But splendid as these successes in the Konkan were, the Maratha arms were prevailing elsewhere as splendidly. Bajirao after the conquest and stttlement of Gujarat, Malva and Bundelkhand and thus extending the power of the Hindu Empire up to the Chambal, was not likely to cry halt there for ever. His aim was a consolidated Hindu Empire that should embrace all Hindustan in its sweep. His anxiety was to see all the religious shrines of Hindus freed and cleansed from being polluted by the alien and faithless touch of the enemies of Hindu Dharma.
His mission did not, therefore, confine itself to the sacred temple of Parashuram in Konkan alone. Kashi, Gaya, Mathura were still groaning under the sway of the Moslem insolence and fanaticism. So we find Baji Rao and other Maratha generals again and again trying to strike for the liberation of these holy cities with as restless and anxiety as they did in case of Pandharpur or Nasik. Nothing daunted by the tremendous odds against which the Marathas were fighting in Konkan by land and by sea, Baji Rao threatened the Moslem emperor with nothing less than an attack on Delhi itself if his demands— including the recovery of Kashi, Gaya, Mathura and other religious places thereabout—were not conceded. The Moslem leaders at Delhi, wild with terror, strained their every nerve; not less than 22 generals marched against the Hindu rebel; and when they could show no real success against the Marathas, they resorted to imaginary ones to tickle their fancy and wrote exaggerated accounts to their emperor to the effect, that Baji Rao was utterly crushed in a great battle which was never fought and the Marathas were so completely routed that they could be seen nowhere in the North. The emperor, thereupon besides himself with glee, insolently dismissed the Maratha envoy and ordered festivities in honour of this great victory.
When informed of these proceedings at Delhi, Baji Rao, with a grim smile on his face, muttered: ‘Well, I will take my Maratha forces to the very walls of Delhi and prove our existence in the North to the Moslem Emperor in the dismal light of the flames of his capital.’ He kept his word. With Santaji Jadhav, Tukoji Holkar, Shivaji and ‘Yashwantrao Pawar, he was soon knocking at the gates of Delhi. The disillusioned emperor sent forces after forces of his own Imperial troops, but only to be beaten by the Marathas. Trembling now for his very life, the fool paid for his credulity that fancied the Marathas crushed. This was the first occasion when the tide of the Maratha valour knocked against and shook the gates of Delhi in open opposition. Unable to bear this progress of the Maratha arms in the North, the Nizam hastened with 34000 soldiers and the best artillery India could then boast of, and marched up to Sironj. The Rajputs too thought it fit to join him against the Marathas. But Baji Rao soon came treading on their heels and with splendid generalship and valour speedily made the Nizam realise that he had once more fallen a prey in the hands of the evil Marathas. Their constant and dogged charges forced him to shut himself up behind the walls of Bhopal. He tried to sally forth, to rally round him his exhausted forces again and again, but he was so completely out-generalled and out-marched and his forces, Moslem and Rajput, so thoroughly beaten, besieged and starved that the renowned Moslem general could not but sign a peace almost to Baji Rao’s dictation.
But just then a great Muhammadan plot bore fruit and Nadirshah crossed the Indus. The Muhammadan hopes of revivifying their dying emperor rose high. The Nizam and many other Moslem chiefs, who were brought up in the traditions of Aurangzeb, very nearly fraternised with the invader, with the hope that he at least might do what the emasculated Mogul could not and wield a powerful scepter and strike with might the rising Hindu power of the Maratha Confederacy and raise the Moslem Empire once more to its former pinnacle of glory and might. It all would have been so, but for the dauntless front and resistance that the Hindus led by Baji Rao offered to the allied Moslem power led by the fierce foreigner.
Instead of being depressed or daunted, the soaring genius of Baji Rao rose to higher altitudes and aspirations at this great national crisis. In the coming of Nadirshah he was a unique opportunity of compressing centuries of Hindu history in years. His able envoys at the different courts in the North watched zealously and led the diplomatic circles as imperiously and effectively as their distinguished generals led the armies in the fields. Vyankojirao, Vishwasrao, Dadaji, Govind Narayan, Sadashiv Balaji, Baburang Malhar, Mahadeo Bhat Hingne and several others distinguished themselves and achieved as great diplomatic triumphs as the Pawars, the Shindes, the Gujars, the Angres and other Maratha generals won military ones.
