While the Marathas were thus carrying the War of Hindu Liberation into the very heart of the Mogul empire to free the Hindu land, they were no less strenuously striving to free the Hindu seas too, from the domination of the foreigners that threatened them from the West. They had very early realised that the safety of the Hindu empire was threatened as much by the European mercantile nations that visited their seas, as it was by the Moslems who had already made themselves masters of their lands. How thoroughly Shivaji and his generation were bent on checking and frustrating European ambition and greed on the western coast could best be seen in the clear rules and the line of policy enunciated in the famous treatise on ‘State Policy’ written by the distinguished Maratha leader and statesman. Ramchandra Pant, and issued for general information by the orders of the Maratha cabinet as a state document. Shiv aji strove as strenuously to free the coastline of all foreign domination as he could under the circumstances, and laid the foundation of a strong maratha navy, backing it up by a line of newly built and powerfully equipped sea fortresses, which were destined to defend and guard the freedom of the Hindu seas for a century to come.
In the days of Rajara, when Aurangzeb overran all the Deccan and the Marathas were no longer able to conduct an organised concentrated state, each began to fight against the common foe as best he could and wherever he could, the responsibility of driving the Moguls from the coastline fell on the shoulders of Kanhoji Angre, the Gujars and other distinguished Maratha Admirals. They discharged their duties so well that neither the English, nor the Portuguese, nor the Dutch, nor the Siddis, nor the Moguls could singly nor as at times happened, combinedly, check or kill the rising naval power of the Marathas. The English had to suffer much as Kanhoji Angre, the Admiral of the Maratha fleet, was in possession of the island of Khanderi only sixteen miles south of the Bombay harbour. They knew that the Maratha Admiral would make short work of them if he was left free from the Moslem power of the Siddi of Janjira and the extensive sway which the Portuguese held over the Western coast long before the rise of the Maratha power.
To retain his possessions against all these enemies Kanhoji Angre was obliged to maintain a large force, and to pay his men he had to levy the usual Chowth from the ships trading on the Arabian Sea. The Marathas justly thought themselves masters of the Hindu seas and it was but natural that they should levy their Chowth on the Hindu waters from the foreigners who sailed their seas with or without permission. But the English and other European nations strongly resisted this claim, and Kanhoji had to punish them by taking their ships with all cargoes and men and hold them to ransom. When in 1715 Charles Boone was appointed the Governor of Bombay, he decided to destroy Angre’s strongholds. He strove much and bragged more. A powerful naval expedition was fitted out and soon attacked the Maratha sea port of Vijayadurga. The English breathed fury. The very names of their warships were meant to hurl defiance at the Marathas. One was named ‘Hunter’, another was ‘Hawk’, the third was ‘Revenge’, the fourth was ‘Victory’— before the contest began! This formidable fleet was backed up by a division of land forces, comprising thousands of chosen English soldiers who meant to march against the fort by land. On the 17th of April, 1717, the furious fleet began to bombard the fortress of Vijayadurga, but only to find that the Maratha fortifications were not made of wax. They and the garrison behind them stood bravely the heavy guns of the frigates, and the Maratha garrison kept all along jeering at the futile efforts of the English from the secure shelter of the walls. Enraged at this, the English tried to escalade but the Marathas soon sent them back discomfitted. All hope was lost and the English began to retreat. No sooner did the Marathas see this, than they opened such a heavy fire on them as to speed them back far more quickly than they had come on.
