That a Madhao Rao, the hope of a whole people, should die young, while Raghoba, the curse of whole people, should survive a generation after him, is one of those events that make men doubt at times if God be really omnipotent as it is said to be.
The death of Madhao Rao was a great national calamity, but the survival of Raghoba was calamity even greater than that. No sooner was the childless Madho Rao succeeded in accordance with his wish and the nation’s will, by his younger brother Narayan Rao, than did Raghoba begin anew to hatch up bloody conspiracies against the young boy and those who supported him. He took the hired guard of the palace in his confidence and ordered them to surround and arrest the young Peshwa, which plan his demoniacal wife, Anandibai, replaced by inciting them to assassinate him altogether. On the 30th August 1773 the guards suddenly rose in mutiny and confronted Narayan Rao, clamouring insolently for pay. As soon as one of the faithful attendants of the Peshwa remonstrated with them, they drew their swords and killed him there and then. Alarmed, the young Peshwa hastened away from room to room, hotly pursued by the mutineers, till he reached Raghoba’s hall and throwing his arms round his waist piteously prayed that his life be spared. ‘Save uncle, save me, thy child: I will recognize three as my Peshwa and will ask no more than a few crumbs of bread for my maintenance.’ But the assassins were upon him. Raghoba disentangled himself from his clasp and the murderers fell upon the youth. Chaphaji Tilekar threw himself between the swords of the assassins and his master, and covering the body of Narayan Rao entreated the guards to spare their master. But murder was on them and the guards dealt strokes after strokes with their bloody swords and slew the young Peshwa along with the faithful Chaphaji who lay covering him unto death. Thereupon the mutineers proclaimed Raghoba as the Peshwa of Maharashtra and took possession of the palace.
The news, as it spread through the capital, inflamed the citizens who, gathering in groups, swore not to recognise the murderous Raghoba as their chief. Enough of national spirit was still left in Maharashtra and a horrible palace intrigue was not likely to cow them down into obedience to a chief that they did not tacitly choose. The leaders and the prominent officers of the state formed themselves into a secret revolutionary committee, and Ramshastri, the Chief Justice of the Realm, was called upon to carry an investigation into the crime, who soon got convinced of the complicity of Raghoba and Anandibai—his evil genius—in the dastardly murder. Thereupon the dauntless Brahaman repaired to the palace and, entering the hall where Raghoba Peshwa guarded by his partisans, charged him straight to his face as the murderer of his nephew and of the people. The question of purificatory rites being raised he exclaimed. ‘What purification can there be for such a dastardly crime as this? The only expiatory rite that prescribed is death by instant execution! Being warned by some one, he retorted: ‘I fear no Raghoba, I have done my duty as the Chief Justice of my people. If he likes let him add to his crime by murdering me, too. I will neither reside nor take food in a city where such a criminal reigns.’ Before the awed partisans of Raghoba could fully realize it all, the indomitable Brahman, burning with pious rage like a flame of fire was off— out of the palace—out of the city—nor touched food nor drink, till he reached the banks of the sacred Krishna river.+++(5)+++
Just then it was ascertained that Gangabai, the young widow—princes, was pregnant and an issue to Narayan Rao, the deceased Peshwa, was expected. This news strengthened the hands of the revolutionary committee as nothing else could have done. Morobadada, Krishnarao Kale, Haripant Phadak, Trimbakrao Mam, Raste—the chief of the artillery, Patwardhans, Dhygude, Naro Appaji and several other leading citizens and officers of the realm, led by two most prominent statesemen, Nana Fadanavis and Sakharam Bapu, decided first to take Raghoba out on an expedition and then to break out in open revolt against him. They soon succeeded in forcing Raghoba to undertake an expedition in the south. No sooner did he turn his back on Maharashtra, than they rose in Poona, took possession of the capital and proclaimed Gangabai as the Head of the administration of the Realm and the expectant mother of the future Peshwa. The popular revolution soon spread out from Fort after fort and town after town acknowledged the authority of the Government, which all practical purposes became a republic and came to be known the bharbhai administration or the republican rule.+++(4)+++ When the starting news of this national outbreak reached Raghoba, his first thought was to march on Poona with the forces under his command; but finding the revolutionary army already coming upon him, he, along with the few who still clung to him, and his hired forces turned towards the north looting and devastating the people and the country on his march, as though he was passing through an alien land at war. He still hoped that, if Gangabai failed to give birth to a son, then a popular reaction would soon set in his favour. At Koregaon he even gave a battle and defeating the revolutionary forces slew their chief Trimbakrao Mam Pethe. This was a heavy loss to the revolution; for Pethe was one of their staunchest leaders. Still Nana and Bapu held out and backed up by the bulk of the Maratha nation continued the struggle unabated.
