Baji Rao died. But the spirit he had infused in his people could not die. It braced them up to sterner efforts and greater achievements under their new leader Balaji, alias Nana Saheb- the son of Baji Rao, and Bhau Saheb-the son of Chimaji, the victor of Bassein. Although he was only 19, Balaji had already seen service under his father and proved to be capable of the leadership of a great people. Shahu, ever ready to recognise merit, did not hesitate to appoint the brilliant youth in his father’s place as the prime minister of the Maratha Empire. The ceremony of investiture was an imposing one. On the completion of it, a Royal letter of instructions was handed over by the Maharaja to the youthful minister signifying in a few inspiring sentences the very heart of the great idea that had ever been struggling itself to actulise in the mighty movements of Maharashtra. ‘Your father Baji Rao,’ wrote the king, ‘had served most faithfully and achieved mighty deeds. He aimed to extend the bounds of Hindu rule to the farthest limits of Hindustan. You are his son: realise your father’s ideal, achieve what he aspired to, and lead your horsemen beyond the walls of Attock!’
Faithful to the Royal command, Nana and Bhau strove even unto death to drown with triumph the work which Shivaji had begun. Nor did they require any exhortation to do that. Hindu-pad-padshahi was the vision of their childhood, the ambition of their youth. To strive and fight and die for it was a labour of love to them. They hated even the cringing sense of fidelity and slavish regard which Shahu at times experienced in spite of himself towards the Mogul Court at Delhi, where he had passed his days of captivity, enlivened by occasional royal smiles.
Immediately after the ceremony of investiture was over, Shahu ordered Balaji to go to Poona and sent Raghoji Bhosale on an expedition to the south.
Taking advantage of the civil war that broke out amongst the Marathas after the return of Shahu, the Muhammadans, led by an able general Sadat Ulla, had brought back the whole of the south-east of the peninsula under the Moslem sovereignty and pressed hard the little Maratha colony at Tanjore. Pratap Sing, the Raja of Tanjore, naturally turned towards Shahu for assistance. Sadat Ulla died in 1732 and his nephew Dost Alii succeeded him as the Nabab of Arcot. He was a powerful chief and a sworn enemy of the Maratha power. Early on the 19th May, 1740, the Marathas pressed through a gorge to the south of Dost Ali’s position and attacked his front and flank and rear. In a few hours the Moslem army was totally destroyed and Dost Alii lay dead in the field. The Hindus, long groaning under the Moslem tyranny, rejoiced at the triumph of their co-religionists and made common cause with the Marathas. Raghoji, levying heavy contributions of war as he went from cities and towns, moved against Arcot. Sufdar Alii and Chandasaheb, the son and son-in-law of Dost Alii were holding out at Vellore and Trichinopoly with powerful forces under them. Raghoji thereupon gave it out that as the campaign had been a great pecuniary loss, he meant to abandon it. He actually fell back some 80 miles from Trichinopoly. Even a man of Chandasaheb’s activity and tack was so completely taken in by this device that he drafted away some 10000 men of his forces to attack Madura, the richest city of Hindu pilgrimage. But the Hindu leader, seeing the Moslem so well caught in his trap, suddenly wheeled round and with forced marches appeared before Trichinopoly. Barasaheb, who had been dispatched to wreck vengeance on Madura and sack the Hindu sacred city tried to hurry back to reinforce his brother; but Raghoji, detaching a part of his forces to interrupt him, engaged him in a gory fight and knocked him down dead from his elephant. The Muhammadans were totally routed and the dead body of their chief was carried to Raghoji’s tent. The Maratha leader had it clad in rich clothes and sent it to Chandasaheb, his brother. The siege of Trichinopoly continued for months. But the Moslem leader, in spite of his brave defence, could not but surrender to the hated Hindu. Raghoji took Chandasaheb a prisoner and sent him to Satara, and appointed Murar Rao Ghorpade to hold Trichinopoly with a garrison of 14000 soldiers. Sufdar Alii too had already surrendered to the Marathas who promised to recognise him as the Nabob of Arcot on condition that he paid 10 millions of rupees and—be it noted—reinstated all the Hindu princes whom his father had dispossessed since 1736.
