For Nana and Mahadji, the brain and the sword of Hindudom, meant on their Atalantian shoulders to bear the weight of the mightest of monarchies. Of all the best of statesmen and swordsmen, of Hastings and Wellesley, that England or France or Holland or Portugal sent out to India to conquer an Empire, none could outwit or oppose these with any great measure of success. Both of them had seen the palmiest days of the Hindu Empire. Both were trained in the principles and aims and traditions of their nation and its mission in the imperial school of the great Nanasaheb and Sadashivrao Bhau. Both had seen Panipat and survived it determined to carry on the mission of the heroic generation that lay slain on that gory field. They found their kingdom smitten by the civil war, on the verge of ruin, with a nonentity for its king, a lad for its Prime Minister and an ambitious and powerful European foe for its sworn antagonist. Yet they faced all odds with dauntless courage and an undimmed vision, quelled revolts and rebellions within the realm and with a mighty hand and unerring eye threw down and forced their foes, whether European or Asiatic to drink the cup of humiliation.
They had taken upon themselves the risky responsibilities of calling into existence and controlling the uncertain and fitful moods of a popular revolution. Now that the revolution had triumphed over all its enemies and its Government, based on the firm foundation of national will, had proved invincible in the field, it was as natural as politically imperative that the achievement be signalised by some imposing celebration. The marriage ceremony of the young Peshwa, Savai Madhao Rao, furnished the fittest occasion for national rejoicings. He was the Peshwa of the People’s choice. It was for him that the nation went to war. Now that their beloved young prince had survived not only open wars, but even clandestine, cowardly and criminal efforts of their enemies to poison, assassinate and murder him, the nation could not refrain their imagination from comparing the miraculous vicissitudes of his life with those of the divine Child of Gokul and longed to see their princely darling grow to a happy boyhood. People from far and near flocked to Poona to join in the Royal Celebration. Princes, Chiefs, flourishing poets, famous authors, great Generals, veterans that had seen service at Udgir and Attock, diplomats and statesmen, all flocked to Poona to celebrate the marriage and have a look at their beloved and august Prince. To impress the world with the solidarity of the confederate constituents of the great Hindu Empire and to disillusion those aliens and enemies who fondly believed the Maratha Mandal was bound to break up and disperse and could never survive the civil war, Nana had intentionally invited and received with imperial honours the Great Chhatrapati of Maharashtra himself when he reached Poona to grace the occasion of the marriage of his Prime Minister.
There, in the stately Royal Hall, the Chhatrapati sat on his throne, surrounded by the brilliant throngs of his Viceroys, and Generals, and Admirals, and Statesmen and Chiefs, and Princes several of whom had commands over provinces as large as kingdoms in other continents. There were Patwardhans, Rastes and Phadkes. There were represented Holkar and Shindia and Pawar and Gaikwad and Bhonsle. The learning of all India, from Hardwar to Rameshwar, was represented there. The Hindu kings of Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur were cordially invited and represented there through their royal envoys. The Nizam and the Mogul and the European powers in India had sent then their presents and congratulatory gifts through their princes and envoys. Horse and cannon and infantry camped round the capital for miles representing the sword and shield of Maharashtra. Angre and Dhulap represented the Navy, the former being fitly charged with the work of receiving the guests on behalf of the Peshwa. Gathering that mighty concourse under its spacious folds floated those colours, the golden Geruwa, the orange and the gold— reminding the nation of their great mission or ‘Swadharma Rajya’—of Hindu-pad-padashahi.