Now the eyes of all Maharashtra, nay, all India, centred on Purandar, where the young Maratha princess Gangabai was kept under the strictest and the most solicitous watch and ward. She was fast approaching the critical time. As day followed day, and no news from Purandar came, the popular anxiety grew tense. Crowded congregations sent forth moving prayers from temples and tirthas that their young princess at Purandar be blessed with a son and a male heir, so that the wild ambitions of the hated Raghoba be utterly frustrated. From the public squares to the princely halls, all India stood on the tiptoe of expectation and the royal! courts at Delhi, Indore, Gwalior, Baroda, Hayderabad, Mysore, Calcutta and several other centres of Indian polities waited for news: from Purandar with breathless curiosity. At last on the 18th April 1774 the longed for news arrived. Gangabai, the Maratha Princes at Purandar delivered of a male heir. All Maharasthra hailed the birth and recognised him-as their national head and the destined first minister of the their realm. Even foreign courts, carried away by the general public enthusiasm, showered congratulations on the infant prince. The relief felt by the revolutionaries all over Maharashtra and the patriotic hopes and aspirations could best be seen in the temporary correspondence and records. Sahaji Bhonsle writes from his camp: ‘As soon as the news reached us here it conveyed a world of joy: God has heard our prayers: the camp is all aglee. martial music is playing. The guns are booming forth royal ‘salutes. May the Lord bless our beloved Peshwa with long life:’ The news caused equally great rejoicing in the revolutionary forces wherever they were. ‘Haripant Tatya, our General, immediately ordered great celebrations throughout the army. Martial music and bands and peals of cannon could hardly give vent to the public joy. Sugar was distributed from the howdas on elephants to celebrate the auspicious ceremony. Doubtless, God is on our side,. For the welfare and protection of our people and for the propagation of our faith, the Lord has blest our cause. Long live the infant Peshwa! Long live the darling of our people!’
The child was named Madho Rao which name, a people fondly devoted to the princely lad soon replaced by ‘Savai Madhao Rao’ or madhao Rao the Greater. His birth changed the political prospect of all India by strengthening the hands of the revolutionists in Poona who now all the more boldly and vigorously declared Raghoba an outlaw and ordered all Maratha Sardars to chase and arrest him wherever found. It enabled the party of those statesmen and patriots who were brought up in the tradition of Hindu-pad-padashai under Nansaheb and Bhau and who had the vision and the ability to maintain the exalted position Maharashtra had attained, as the great paramount Hindu power in India, to hold the reins of the realm in their hands and keep their nation true to its mission for a longer time than it would otherwise have been, had that man, who could hardly manage his wife, come to manage the Maratha Empire. But mere news of the birth of a son unto Naryan Rao and the great enthusiasm and wild national rejoining with which all Maharashtra hailed the birth and lovingly recognised the princely infant as the chosen Prime-Minister of their Empire, could not exercise that man of the devilish ambition that had possessed him. For Raghoba, like a frightened bull, ran his wild career all the more madly, the more hotly pursued he was by his ill-luck and the victorious arms of the revolution. At last defeated and deserted by his own people he did not hesitate to seek the shelter of the worst enemies of his nation. Of all the nations and states that were still cherishing an ambition to wield the imperial power in India at the lime under review, there was none who could have challenged the paramount position of the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra while it stood united in itself. All those who tried to do so were either utterly crushed or thrown into the background to keep chafing there with impotent rage, held rightly in subordination. The Muhammadans, whether Pathans or Persians, Moguls or Turks, whether from beyond the Indus or Indian—the Muhammadans were so completely crushed as a power as never again to raise their head against the Hindu Empire. They had ceased to be a factor in the political sphere of India. Of the other combatants, the Portuguese power that once dominated half Asia reeled and fell, never to recover again under the heavy blows dealt out by the Marathas by land by sea in the war they waged for the liberation of Konkan. The French, too though they never dared to strike against the Marathas face to face, had often attempted to dominate Poona though Hyderabad and Arcot, but were as often frustrated in their aims and partially owing to that and partially as a result of their European conflicts, had so far ceased to be a danger to the Hindu Empire as to render their existence relatively desirable for a while to it as it served to useful purpose of letting it be played as a power to countercheck