But while Raghoji was winning these splendid successes in the south, his Government had already come in conflict with Alivardi Khan, the Moslem ruler of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Mir Habib, the leader of the party that was opposed to Alivardi Khan, invited the Marathas to assist him. Bhaskarpant Kolhatkar the Dewan of Raghoji, eager to catch the first opportunity to tremble the Moslem power in Bengal and to extend the Hindu sway to the eastern limits of Hindusthan, accepted the invitation and the Maratha horse, some ten thousand strong rushed inarching through Bihar, stamping underneath its hoof the prestige of the Muhammadan power there. As soon as Alivardi Khan, who was by no means a despicable leader, came upon them, the Marathas cleverly caught him in a fix, cut off his supplies, crushed his forces and forced him to fall back on Katwa. Mir Habib pressed Bhaskarpant to change his mind and remain in Bengal throughout the rainy season, and live by levying contributions of war on the enemy’s territory. The Marathas thereupon attacked Murshidabad, took Hoogly, Midnapur, Rajmahal and almost all the Bengal districts west of the Ganges except Murshidabad. They intended to celebrate the Kali festival there with unwonted pomp for having favoured the Hindu cause and humbled the pride of non-Hindu bigots in Bengal. Although just then Alivardi Khan suddenly crossed the Hoogly and took the Marathas by surprise and enanged them to the frontiers of Bengal, yet it was destined, to be merely for a while. For Raghoji soon returned, Balaji too, at the head of another Maratha army, entered Bihar, ostensibly as an Imperial General but in fact to levy revenue there for himself and to settle his own account with Raghoji Bhosale. As soon as the Maratha generals reached an understanding between themselves, Balaji withdrew and Bhaskarpant demanded a large sum of indemnity and the inevitable maratha Chowth. Unable to meet him in the field Alivardi Khan decided to resort to a treacherous plan and inviting Bhaskarpant to discuss the question of indemnity to his tent as a guest and an envoy, caused assassins to attack and murder him as soon as, at the given signal, the cry of ’kill the Kafirs’ was raised. No less than 20 maratha officers fell there on that ghastly day. Only Raghoji Gaikwad survived and led the surprised and confused Maratha forces through a hostile country and in the race of the repeated efforts of the exhilarated foe to hem them in and cut them to pieces.
But a murder here or a surprise there was not likely to roll back the tide of the Maratha movement, which the imperial resources of an Aurangzeb failed to repress. Yet Alivardi Khan was stupid enough to write this ridiculous letter to Raghoji: ‘Praised be the Lord ! The horses of the faithful feel no dread of encountering the infidels. When the lions of Islam shall so engage the monsters of idolatry… .that one part beg for quarters, rul r»lilnhi then alone peace would be possible.’ Raghoji retorted that, while be had advanced a thousand miles to meet Alivardi, that lion of Islam dared not move even a hundred to meet him and refusing to carry a war of foolish words any longer, ordered the Maratha light horse to invade and levy revenue throughout Burdwan and Orissa. Year in and year out, the Marathas continued to harass Alivardi Khan, levy regular revenue where they could, impose and collect heavy war contributions where they could not: overran districts, marched in and out, fought or fled as suited them best, till they made it impossible for the Moslem ruler to conduct the Government in all the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Defeat could not deter them, nor disasters depress — they must have their Chowth.
At last in 1750 Alivardi Khan —’that lion of Islam’- had enough of the ‘infidels’ and conceived such a ‘dread of encountering’ them that he begged for quarters and ceded Orissa for the ‘mundkatai’ or the blood-fee for the dastardly murder of Bhaskarpant and engaged to pay 10 lakhs of rupees a year for the Chowth of Bengal and Bihar. Thus it was ‘the Heroes of Faith’ who at last begged for quarters ‘at the hand of the monsters of idolatry,’ one wonders if they ‘praised the Allah’ for it on that day.+++(5)+++
While Raghoji Bhosale was thus successfully striving to root out the Muhammadan power from Bengal, other Maratha generals were distinguishing themselves as brilliantly in battering the strongholds of the Moslem power in the North The fanatical Rohillas and Pathans, who held in their grip all the territory from the Jumna to the borders of Nepal, formed a combination so terrible as to force the Vazir of the Mogul Emperor at Delhi to seek the aid of the Marathas in his attempt to defeat the ambitious attentions of the Pathans to re-establish an Afgan monarch in India on the ruins of the Mogul Empire. The Marathas, who had taken such pains to bring about that ruin, naturally hated my attempt or ambition on the part of any Moslem or non- Hindu people to despoil them of their gain. So the Marathas gladly responded to the invitation of the Vazir and their leaders, Ma lharrao Holkar and Jayajirao Shinde, crossed the Jumna aod marched against the position, the Pathans were holding at Kadarganj. The Pathans held out doggedly, but the Marathas ultimately won a splendid victory and routed their forces. Not only that, but they immediately marched out and hemmed in Ahmed Khan, the great leader of the Pathans, who was hastening to help his comrades at kadarganj. Ahmed Khan entered Farukabad and the Marathas invested it. For weeks the dogged fight continued. But the Pathans could not be crushed, owing to the succour they kept receiving from the other side of the Ganges at the hands of the powerful army of the Rohiltas. The Marathas managed to build a bridge of boats, crossed the Ganges in time and while a part of them was pressing the siege of Farukabad as strenuously as ever, the main part of their forces attacked the combined power of Rohilias and Pathans 30,000 strong and utterly defeated them in a fierce fight Ahmed Khan at Farukabad attempted an escape and tried to engage the diminished forces of the Marathas there, but failed and was hotly pursued. The Marathas routed the Moslems, looted their camp and carried away an enormous booty—elephants and horses, camels and banners and baggage.