At a given signal infantry and cavalry and artillery, all arms burst in a cheering acclamation and saluting shouted: ‘Victory: victory to our beloved prince!’ The Peshwa, so handsome, so young, accompanied by the most impressive pomp and ceremony, by heralds and retinue, slowly advanced and entered the hall of assembly. The assemblage stood up, bent low, and bowing in fealty paid the homage of the heart of a nation to the Peshwa in person who, so long had been the theme and the hero of popular songs and myths. But what was the wonder of the assembly when they witnessed the young prince who was the real ruler of all India advance to the Chhatrapati, the King of Satara—who sat enthroned amidst the magnificent assembly—advance with his hands folded and thrice tied and wrapped round with garlands of flowers: for strict decorum required that the Prime Minister must enter the presence and approach the King of Maharashtra with his hands folded and tied in sign of submission! The scene drew tears of joy and national emotion from the eyes of many a sturdy warrior—even the nonchalant and serene face of the Minister could not but betray emotion and big tears of joy were observed rolling down his cheeks. The political impression that this majestic celebration and display of unity, solidarity and oneness of aim, which in spite of occasional aberrations still ruled, informed and inspired the constituents of the Maratha Confederacy, produced on the minds of other Indian European princes and powers, did not belie the expectations of Nana and other leaders of Maharashtra. Nor did it contribute little to the strengthening of the ties that bound the confederacy itself by emphasising and accentuating the consciousness belonging to a great and glorious Commonwealth, in virtue of which each constituent derived mote strength and prestige and splendour that it could have done if left to itself.
As the wounds of the civil war gradually healed, Maharashtra embarked on decades as prosperous and glorious and happy as any recorded in its history. Nana Fadanavis and his able co-adjustors put the administrative and financial and judicial machinery of the state on such a sound footing that, of all people and principalities in India, Maharashtra proper and the vast territories that were held by them under their direct control were the best ruled. The system of assessment and collection of taxes, the efficiency of popular control of justice and the relatively easy opening which all, princes and peasants, could have to careers, great and glorious, and above ali the realisation of being the instruments in the fulfilment of a great mission for which their ancestors fought and which their Gods and Saints sanctified and of belonging to a race that was sustaining, on its mighty shoulders an Empire dedicated to the defence and the propagation of the cause of the Hindu Faith and Hindu Independence, made the people feel literally “blest for having been bom in such days—worked for and witnessed such glorious achievements.” The national atmosphere was charged with a sense of elevation and every one could not but breathe in it News of some military triumph or other, of some new national achievement, poured constantly in. Even the lowest telt the times to be extra-ordinarily gifted and fondly attributed it all to the auspicious star that ruled over the moment of the birth of their fortunate and young beloved prince, Savai Madhao Rao. to whom a nation knelt in homage before he was born. It was the disappointed aspiration of Madhao Rao I, went the popular story, to destroy and avenge the rule of the Mussalmans, the alien and the faithless oppressors, and establish from sea to sea a powerful and Godly Hindu Empire that made him take the birth of Madhao Rao II. their beloved prince. That is why God blessed and fortune ever smiled on their national banner ever since the days the princely lad was born. Such popular and even fantastic beliefs are at times but the dreamy babblings of the sub-conscious longings of a nation’s soul and reveal in what light even the rank and file view their national undertakings and achievements.
Soon after the treaty of Salbai, Nana ordered Parasharam Bhau Patwardhan to chastise Tippu who had succeeded Haidar and proved as redoubtable an enemy of the Marathas as any Hostilities open in 1784 as the Hindu principality of Nargund was grossly oppressed by Tippu and craved assistance from the Marathas. The Marathas under Patwardhan and Holkar, in alliance with the Nizam, forced Tippu to sign a treaty by which he promised to pay his arrears of tribute to the Marathas and cease to trouble Nargund any longer. But no sooner did the Marathas turn their backs than Tippu, bent upon practising a gross deception, tore off the treaty, took the fort of Nargund, treacherously seized the Hindu chief and his family and in keeping with the best traditions of the Faithful, barbarously tortured them to death and carried away the daughter of the Hindu chief to his seraglio; then to lay for himself stores of heavenly merit and to earn the recommendations of the pious Moslem Maulvis and historians who readily raised to the dignity of a Defender of the Faith and a Gazi an Aurangzeb or a Taimur. Tippu began to break demoniacal vengeance on the Hindu population between the Krishna and the Tungbhadra by committing all the horrors of forcible conversions to Islam that ever accompanied its spread. He, as if to challenge the claim of the Marathas as the protectors of the Hindu Faith, subjected many Hindus to forcible circumcision and other acts of indescribable violence. Be it noted to the credit of the unfortunate victims that, though they failed to fulfil the best and foremost duty of men of rising en masse and—as Ramdas had exhorted the Hindus and taught the Marathas to do—to die killing the torturing foes of their Faith and put down violence by force, yet they did not fail to do the next best thing of preferring death to dishonour. Not a man here or there, but not less than 2,000 Brahmans alone who were the chief targets of Tippu’s ghoulish fury chose to put an end to their lives rather than allow themselves to be subjected to the horrors of forcible conversion and apostate life. They voluntarily martyred themselves to their Faith. Before the rise of the Maratha power such things had been the order of the day ‘Rather get killed than converted’ was the best that the Hindu could do. Ramadas rose and standing on the peaks of Sahyadri exclaimed:
‘No: not thus: ‘better get killed than converted’ is good enough: but it would be better so to strive as neither to get killed nor violently converted by killing the forces of violence itself. Get killed if that must be, but get killed while killing to conquer— conquer in the cause of Righteousness.’