In fact, it is these Maratha diplomats who preserved the unbroken traditions of the state policy and ideals of the great Hindu movement and prepared with admirable skill the ground for the successful operations of the Maratha generals. The letters and state dispatches of these distinguished and talented statesmen have now become available in print and their study cannot fail to impress the reader with the grandeur of the schemes and hopes and stupendous efforts which the Maratha diplomats, statesmen, soldiers and sailors conceived and put forth with the single and all-absorbing aim of establishing a consolidated Hindu Empire which would be the bulwork of the political independence of the Hindu race. It was to defeat this Hindu scheme that Nadir Shah was invited and passively or actively assisted by those Muhammadan leaders who had been trained under Aurangzeb and could ill brook the rising power of the Hindus.
But Nadir Shah soon found that he was brought face to face, in 1739, with a Hindu power far different in nature from that which Muhammad Ghaznavi had to face in 1120-1124 . In diplomacy, statesmanship, patriotic fervour and above all, military strength and organisation—not only readiness to sacrifice but skill in sacrificing in such a way and only when it was found to rebound with tremendous force on their opponents and make die oppressors suffer more than the victim—in all these qualities the Hindus of Maharashtra had proved more than a match for the Muhammadans ever since they rose as a nation in the name of their land and their
Faith and fought in the belief that they were doing so in the fulfillment of the will of Shri Ram and Shri Krishna. They feared no Nadir Shah: ‘Nadir Shah is no God: he cannot destroy the creation: he is bound to come to terms with those who prove strong enough. The talk of friendship can begin only after a trial of strength. Peace can come only after war. So let the Maratha forces advance. If only the Rajputs and other Hindus, led by Your Excellency (Baji Rao), present a bold front, great things would be accomplished; Nadir Shah, aided by the Nizam, is not likely to go back, but will directly march on the Hindu Kingdoms. So all these Hindu Rajas and Maharajas, including Savai Jaising, are anxiously waiting for your Excellency’s (Baji Rao’s) arrival. If but led by you our Marathas, the Hindus can march straight on Delhi and dethrone the Moslem, and seat the Maharana of Udaipore on the Imperial throne of Delhi.
In this strain wrote the Maratha envoys and diplomats to Baji Rao. Bassein was still holding on. Maratha armies were conducting great campaigns from the Karnatak to Katak and Allahabad. But Baji Rao did not hesitate a moment, or discourage in the least the high hopes his agents had raised in the minds of the Hindus in the North and the vast responsibilities they had undertaken. When some of his colleagues began to express diffidence, he exclaimed: ‘Oh, ye Heroes: why ye doubt and deliberate? Advance unitedly and the day of Hindu-pad-padshahi is at hand.’ ‘I will spread out my Marathas from the Narbada to the Chambal: then let me see how Nadir Shah dares to step forward towards the Deccan.’
It is this stubborn attitude of the ‘revengeful’ Marathas that checked and chilled to death the anti-Hindu ambition of the Persian conqueror. Writing a long and ridiculous letter to Baji Rao whom he addressed as ‘a Devotee towards the Moslem Faith’, commanding him to obey the Mogul Emperor at Delhi and threatening how otherwise punishment would be meted out to the rebels. Nadir Shah beat a clever retreat. This scrap of paper that Nadir Shah wrote to the Marathas was relegated to a heap of rubbish and Shahu, the Maharaja of the Marathas, openly proclaimed in the Royal Assembly on the 14th June, 1739 that ‘Nadir Shah had fled the country through fear of the Marathas.’
Nadir’s precipitate retirement left in Nizam in the lurch. The Marathas marched forth towards Delhi to inflict a condign punishment on him for his participation in the anti-Hindu designs of Nadir Shah and hesitation to carry out the terms of the treaty he signed at Bhopal. But just then Baji Rao, the greatest general that ever led them, passed away on the 22nd April 1740.
No man strove more honestly or more successfully for the furtherance of the great cause of Hindu independence. When but a boy he drew his sword against the enemies of his race and religion and sheathed it not even to the hour of death. He died in the camp, in the very act of leading his forces against the enemies of the Hindu race. Throughout his long and arduous campaigns against the Siddis or the Rohillas or the Moguls or the Portuguese he knew no defeat. His premature death, due to super-human exertions he underwent for the speedy realization of the great ideal of Hindu-pad-padshahi, was a greater blow to the Hindu cause than half a dozen invasions of nadir Shah could ever have been.