the ambitious impudence of their English rivals. The English, too, ever since the days of Shivaji, knew well that if they existed on the Western coast it was not so much because they were desired there or their political aims and ambition had escaped the scrutiny of the Maratha statesmen, but simply because the Marathas had to fight far more powerful and pressing foes elsewhere and so tolerated them as a relatively lesser danger that could be more conveniently dealt with later on, or could be more easily crushed if it ever became imminent. The English, too, gifted with an acute political insight knew very well that they held Bombay on the western coast, not so much in the teeth of the Maratha opposition as in virtue of their serious preoccupation elsewhere and their resultant toleration. So they too, though ever willing to wound, were always afraid to strike. Nanasaheb had utilised them in destroying the power of the Angre+++(4)+++, but this he did on conditions that were, had his reasonable expectations come out true, far from being harmful to the Maratha power as a whole whether military or naval. Had not things taken a sudden turn which no one of his generation could have expected as more likely to happen than not, the destruction of the Angre’s centripetal tendencies would have actually contributed to the strength of the naval power of the Marathas as a state, by concentrating the divided and therefore weakened, command of their navy in the hands of the central power. England in spite of this transaction, derived no very important accessions to their actual possessions so far as the western coast was concerned. These possessions remained confined to the original magnitude ever since the days of Shivaji. But in Bengal, England found a veritable ‘Open sesame,’ and Clive literally awoke to find himself a Victor of a field that was fought while he was asleep and master of opportunities that could have, but for the Marathas, carried him straight to Delhi even then. But thereby we do not mean that the successes of the English in Bengal were anyway undeserved. The very fact that a people could utilize their success, however accidental or thrust upon them by the cowardice or incapacity of their opponents more than their own prowess, proves that they deserved their luck. The successes the English won against the French in Madras were really due to their pluck. Thus both their luck and their pluck enabled the English’to grow into a power in Bengal and in Madras, without so seriously and directly challenging the supremacy of the Marathas as to provoke their immediate hostilities. But in spite of this, even this surreptitious growth of the English power in Bengal and Madras had in no wise escaped the acute vision of the Maratha leaders. Nanasaheb and Bhau were too seasoned, watchful and foresighted as statesmen to allow any of the opponents of the Hindu Empire, however insignificant their actual power be, to steal a march over them. It was this sudden succession of the English power in Bengal that was one of the causes which made Bhau mark out Bengal in the comprehensive programme of conquest he drafted for 1760-61 as a special objective and direct two powerful Maratha armies to liberate whole province from the yoke of the non-Hindu powers under which it groaned ever since the days of Laxmansing, our last Hindu king of Bengal. The northern division of the Maratha forces had actually started on the expedition under Dattaji Shinde in 1760. But as already described, the invasion of Ahmedshah forced the Marathas to postpone the question of Bengal and lace that mighty foe first. Then came Panipat, followed by the death of Nanasaheb. These calamities overtaking the Marathas in rapid succession afforded a new lease of life to the English which they most tactfully and assiduously utilized to strengthen their position in Bengal and madras and prepare themselves with a set purpose of dominating the imperial affairs of Delhi, by wresting the leading string of the Indian Empire out of the hands of the Marathas as soon as an opportunity presented itself. But that opportunity they could not find as yet and Panipat or no Panipat, they dared not to contest openly the united strength of the Marathas, which still continued to be the sovereign political power in Hindustan. The little line of red colour that dotted Calcutta on the map of India swelled and coloured half Bengal red. The little drop of red that coloured Madras on the map of India suddenly overflowed and submerged half that Presidency. But the little line of red that marked out Bombay as British in the days of Shivaji remained the little line it had been even to the days of Nan Fadanavis. Not an inch of ground could it bring under its influence on the western coast, even when whole presidencies got tinged in red elsewhere on the map of India. For here on the peaks of Sahyadri the Maratha sentinel stood on guard balancing his fiercely pointed lance ready to pierce fatally the first alien who dared to step ahead. So none of the non-Hindu people, whether European or Asiatic, whether Christian or Muhammadan were in