With hundreds of his disciples preaching this war-cry though their secret societies from Math to Math, from house to house, he taught the Hindus to covet, not only the crown of thorns, but also, and along with it, the laurelled diadem of victory. And yet in the face of all this Tippu dared to torture the Hindus into conversion and play the part of an Aurangzeb, while the descendants of Shivaji still ruled at Poona. The piteous cry of thousands of Brahmans and other Karnatak, Andhra and Tamil Hindus who had been the victims of the fanaticism of Tippu reached Poona, loudly calling for deliverance from the Moslem rule. Can the Brahman kingdom bear this all? Can the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra listen with equanimity to the accounts of the horrible fate that had overtaken their co-religionists across the Krishna? It was a challenge to the Marathas as a Hindu power and they accepted it. Though their armies were busy in the north, as we shall presently see, fighting great battles against their foes, yet Nana determined to hasten to the rescue of his co- religionists and countrymen in the Karnatak. He bought off the Nizam by a promise of allotting him one third of whatever conquests they made in the territories of Tippu and ordered the Maratha forces to open a mighty offensive against the Moslem fanatic. Patwardhan and Behre and other Maratha Generals, now concentrating and then spreading out in divisions, took Badami and other strongholds of the foe, harassed and thrashed him so often and so furiously as to drive him to take shelter in the mountainous districts. There, too, unable to hold out any longer against the Hindu forces, the hero of Islam, who had distinguished himself so much by molesting women and children and by torturing peaceful Hindu priests and violating the chastity of Hindu girls, sued for peace and pardon at the hands of those very Hindus as soon as they proved themselves strong enough to blow his brains out. The humble and unresisting sufferings of thousands of Hindus and Hindu girls did not blunt the edge of his fanatical violence, but it rather sharpened it all the more. But what unresisting martyrdom failed; to do, righteous and resisting force did and rendered tyranny impotent to do further harm. Tippu was forced to hand over the state of Nargund and Kittur and Badami to the Marathas besides paying down 30 lakhs of rupees then and there as the arrears of his tribute to the Hindu power and promising to pay 15 lakhs more within a year. Now, had the Marathas meant to be means like the Moslems, they were in a position to convert the Muhammadan population, those very Maulves and Maulanas, by forcibly subjecting them to the comparatively harmless Hindu ceremony of keeping the shika, who had but so recently exhibited such criminal activities in outraging the Hindu under the orders of Tippu Sultan. But the Marathas neither pulled down mosques, nor forcibly took Muhammadan girls to their seraglios, nor outraged the Faith of other communities by persuading them at the point of the bayonet to embrace the Hindu Faith. Such heroic deeds were obviously beyond their reach, as they failed to believe in the Koran as read by Taimurs and Tippus and Allauddins and Aurangzebs.+++(5)+++ Only the ‘Faithful’ are entitled to commit such acts of vandalism and violence, not so the ‘kafirs.’
