequence, a new system where ships were escorted by armed vessels of the French and the Dutch began. The system did not last long, however, as the Mughals stood aloof from the new arrangements. Eventually, the Dutch protested and left Surat for Batavia.

With fluid political boundaries, slow transmission of orders, and loose administrative control in the eighteenth-century India, each Sardar had a certain degree of autonomy within the territory allotted to him.

Sidhoji Gujar and Kanhoji Angre were one of the first Maratha Sardars of the Navy. Kanhoji succeeded Sidhoji Gujar around 1698. Kanhoji’s father Tukoji Sankpal had been one of the first to join the Maratha navy in 1658 and begun his career at the island fort of Suvarnadurg. The name of Angre came from his ancestral village Angarwadi near Pune. In his days at Suvarnadurg, Kanhoji first crossed swords with the Siddis and was captured. However, he escaped and went back to the fort, foiling the Siddis’ attempt to take it.

Kanhoji’s chief aim was to oppose the Siddis and claim the coastal waters of the Maratha territory as his jurisdiction. He, therefore, insisted that passage through these waters would need his permission. Kanhoji built a strong navy and led attacks on the Portuguese and the Siddis, as well as British ships that did not carry his passport. In case such a pass was not obtained by the ships, they were boarded, and their goods confiscated. The Europeans refused to obtain a passport from Angre and called his acts ‘piracy’. Kanhoji, therefore, became a common enemy for the Siddis and the Europeans.

Kanhoji’s ships were the larger Pals, the Shibad, the Machwa, the Galbat, and the Ghurab. Of these, the Ghurab was the chief, supported by the smaller Galbats which were essentially row-boats that towed the larger ships to the sea.

Ghurabs or Grabs have rarely more than two masts, although some have three; those of three are about 300 tonnes burden; but the others are not more than 150; they are built to draw very little water, being very broad in proportion to their length, narrowing, however, from the middle to the ends, where instead of bows they have a prow, projecting like that of a Mediterranean galley. The grabs carried a number of guns, two of them from nine to twelve pounders, placed on the main deck so as to fire through portholes over the prow, and the rest usually six to nine pounders fitted to give a broadside.

Galbat or Gallivat – a large row-boat of about seventy tonnes, much used in the shallows on the coast of Hindustan from Bombay to Goa; as they are frequently used by pirates, they are constructed so as to carry six or eight large cannon, beside petteraroes (a small gun); which are furnished with forty or fifty stout oars, by which means they are rowed at the rate of four miles an hour. They will carry from two to three hundred men in each, who fight and row by turns.

To be continued…

WESTERN COAST

The Arabs and the Maratha coastal seafarers were perhaps the last to enter the lucrative business of attacking ships with goods for easy money. The Arabs and the Portuguese fought many wars, and once the Arabs even attacked Diu. The anarchic conditions in the second half of the seventeenth century extended to the provinces of Bengal and Bihar, where Mughal Governors came down heavily on the Europeans.

The Marathas were one of the few seafaring people in India who assembled a fleet of warships. The long Indian coastline was difficult to guard and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the arrival of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, and the French led to a chain of ports used by the trading companies, from Chandernagore in Bengal to the ports of Gujarat. The lucrative trade in Indian cotton, silk, pepper, and the market for European goods in India, brought European companies to Indian shores either by acts of Parliament as in the case of England, or through companies managed by the king, as in the case of the French or the Portuguese. Bit by bit, these early adventurers who voyaged over huge distances across uncharted seas, surviving shipwrecks and disease, came to India to make big fortunes through trade. The entire East was open for trade and the goods brought huge profits back home in Europe.

Bit by bit, the Europeans began to build factories and forts, and imported guns to defend themselves. Later, they were drawn into local conflicts, as in the Carnatic. On India’s western coast, the Portuguese were the first and the most pre-eminent of the seafarers and demanded that anybody plying the sea needed to obtain a passport, or cartez, from them. Gradually, this was challenged, and the British and the Dutch began to ply their ships without a Portuguese cartez.

In the seventeenth century, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj founded his Swarajya and gave a clarion call that the rule of the Bahmani Sultans or the Mughals was anything but ‘self-rule’ and in fact, a period of bondage. The Swarajya of Shivaji Maharaj was etched out from his patrimony in Pune and enlarged to the Konkan coast in 1658, when he captured the town of Kalyan. Here, in the inland waterway of that town, he hired a Portuguese father-and-son surnamed Viegas and some more of their creed to build the first Maratha warships. The Portuguese at Goa did not look kindly at this, and soon asked their countrymen to withdraw. By then, the Marathas had learnt the basics of ship-building. The Maratha Navy was, therefore, founded in 1659. The purpose of the Navy, besides defence, was to protect the merchant vessels that travelled across the Arabian Sea to littoral states. After 1664, many coastal forts were built that gave the Maratha navy safe harbours. The role of the British at Bombay was recognised for the value they brought to goods produced in the Maratha country. Their transgressions were kept in check and from time to time, when they supported either the Mughals or the Sultan of Bijapur, they were punished.

The Navy grew over the next twenty years, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is known to have gone by the sea to attack the port of Basnoor in the Bijapur kingdom in the 1670s. The names of the first captains of the navy that come down to us are men like Daryasarang, Maynak Bhandari, and Daulat Khan. Besides the Portuguese, there were the Siddis or Habshis (Abyssinians) – and these men came from Abyssinia and joined the Bijapur kingdom. They held many sea forts, of which the chief was the island of Janjira. The Habshis had acquired sufficient strength to rule over a contiguous piece of land in the Konkan, and along with the Portuguese, indulged in religious oppression of the local populace. Maratha rule over Konkan could only be secured provided the Siddi, the most powerful of the rulers there, be adequately controlled. Without a navy, this was difficult. Sir Jadunath Sarkar writes, “Without a navy, his subjects on the sea-coast and for some distance inland would remain exposed to plunder, enslavement, and slaughter at the hands of the Abyssinian pirates.”

The naval arm of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was thus necessary to check these foreign elements. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj did not just build ships, but many forts along the coast, chief of these were at Colaba, Vijaydurg, and Sindhudurg. On islands near Mumbai, Goa, and Janjira, he erected forts like Padmadurg, Suvarnadurg, and Khanderi to threaten the alien powers. The Maratha navy could boast of two to three hundred ships with six to eighteen guns each. These small ships were easy to manoeuvre and to navigate, some with two masts and larger ships with three masts. Their speed and manoeuvrability gave them an edge over the well-armed larger ships of the Europeans.

After 1680, Sambhajiraje, the son and successor of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, spent many years battling the Siddis and the Portuguese on the Konkan strip. After the Bijapur kingdom was extinguished by Aurangzeb in 1685, the Habshis went over to the Mughals.

To be continued…