Next year Mr. Boone attacked Khanderi, but was badly beaten back. Thereupon the Maratha menace to the English power in India grew daily to such an extent as to force the English king to fit out a special squadron of four men-of- war and entrust it to the command of a highly placed and distinguished officer, Comodore Mathew, of the Royal Navy. To render success doubly sure, the Portuguese too were invited, and they too readily agreed to march together against the Marathas. The Marathas received the united attack of these two powerful European nations in 1721 and fought so gallantly and skillfully, both by land and sea as to make it impossible for the European vives to scale the wails of their fortresses. Chafing with impotent rage, Commodore Mathew personally sallied forth in centear of the action, only to fall a prey to the lance of a Maratha trwper who drove it in his thigh. The Commodore of the English forces was not to be cowed down by one lance wound; he sloped after the trooper and fixed his two pistols instead of one at him only to find that he had forgotten to load them. Nor did the allied forces prove more lucky than their Commodore. For. when they made their last and determined attack, reached the walls and cried to scale them, the Marathas opposed them with such skill and resolution as to send them shrieking back, while another Maratha squadron attacked the Portuguese flank by land. A panic seized the Portuguese who fled for life and soon the English too followed them, leaving several of their guns and almost all of their ammunition in the hands of the victorious Marathas. When, whatever little spirit of fighting was still left in the allied army, was naturally spent in wordy war in charging each other with the responsibility of the two disgraceful defeats the Portuguese marched back to Chaul and the English sailed back to Bombay. For a long time the English Company had to convey their trading ships by armed vessels, lest the Maratha admirals might carry them off for that cursed Chowth. Soon the English ‘Victory’ like its Commodore found, after firing that it had forgotten to load its pistol, and the English ‘Revenge’ not only failed to avenge, but got itself captured by the Marathas and held in ransom. In 1724 the Dutch too, had their go. They attacked Vijayadurga with no less than seven warships, two bomb vessels and a body of regular troops; but they too failed to make any impression on the rocks of the Maratha fortitude, and the stout old Maratha admiral sailed the Hindu waters unchallenged — unchallengeable — and all this he and his nation had to achieve in spite of the constant wars with the Moslem Siddi by land in Konkan. the Nizam in the Deccan. the Moguls in Gujarat and Malva and Bundelkhand.
Kanhoji Angre died about 1729. Just then another historical figure entered the political arena in Konkan, and soon began to exercise an influence over the minds of the leaders of the Maratha Confederacy, which when all is said and sifted, was doubtless a powerful factor in keeping the great mission undimmed by lower passions in the minds of the Maratha people. It was Brahmendra Swami, the Guru of Shahu, of Bajirao, of Chimaji, of the Angres and thousands of the rank and file.
He was undoubtedly moved by great and noble patriotic emotion and principles and never failed to bring, out of confusion of details, the spiritual and moral aspect and hold the ideal of Swadharma and Swarajya before the eyes of his people. The Swami had practiced severe austerities in his early life and developed wonderful Yogic powers, as of going into samadhic trance for a full month every year and living buried underground during that period. He had traveled far and wide, like Ramdas, all over India and visited every great Indian shrine and had keenly felt the sting of Hindu enslavement and political dependence. A spark was still needed to blow the patriotic fire of his soul into a huge and steady conflagration. The Moslem rulers of Janjira supplied it. The Siddis were the determined foes of the Maratha Kingdom and knew that they were soon to lose their ill gotten possessions in Konkan, if the Maratha power grew daily as it did. Therefore, they always sided with the English, the Dutch, and the Portuguese against the Marathas and often raided the Maratha possessions. Not only this, but with the barbarity peculiar to Muhammadan zealots, used to kidnap hundreds of boys and girls, and convert them and others forcibly to Muhammadanism, raze Hindu temples to the ground and commit numerous outrages on the Hindus. The shrine of Parashuram, the beloved and sacred scene of the Swami’s austerities and meditation, fell a victim to one of such outbursts of fanaticism.+++(5)+++ The Siddi pulled the temple down, stone by stone, plundered it of all its treasures and tortured such of the Brahmins as he … ‘your horse first and then read it.’ The campaign opened in 1733 and the Maratha armies descending Sahyadri took the fort of Tala-Ghosala and overran the territories of the Siddi, inflicting defeat after defeat on the Moslem forces. Soon Baji Rao attacked and re-took Raigad itself. This famous fortress was the seat of Shivaji’s throne, the scene of his coronation, which, since the days of the war of independence, had still been in the Moslem hands. The news of the recovery of the capital of their great king caused universal rejoicing throughout Maharashtra. Nor were the Maratha arms less successful on the sea, Manaji Angre inflicted a severe defeat on the Siddi’s fleet near Janjira. The English, too, became alarmed and, first secretly and then openly, helped the Siddi with arms and ammunition and later on sent a substantial force under Captain Haldane to fight against the Marathas. But Khandoji Narhar, Kharde, More, Mohite and even ladies like Mathurabai Angre — that distinguished woman whose correspondence with Brahmendra Swami reveals the depth of her patriotic eagerness to see the Hindu land freed from the hands of the foreigners and the pride with which she watched the Hindu flag rise triumphantly over towns and cities won back from the enemy — all continued the struggle, till at last in 173? Chimaji Appa came on the scene and in a battle near Rewas, won a splendid victory over the Abyssinian forces when their leader, the Arab enemy of the Hindus in the Konkan, who had pulled down and leveled to the dust the temple of Parasharam, was beheaded and made to pay the price of his crime with his life.+++(5)+++ With him on that day fell fighting the Moslem Commander of Underi and eleven thousand men on the Muhammadan side.