Having delivered the Hindus from the fanatical fury of Tippu in the south, the Maratha armies were now able to concentrate their efforts in subduing a great coalition that their enemies had formed in the north and whom Mahadaji Shindia had single handed held in check so long. After the treaty of Salbai, Mahadji had repaired to the north. He had been deeply impressed by the efficiency of the disciplined troops under the European Commander and his first care was to carry out the scheme of Sadashivrao Bhau, the hero of Panipat, who was the first great Indian Commander, not only to appreciate, but to attempt on a large scale, the use of a regular army manned and drilled and disciplined after the European model. Mahadaji raised a powerful force under De Boigne, a French General and equipped it so efficiently, as to challenge the strength of any European army. Backed up by these he soon found himself in a position to dictate terms to all those who dared to oppose him in his designs in the north. Although the English had to promise to withdraw from the lists of imperial politics at Delhi and leave the Marathas free to do as they liked, still they did not cease to foment as much discontent and put as many difficulties as they secretly could in the way of Mahadji by trying to keep the Emperor Shah Alum in their hands and prevent him from going over to the Marathas. But in spite of all that, Mahadji held the reins of Imperial politics firmly in his hands, brought the Emperor to Delhi and defeated the wretched Muhammadan claimants to the post of Vazirship and to the utter chagrin of his Moslem and European rivals, drove the last nail in the coffin of the Moslem Empire by making the Emperor declare Mahadaji his Vazir, hand over the command of the Imperial forces to him and deliver up the two provinces of Delhi and Agra to his administration. Not only that but the Mogul Emperor conferred the dignity of Vazir- i-Mutalik on the Peshwa and thus virtually empowered him to act in the name of the Emperor and as a ‘Maharajadhiraj,, the King of Kings, in return for receiving 65,000 rupees for his private expenses and the luxury of being called an Emperor. The situation that, this startling constitutional change created, could be best described in the words of a contemporary Maratha correspondent. ‘The Empire has become ours. The old Mogul is but a pensioner and a willing pensioner, in our hands. He is still called Emperor: that is all that he wants and we must continue the show for a while.’ The English, too, after they had found themselves in a similar situation, could not but keep up that show right down to 1857. Mahadji wished to signalise this event by some great moral appeal to all Hindudom. So the Hindu regime was heralded by the issue of orders preventing the killing of bullocks and cows all over the Indian Empire. Nor did Mahadji allow this change in the political status to be merely a verbal one. The Marathas were not likely to be a King long. They immediately began to reduce all recalcitrant elements and fuse them into a great and mighty Hindu Empire, led by the Maharashtra Mandal. The first act of Mahadji was to demand from the English themselves the arrears of Imperial tribute and the Maratha Chowth and Sardeshmukhi. His next step was to levy revenue and reduce those Vicerorys and Zamindars of those provinces who had for years acted as if they were independent rulers. This step raised a storm all over the north. Nobles and Amirs and Khans, all rose in arms against the Maratha power. Not only that, even the Rajas and Raos joined hands with the Moslems and the English against the only Hindu power that could have established a Hindu Empire in India. It was very natural, but very unfortunate. The two great Rajput states, Jaipur and Jodhpur, formed a coalition against the Marathas, stronger than they had ever formed against the Moslem or the English and in co-operation with the Muhammadan forces all over the north, gave a great battle to Shindia’s army at Lalsote.+++(5)+++ In the thick of the fight the Imperial Moslem forces under the command of Mahadji, went bodily over to the Rajputs at a preconcerted signal and the Marathas, thus suddenly betrayed, suffered a defeat.+++(5)+++ But nothing tested the mettle of the Maratha commander as this sudden reverse did. Undaunted, he immediately succeeded in rallying the forces of Maharashtra; Lakhobadada, the Maratha General who held the fort of Agra which was sorely pressed by the Muhammadans, offered a brave and stubborn resistance and thus stayed the swelling tide of Mahadji’s foes. Just then Gutam Kadar, the grandson of Nazibkhan whom the Marathas had not either forgotten, or forgiven, appeared on the scene with the Rohillas and Pathans, aiming to rescue Delhi from the hands of Mahadji. The foolish Emperor encouraged him and he entered Delhi, while Mahadji was busy fighting about Agra against the forces of Muhammadans and Rajputs risen in arms against him on all sides. Mahadji bad already acquainted Nana of the unfavourable turn events had taken in the north and represented that it was the disappointed ambition of the English that was at the bottom of all this trouble. They dared not oppose the Marathas face to face, they had tried to do it and failed. Yet they knew that, if the Marathas were allowed to use the name and authority of the Emperor for a little longer, they were sure to tear even the thin veil that kept up the show and openly assume the Imperial dignity themselves, which in fact they had already almost done. So the English were most eager to possess and hold in their hand the power of the old Mogul, the painted Emperor. ‘Let us not forget’ the great Maratha commander eloquently exhorted his people at home in his letter to Nana,
‘that we live and work and will die in the interests of this our great Empire, that we owe allegiance to one common master, the head of Commonwealth. Let us disavow all feelings of jealously, personal aggrandisement. If any one of you personally any suspicions as to my intentions, I humbly beg of you to banish them all. My services to the Commonwealth are enough to silence calumniators who are our real enemies and try to feather their nests by keeping us divided. Let us all rise equal to the occasion, rally round the national standard; and let the cause of our nation, the great mission handed down to us by our forefathers, be upheld in all Hindustan; let us prevent this our great Empire from being disunited and overthrown.’