a position to venture to contest or question the supremacy of the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra, as the sovereign political power of India while it stood solid and undivided in itself. For though it is true that as a nation to a nation the English were doubtlessly better fitted than the Marathas in those national qualities which make a people subordinate and sacrifice their individual ambition and interests to their national aims and instinctively feel a religious repugnance at the thought of betraying their civil and communal interests or of selling their national freedom for a mess of pottage; yet, even then, we must guard ourselves against the fallacious tendency to read the past entirely in the borrowed light of the present. Everyone is wise after the event. But if we take into consideration only those facts and factors which could be reasonably known or foreseen, then the relative forces, whether civil, military or political, ranged on both sides, it would have required only a prophet to foretell exactly who were destined to win amongst the two rivals. No politician could have precisely foretold it. The scientific or constitutional progress that England recorded then was not so hopelessly in advance of the Maratha activities as to disable them permanently in the political race for the imperial crown of India. Moreover, there were natural and immense disadvantages on the English side in as much as they had to fight on an alien ground, thousands of miles away from their chief base of operation and their mother country. Japan, who began to grid up her loins a century later could make up the immense distance that separated her from her European rivals in science and constitutional experience within half a century or so. The Marathas too, other things equal, could also have done that, especially as in the time under review the English were not so much in advance of the Marathas even in those spheres as to mark them out as pr- eminently destined to oust the Marathas from the paramount position they held as the de facto Imperial power in India in the teeth of the armed and simultaneous opposition of the Moguls and the Afghans and the Persians, of the French and the Portuguese and the English themselves.
The English themselves knew it well and so they never directly challenged the Maratha power while it stood untied andfree from serious civil discords. But even when broken into factions and at war with themselves, none but the English possessed that vision and capacity to dare to provoke hostilities and invite opposition with some chance of success. Pamapered on the spoil of Bengal and Madras, they had now grown fat enough to venture to kick against the Marathas in Bombay as soon as they found them involved in a serious civil end. Even Raghoba could see that and so when defeated, deserted, deserted and driven by his own countrymen, he took it into his head, giddy with the mad ambition of ruling Maharashtra against the will of the people, to seek the shelter of the English and promise to sell the freedom of his nation to its worst foes and let them in through the breach which his fratricidal hands effected in the ramparts of the Maratha Empire. The English eagerly grasped that fratricidal hand and on condition of receiving a territory yielding 20 to 25 lakhs of rupees of revenue—Salsette and Bassein and Bhadoch, undertook to reinstate Raghoba as Peshwa of the Maratha people. Immediately the English forces with Raghoba, opened hostilities against the Marathas and invaded their territory. The news that war had broken out between the English and the Marathas encouraged all the disaffected princes and principalities to rise in revolt against the Marathas all over India. But Nana Fadnavis, who had by this time concentrated into his hands the supreme power of the revolutionary Government, stood four square against all the adverse winds that blew. In spite of the extremely disorganised state of the newly born Government at Poona, Nana gathered whatever forces he could and dispatched them under Haripant Phadke to check and harass the advance of the English forces under Col. Keating. This task Haripant and his men performed well. At Napar and some other places they inflicted severe losses on the foe, though he kept bravely sustaining them all. Just then in 1777 there came about a change in the constitution of the English Government in India by which the Governor of Calcutta was vested with supreme power over all their possessions in virtue of which he disowned the war with the Marathas undertaken by the Governor of Bombay and sent an envoy to Poona to negotiate a treaty with the Maratha Government. Nana very anxious to get breathing time to the risings and revolts that had taken place all over India against the Marathas signed a treaty by which the English undertook to surrender Raghoba and they were to receive Salsette and Bhadoch.
No sooner did the English hostilities end than Nana sent Mahadji Shinde to quell all internal disturbances and ordered Phadke and Patwardhan to chastise Haidar for his invasion into the Maratha territory.