The moral result of the campaign, too, was as great as the military glory was brilliant For the Pathans, just to spite the Marathas and give a religious colouring to their cause, had attacked Kashi and committed outrages on the Hindu temples and priests, swaggering loudly that the kafirs could never face the Pathans. For the Allah was on their side; and in a way that came out true. For the Marathas, too, found it very difficult to face them for the simple reason that the Pathans in every pitched fight turned their backs to the Marathas, no sooner bad they faced them. The crushing defeats, the hot and persistent pursuit of the Moslems, made the Hindus feel that the wanton insults to their temples and hearts had been amply avenged. The letters of that period are all penned in this triumphant tone. ‘The Pathans had insulted Kashi and Prayagji. Well, Harbfeaktas have triumphed at last….The foes had sown the wind at Kashi; God had made them reap the whirlwind at Farukabad.’ Nor were the political results less brilliant. The Moslem Emperor, thoroughly, cowed down, conferred on the Marathas the right to levy the Chowth— which was only the thin end of the wedge— in the remaining parts of the Indian Empire. Thus, Multan (Sind), the Punjab. Rajputana and Rohilkhand were brought under Maratha influence and the Haribhaktas’ could rightly claim to have driven the Maratha lance into the very heart of the Mogul Empire” On receiving news of these momentous evens, Balaji the leader of the Maratha confederacy, wrote back to the armies: “Superb is the courage! Indomitable the bravery! The armies of the Deccan, crossing the Narmada, the Jumna and the Ganges, have challenged and fought and destroyed the armies of such precious foes as the Rohillas and Pathans! Officers and men ! you have achieved a triumph that is truly uncommon. You are the pillars of this Hindu Empire. Your name, as the maker of kings, has penetrated to Iran and Turan father.” (1751).
Once again the leaders of the Maratha Confederacy attempted to recover Kashi and Prayag from the Nabab of Oudh and the Vazir of Delhi. As representatives of the great movement of Hindu liberation, they keenly felt the humiliation that the Moslems should still hold the foremost religious places of the Hindus. Again and again we find the Marathas restless over it all, as the correspondence of that period clearly shows. Impatient of arriving at diplomatic results, Malharrao once went so far as to decide to effect a raid and march right towards Kashiji, pull down the mosque that stood over the holy site of Dnyana- wapi and thus wipe off the standing insult to the Hindu people and their Faith. For, the mosque ever reminded the Hindus of those dark days when the Moslem crescent rose insultingly on the ruins of the foremost temples Of the Hindu faith. But the Brahamns of Kashi afraid of the vengeance that the Yavanas, still so dominant round about Kashi, would wreck on themselves and the city, prayed that ‘the proposed raid be abandoned till a better chance presented itself.’+++(5)+++ No wonder that these Brahmins & Kashi expressed in that very letter a pious anxiety as to the sin that would accrue to them for this piece of advice that dissuaded Malharrao from avenging a national insult mereiy for the safety of their lives and their city (18 June 1751)
Shahu died in 1749 Since then Balaji, who had been invested with the supreme power by Shahu himself became the head of the Maratha Confederacy and the soul of their national ambition and ideals. In spite of civil strifes and petty palace intrigues that at times rose to serious dimensions, this able man strove far more consciously and determinedly than several of his predecessors, to rear up a great and independent Hindu Empire, under the leadership of the Marathas, on the ruins of the Mogul Empire and conducted a gigantic struggle with all the foreign rivals in the field, Moslem or Christian, Asiatic or European .