Nana was not the man to listen to this noble appeal with indifference when the national cause was in danger. As we have already seen, he had been conducting a war against Tippu and as soon as he had sufficiently humbled him, he dispatched Holkar and Alija Bahadar to strengthen Mahadji’s hands. He regretted to find that the Rajputs and the Marathas should have come to blows and thus afforded an opportunity to the enemies of Hindudom to raise their heads just when the grand dream of their forefathers was all but accomplished and a great Hindu Empire brought into being, that promised well to unite within its folds all Hindustan. So Nana tried to open negotiations with the Rajputs, and especially the King of Jaipur, in the name of the Peshwa and tried to persuade them not to make common cause with the foes of Hindudom and somehow find out a way to reconcile themselves with the Hindu Empire that the Marathas had well- nigh established. Supported by the Maratha armies dispatched from Poona, Mahadji soon humbled his foes. He sent forward Banakhan, Appa Khanderao and other Maratha Generals, supported by two regular battalions of De Boigne, to oppose Gulam Kadar, the grandson of Nazibkhan, the author of Panipat. The Muhammadans determined to give a battle. Two hotly contested battles were fought. The Muhammadans were broken and beaten as never before. They fled in all directions. Ismail Beg and Gulam Kadar ran towards Delhi, hotly pursued by the Marathas. The Emperor trembled. Gulam Kadar demanded money. The Emperor could not produce it. Mad with fury the cruel and barbarous Rohilla chief commenced a systematic train of violence and raping. He pulled the Emperor down from his throne and threw him on the ground and with his knees planted on his breast, thrust his dagger in the eyes of the old and helpless descendant of Akbar and Auranzeb and destroyed them in their sockets. Not satisfied with this cruelty he drove and dragged out his wives and daughters, exposed them rudely and ordered his menials to outrage them before his very eyes. One of the causes of this inhuman fury was that Gulam Kadar was castrated and emasculated in his youth under the orders of this Emperor Shah Alum.+++(5)+++ Plunder ran riot in the capital. Muhammadans committed such atrocities over Muhammadans as they were wont to commit on others in the name of Muhammadanism. Thus a tyrant outside, sooner or later turns out a tyrant at home. Thus does tyranny fall a victim to itself. But who will save now the Muhammadan Emperor, citizens and Muhammadan girls from these barbarous tortures and beastly outrages perpetrated by the followers of Islam? Who else but Kafirs, the Hindus—the Marathas? It was the occupants of this Mogul and even before that the Muhammadan, throne of Delhi that had razed the temples of the Hindus to the ground, had smitten their images into dust, had carried by force queens and princesses to their harem, had violated the chastity of their girls and the Faith of their youths had snatched mother from child and brother from brother and had their hands and hearts red in the Hindu blood that they might invite the honours of a Gazi and a Defender of the Faith in this world and gather a large harvest of meritorious rewards in the other and now these very Hindus are coming to Delhi not to raze mosques to the ground, not the smite the crescents or the tombs into dust, not to violate—why violate?—not even to touch the princesses or even a peasant girl in the poorest Moslem cottage, not to forcibly convert and snatch away mother from child or son from father, not to indulge recklessly in the wine of ruin or get intoxicated with bloodshed, not to measure the greatness of their success by the height of the ghastly oolumns of heads cut off from the trunks of their slain foes, or by the flames of their burning capitals. They could have done so: had they done so, at any rate the Muhammadans could not have blamed them. The Hindus are fast approaching only to relieve the Moslem occupant of that very throne and that very capital from tortures and outrages, ghastly and ghoulish at the hands of the Moslems themselves! The city prayed for the arrival of the Marathas and the whole populace, Muhammadans and Hindus, burst into the most hearty reception when the armies of the Hindu Empire entered the city gates. Alija Bahadar, Appa Khanderao, Ranakhan and De Boigne took possession of the city, but found