But while those Maratha Generals were away on their several mission, the English refused to surrender Raghoba as agreed by the treaty and once more resumed hositlites with a view to crush Nana before his armies could return to Poona to strengthen his hands. To overawe the Marathas they undertook under Col. Egerton, a daring march against Poona itself in 1779. The Marathas, too, having never liked the treaty of Purandar and being now relatively free from internal disturbances which Mahadji had ably quelled, challenged the English to do their worst and resorting to their traditional tactics of guerrilla warfare, lured the English further and further, taking good care to cut off their communication with Bombay. Bhivrao Panse kept hanging about the skirts of the advancing English, forced so persistently, yet so elusively, that the English General could neither thrust a battle on the Marathas nor avoid one when thrust by them on his forces whenever they found him tightly cornered. His parties were constantly cut off; his supplies were interrupted and at last as he came to the top of the passes, his line of communication with Bombay was utterly broken. Still undaunted he marched on. The determination of the Marathas too grew in intensity tnd bitterness as the foe approached their capital. They decided to desert and desolate the whole territory from Talegaon to Poona and if need be, to burn down their beloved capital to ashes than surrender it to the hated foes. This grim national resolve could not fail to impress even the English forces. At Khandalla, Col Cay was mortally wounded by the Marathas. At Kirkee, another important officer Captain Stewart was hit down to the great grief of the English. At every step the English losses grew severe. But admirably disciplined, they still advanced and entered Talegaon. but only to find themselves confronted by a powerful army led by Mahadaji Shinde and Haripant Phadke. The English boldly attacked them, but to their surprise found that the Maratha army suddenly withdrew, got itself divided and spreading out kept charging the English on all sides and yet from a safe distance. Neither food nor fodder could be had for miles around and reliable rumours reached the English camp assuring them that the further they advanced the more thoroughly desolated a tract they would have to pass through. Seasoned, brave and haughty, even then the English attempted to march on. But the wily Marathas had well nigh surrounded them and deliberately informed them of the grim determination of their people to rather burn the capital down than surrender it to their foes. The commander of the English forces had seen enough of the Marathas to cure him of his infatuation and get convinced that the march towards Poona was not a march towards Plassey. There was only one way to get out of the fix to march back to Bombay. Disgraceful though it was that there was no other go. Even a march back was impossible if openly resumed. So the English Commander determined to take the Marathas by surprise and ordered a stealthy march back. But to take the Marathas by surprise was like teaching grandma to suck. They had known it all and as soon as the English came out they closed their ranks and at a sign fell on their foe with irresistible might. The English fought with their traditional stubbornness, but the Marathas could not be shaken off. At last, beaten and broken at Vadgaon, the whole army numbering some nine thousand men, surrendered unconditionally to the Marathas. Nana and Bapu and Shinde demanded that Raghoba be immediately handed over to them and all the Maratha districts that the English had squeezed by the treaty of Purandar should forthwith be returned. Moreover two English officers were taken as hostage to stand security for the carrying out of the terms of the treaty. The English Commander accepted all the terms as a price for being allowed to take back his army to Bombay after remaining captives in the hands of the victorious Marathas for more than a month. The news of the splendid victory sent a thrill of joy throughout the nation. The Union Jack, so stiff, had bowed low to the orange and gold of Maharashtra. In spite of civil feuds and the disorganised state into which their country and people had consequently fallen, their nation had risen equal to the occasion and the people’s Government had inflicted so indisputable a defeat on such an audacious and stubborn a foe. Even the one remaining adversary, who of all had not yet dared to strike or question the supremacy of the power of Maharashtra in India, had to confess to humiliation as soon as he ventured to do so. ’Our nation,’ to quote the contemporary correspondence, ‘had taught such a lesson to the English as none else could teach them. Never had they been so thoroughly humiliated.‘5 The people fondly devoted to their infant Peshwa, who had been the centre of the popular cause, lovingly attributed their victories to the luck of that princely lad. ‘Even from his very birth, the life of our beloved Bal Peshwa, our dear infant prince, had as miraculous a career as that of the divine child of Gokul. Our enemies stand vanquished and God has blessed the cause of our nation and of our Hindu Faith in this Holy war.’