All Konkan, all Maharashtra showered their grateful blessings on their victorious champion who had so signally wrecked a just vengeance on the enemies of their Faith and vindicated the honour of the Hindu race. The king himself was overjoyed and wrote back; ‘The Sat-Siddi was a demon, no less terrible than Ravan. In killing him thou hast uprooted the Siddis. Thy fame spread everywhere.’ Summoning the young general to his court the king showered on him presents an robes of honour while Brahmedra Swami, who had been the prime mover of this campaign and kept the Marathas steady at their post, wherever their efforts flagged through silly bickering or mutual jealousy, by rousing them to the sense of their duty towards their Desh and their Dharma and by constantly emphasising the spiritual and moral aspect of the great War of Hindu Liberation they were engaged in, could hardly express his gratitude to God, or thank his illustrious disciple in lines adequate to convey the fulness of his feeling. At last he had succeeded in liberating the holy land of Parasharam, in defending the cause of Hindu Dharma.
Thus the Siddi was subdued and this Moslem principality reduced to insignificance and subordination to the Hindu Empire. But this left the Portuguese to fight single-handed against the Marathas. Their easy conquests in India and the vast influence they wielded all over the western coasts from Khambayat to Ceylon, had been steadily declining since the rise of the Maratha power. The religious tyranny and the inquisitional outrages they perpetrated in India were no less hideous than those of the Muhammadans and cold only be equaled by Spanish record in Europe. When the Hindus who had groaned under this religious persecution and political servitude for over a century saw that their co-religionists and countrymen in Konkan who were under the Siddi had successfully shaken off the fetters and stood free, they naturally looked forth to the coming of the Maratha troops to liberate them too. A wave of great expectation and patriotic fervour passed over the Hindu mind and stiffened their resistance tp the mad attempts of the Portuguese inquisition of Goa to crush Hindutva throughout the Portuguese Konkan. The success of Baji Rao and the approach of the Maratha arms to their very borders only made the Portuguese madden through fear. With the folly that despair engenders, the Portuguese began to suppress the Hindu movement and crush the new hopes and new spirit of resistance it infused, with an iron hand. The old records state: ‘They confiscated extensive estates of Hindu landlords. They surrounded and converted whole villages at the point of the bayonet. They carried away Hindu children, arrested and killed or enslaved those who refused to disown their Hindu Faith. The Brahmins were the chosen victims of their wrath. They made them prisoners in their houses. The public performance of all Hindu rites was prohibited and if a Hindu dared to perform any rite his house was surrounded, the inmates arrested and sent to the Inquisition, either to be forcibly converted to Christianity or sold as slaves or put to death.+++(5)+++ But in spite of all this reckless persecution the Hindu leaders persisted in resisting these monstrous orders of the Portuguese Government. Thousands fell victims to Portuguese wrath. At last the leaders of the Hindu populace—the Deshmukhs and Desais of Vasai ( Bassein) and other places—opened secret negotiations with Baji Rao and Shahu, pressing them to strike for their freedom and vindicate the honour of the Hindu Freedom and Dharma and Desh. Antaji Raghunath, the Sardesai of Malad, brave, popular and a Hindu of Hindus, who had openly flouted the Portuguese order against Hindu rites and encouraged the people on his estate to defy it, fell a prey to the Portuguese persecutions, was arrested, had his land confiscated and was sent to the fatal ordeal of the Inquisition at Goa. But fortunately for all Hindus, he effected his escape and managed to reach Poona in safety. He thereupon organised a secret scheme, promised help and local succour and guidance to Baji Rao as soon as the Marathas would enter the Portuguese possessions and assured Baji Rao that the whole Hindu populace of Portuguese Konkan looked up to him as an Avatar sent to the earth to punish the faithless foes of Hinduism and longingly looked for his coming as for that of a divine deliverer.