that the criminal, Gulam Kadar, had already left it. He was the grandson of Nazib and a hereditary enemy of the Marathas. He was not likely to escape the punishment he deserved. The Marathas did everything which humanity dictated to relieve the descendants of Aurangzeb from the torturing hands of Moslems themselves, in spite of the fact that he had only very recently conspired against the Marathas and joined the very Gulam Kadar in fomenting a coalition similar to that which his grandfather Nazib had formed against the Marathas at Panipat. A large body had already been sent to pursue Gulam Kadar who entered the fort of Meerut and began to offer a vigorous defence. But it was impossible to hold out long against the Marathas. So he mounted a horse and fled, but in the confusion of the pursuit he fell from his horse and lay stunned in a field, whence some villagers, recognizing him, carried him to the Maratha camp. No one was louder in demanding for an exemplary punishment of that fiend than the Muhammadan public itself. The wretch was produced before Shinde to whom the family of Gulam had for three successive generations borne implacable hatred. Gulam had to pay for all that. He was subjected to fearful mutilations and as he still persisted in abusing, his tongue and eyes too were pulled out and pierced. At last horribly mutilated, Gulam, the grandson of Nazibkhan, was sent to the Emperor who longed to learn that the human fiend who had subjected him to such fearful tortures was as fearfully punished and killed. Thus the family of Nazibkhan, who had sworn to destroy the Marathas at Panipat, got himself destroyed at the hands of the Marathas and not a trace of them or their principality was left behind.
By the year 1789, Mahadji, along with other Maratha Generals, had succeeded in subduing their opponents, defeated and destroyed the Muhammadan clique and their Rajput partisans and humbled the English by fronting them with such a display of power as to make them think discretion the better part of valour. The old Emperor was again secured and when he again wished to confirm the honour and titles of the highest imperial office of Vakil-i-mutalik, on Mahadji, the latter waived it once more in deference to his master, the young Peshwa at Poona.
But while the Maratha forces were thus fully occupied in the north, Tippu wanted to try his hand again. In 1798 he assumed a threatening attitude. But instead of provoking directly the Marathas by attacking their territory, he aimed to extend his possessions—if it was made difficult on the side of Krishna by the presence of the Marathas, then, by attacking the Hindu chief of Travancore—his weaker neighbor. So Nana, in alliance with the English and the Nizam, declared war on Tippu and Patwardhan invaded his territories. As the Marathas advanced, be it noted, the local inhabitants made common cause with them against the fanatical tyrant of Mysore and helped the Marathas in driving Tippu’s officers and men, and aided in collecting the outstanding revenue. Taking Hubli, Ghodvad, Misricot, the Marathas advanced with irresistible might. Dharwad that had lately fallen in Tippu’s hand was besieged. The Muhammadan General there offered a stubborn resistance. The English, in spite of the advice of the Maratha General, once attempted to take the fort by storm, but disastrously failed. The struggle continued and was doggedly maintained by both the sides. At last the Marathas with valorous skill lodged charge after charge and took the fort. Panse, Raste and other Maratha Generals crossed the Tungabhadra, took Santi, Badnoor, Maikoda, Hapenoor, Chengiri and other posts under the enemy. The Maratha Navy too lay not idle. It guarded the coast and marching along it drove the Moslem officers from many a place in Karwar and Hansar. Narsinhrao Dcoji, Ganpatrao Mehendale and other Maratha officers took Chandavar, Honawar, Girisappa, Dhareshwar, Udgini and then the Maratha armies marched towards Shriangpattan itself. There, from the other side, was marching the English force led by Cornwallis. But at that time they were so thoroughly starved and tired out by the tactics of tippu that they could hardly have a full meal a day. The cavalry, for want of fodder, got automatically converted into infantry as the horses fell in heaps. What was their joy when the English forces in this helpless and starved out condition beheld the columns of the Maratha