Among these the French were already accumulating great influence and power in the lower Deccan. Balaji was not unmindful of them. But as he had simultaneously to conduct great campaigns in distant parts in India and face the numerous enemies who from all sides strove to crush the one great Hindu power of Maharashtra, Balaji could not for a long time take the French by themselves and settle accounts with them. But ultimately by a series of clever manoeuvers of diplomacy and their irresistible pressure brought to bear on them in the battlefield, Balaji succeeded in baffling the French so completely as to force them and their portege, the Nizam, to sign a treaty at Bhalaki in 1752 by which the Marathas gained all the territories between the Tapi and the Godavari and greatly undermined the French influence in the various courts in the Deccan.
The Peshwa had already undertaken to punish all the rebellious Nabobs in the Karnatak and lower Deccan inflicted a serious defeat on the Nabob of Savnur and forced him to hand over an extensive territory to the Marathas and to pay 13 lakhs of rupees as tribute for what he still held. Then the Marathas. 60000 strong and led by Balaji and Bhau, appeared before Shrirangapattan, exacted 35 lakhs of rupees for accumulated Chowth, retook Shivre and punished minor Muhammadan chiefs. Then Balvantrao Mehendale marched against the Moslem Nabob of Cuddapah. All the Moslem chiefs in the lower Deccan, who kept trembling at the mention of the Marathas, rallied round the Nabob. Even the English sided with him. But in spite of the rafos, Balvantrao Mehendale attacked the Moslem forces and in a pitched and fierce battle, put to the swords thousands of Pathans and killed the Nabob himself. Annexing half of his dominions to their kingdom, the Marathas proceeded against the Nabob of Arcot who was strongly backed by the English. But neither he nor his patrons could afford to flout the Maratha demands—had to pay 4 lakhs to pacify them. In 1759 the Marathas besieged Bangalore, took Chennapattan and forced Haidar who was just then trying to make himself master of Mysore, to pay the stipulated sum of 34 lakhs of rupees. Balaji had a mind to crush him then, but the great campaigns that the Marathas were carrying on elsewhere in India constantly forced him to recall his troops from the lower Deccan and leave the work there half done.
Meanwhile, in 1753, Raghoba took Ahmedabad and extracted 30 lakhs of rupees from the Jats for opposing the influence of the Marathas at Delhi. Just then there arose a civil war amongst the Rajputs about the claim to the Gadi of Jodhpur. Ramsing courted the assistance of the Marathas against the other claimant, Bijaysing. The Marathas consented and Dattaji and Jayappa Shinde personally led the expedition. After a bloody fight with the Rajputs, some 50,000 strong, the Marathas inflicted a severe defeat on Bijaysing, who thereupon fled to Nagore. Jayappa invested it, but soon found that it was an unpleasant work. Rajputs fighting with Marathas, Hindus with Hindus, Balaji again and again pressed Shinde to effect a compromise in Rajputana and proceed to undertake the task, so dear to every Maratha heart of liberating the holy cities of Hindustan—Kashi and Prayag.
But, just then, Bijaysing resorted to a crime which sent such a trill of horror throughout Maharashtra as to make any effort at compromise impossible. It would be remembered that the uncle of Bijaysing had formerly got Pilaji Gaikwad assassinated while a guest at his camp. Bijaysing too, determined to follow in the footsteps of his uncle, in spite of the knowledge that Pilaji’s murder had only sharpened the edge of Maratha revenge and been dearly paid for. Three Rajput assassins started from Bijaysing’s camp, disguised as beggars, kept picking up grams dropped on the floor of the Maratha stable in front of Jayappa’s tent and as soon as he came out for bathing and covered his face with a rubbing towel, punched upon him and thrust their daggers in his sides. Jayappa fell mortally wounded. Two assassins were caught and one escaped. Immediately the Rajputs came out, attacked the forces, intending to crush them while leaderless and confused. It would have been so, but for the undaunted spirit of the great warrior who lay there foully done to death. Jayappa, with his dying breath, exhorted his mourning comrades to sally forth and face the fighting foes first and then to weep like women over his wounds.+++(5)+++ Fired with these words of their dying chief, the Marathas rushed forth and Bijaysing was once more beaten. Other Maratha generals too hurried to Shinde’s help. Antaji Manekshwar, with 10,000 soldiers, entered Rajputana and inflicted condign punishment on all those Rajput states which supported Bijaysing. Thus utterly helpless, Bijaysing sued for peace, acknowledged the claims of Ramsing, whom he had dispossessed, to Nagore, Madata and other districts and gave Ajmer and paid all the expenses of the campaign to the Marathas.
Just then the widowed mother of the infant king of Bundi sought Shinde’s assistance against her scheming rivals. Dattaji Shinde did the work to the satisfaction of the Rajput queen who thereupon paid 75 lakhs of rupees to him as his reward.