In spite of great issues being fought out in the North and his being hardpressed by the expenses of the extensive campaigns that the Marathas were carrying on all over India, Baji Rao was not a man to turn a deaf ear to such moving appeals of his downtrodden countrymen and co-religionists in the Kinkan. With great speed, secrecy, and diligence Baji Rao collected a large force at Poona under the pretence of a more than usually elaborated festival in honour of the Goddess Parwati and ordering out each his task, settled the outline of the coming campaign. Chimaji Appa was appointed generalissimo. Ramchandra Joshi, Antaji and Ramchandra Raghunath and other captains and commanders were sent out to their different posts. In 1737 the Marathas troops attacked the fort of Thana which the Portuguese defended to the last, and had in the end to surrender. Delighted with the success the Marathas poured into Salsette. Shankaraji Keshav took the fort of Arnala, Joshi took Dharavi and Parsik. The Viceroy of Goa, deeply concerned at these disasters, sent a gallant warrior named Antonio to continue the struggle. New forces of fresh Portuguese soldiers were specially requisitioned from Europe. Thus reinforced Antonio took a vigorous offensive and planned nothing less than the re-capture of Thana. Led by the gallant Pedro Mello, four thousand five hundred men marched out to attack and re-take Thana. But on the Maratha side in charge of Thana was no less a soldier than the redoubtable Malharrao Holkar. The attack and defence were worthy of heroic fame. But the Marathas with the help of their artillery, mowed down the Portuguese so vigorously that their strength grew weaker. Seeing this the brave leader, Pedro Mello, began to rally his men when a well- aimed Maratha cannon-ball struck him down to death. The Portuguese thereupon broke and fled back to their ships. Mahim, too, was regained by the Marathas after a heroic fight; while Venkatrao Ghorpade advanced as far as Rakhol near Goa itself. The power of the Portuguese seemed doomed.
Just then came news of the invasion of Nadirshah. This was the greatest danger that India, or rather the only Hindu power represented by the Marathas— that was able to oppose the foreign hordes—had to face. This naturally gave a new lease of life to the Portuguese. Baji Rao with an eagle’s eye took the whole situation in view and wrote: ‘The war with the Portuguese is as naught. There is now only one enemy in Hindusthan. The whole power of all India must gel each time found themselves left more and more exhausted, and thus the siege went on from day to day. Nadir Shah came and went back, but the siege continued and Bassien could not be taken.’ At last furious with despair, Chimaji Appa roared out to his warriors: ‘Behold I must enter the fortress of Bassein. If you cannot carry it in my life today, let your guns blow my head over the ramparts tomorrow, that I may enter it at least after death.’+++(5)+++ Such indomitable valour could not fail to enthuse to stupendous efforts the men he led. Manaji Angre, Malharrao Holkar, Ranoji Shinde vied with each other in trying to scale the walls of the doomed fort. Just then, another Maratha mine blew off, leveling to the ground an important part of the Portuguese fortifications. The Marathas followed the explosion with indomitable courage and established themselves in the ruins. The Portuguese valour that had lionized itself on both the hemispheres could not shake the Marathas from the position they had taken up. The Portuguese could resist the Marathas no longer, as they kept enfilading and storming the garrison of their foes with such persistence and effect that the long expected end soon came. The Portuguese surrendered and the Maratha banner, triumphant over the tortures of the Hindu faith and the Hindu race was carried and planted over Bassien, amidst the universal applause of all Maharashtra.
Almost all Konkan was now freed. The Portuguese power never recovered from this shock, though it managed to eke out a miserable existence at Goa, as the Marathas had ever their hands full of other important issues elsewhere. The Portuguese power that once dominated the Asiatic waters from the Cape of Good hope to the Yellow seas was broken up by the Marathas by land and by sea, never to raise its hand against the Hindu people.
One can very well understand die relief the Hindus felt, the sense of national elevation and strength and triumphant pride that filled their hearts, at the sight of these great deeds of heroism of their warriors, before whom lay humbled those tyrants and oppressors of their land and faith, who for centuries past seemed as if born to rule over them and they destined to be ruled by them. For centuries the Hindus in Portuguese Konkan had not seen a Hindu banner aloft, unbent a Hindu sword that struck in defence of a Hindu cause and, instead of getting broken, broke the skull of the alien tyranny and insolence and avenged the wrongs done to their faith and their nation.’ Well may the correspondent of Brahmendra Swami write to him when informing him of this brilliant success, ‘This valour, this tenacity, this triumph—these deeds seem as if they belong to those times when gods visited our earth: Blessed are they who survive to see these triumphant days: and doubly blessed are they who fell fighting to render this Triumph possible!’