army advancing towards them well furnished like a gay bazaar with all the necessaries of life and even its luxuries! Haripant Phadke evinced a human anxiety to relieve the furnished camp of his allies. The confederate armies remained for ten days together and if the Marathas were minded so, they could have surely crushed Tippu’s kingdom out of existence. But Nana’s policy did not sanction Tippu’s annihilation. He wanted him to continue a little longer as a useful check on ambitious English designs in Madras. So when, after some further conflict and a sound thrashing at the hands of the English and the Marathas Tippu abjectly sued for peace, Parasharam Bhau and Haripant Phadke intervened and persuaded the English to grant terms. By these Tippu had to hand over half of his kingdom to Marathas and pay an indemnity of 3 cores of rupees and refrain from molesting the Hindu state of Travancore. Two of his sons were held as hostages by the allies. The gains were divided equally amongst the Marathas, the English and the Nizam, by which the first recovered a vast territory yielding 90 lakhs of rupees a year and a crore of rupees as their share of the indemnity. Thus ended the third great war with Tippu and the Maratha forces reached their capital back in 1792 with honour and military distinction.
But loaded with honours as splendid and military distinction more dazzling than any, the Northern commander of the Maratha Empire too, was just then winding his way towards the capital of Maharashtra. The concourse of these mighty forces, Phadake and Raste who had subdued the south and delivered Hindudom there from the fanatical fury ofTippu, and Mahadji who had subdued all north, reduced the Moslem Emperor practically into a pensioner of the Hindu Empire and assumed, in the teeth of the English and French, the Pathans and Rohillas, imperial powers all but in name—the concourse of these mighty men at Poona threw every foreign court in India and outside into consternation and suspense as to its future fate. What must be the object of this concourse? What would be the next step that the mighty Hindu Confederacy of Maharashtra was likely to take and who could be its next object of victim? All eyes in India turned towards Poona; for Delhi no longer counted for anything. Delhi had been reduced into a mere suburb of Poona. But Maharashtra herself grew uneasy with misgivings of quite a contrary nature. The two giants, Nana and Mahadji, had come face to face. All knew that, slowly but surely a suppressed sense of rivalry was growing into mutual fear between these two patriotic men, held up till now in check only by the noble devotion and love which both equally bore towards the great Hindu Commonwealth that generations of Maharashtra had built up and in whose defence and for the augmentation of whose power and glory no two men had more whole-heartedly worked than these two themselves. Was that suppressed sense of rivalry now likely to burst out in open hostility? Woe to the Hindu Empire if it ever did ! All Maharashtra trembled to think of itand watched with breathless anxiety the giant struggle between the foremost of their warriors and the foremost of their statesmen.
We have already stated how the old Mogul, who was still allowed by the Marathas to style himself as an Emperor, wished to confer on Mahadji the highest honour and title that he could bestow, of Vakil-i-mutalik and Maharajadhiraj, and how Mahadji refusing to accept them for himself, secured them for his master, the young Peshwa at Poena. This was no empty show. Although in the hands of a powerless and incapable Courtier these titles would not have been worth the paper on which they were written yet they were not likely to remain the mere hollow sounding words that they were. They empowered their holder with full power to rule in the name of the emperor, they meant in fact the resignation of the imperial power on the part of the Emperor. Tbv rivalry between the English and other non- Hindu powers and the Marathas for the Imperial Crown of India had made it a point to let the Imperial Grown and titles remain, even if in a name with the old Mogul. To divest him of it was sooner done than said. But as the English and other Muhammadan powers knew that, if once they allowed them to drift in the hands of the Marathas they would place them almost beyond their reach, flUcy+++(??)+++ jealously persisted in burning incense to the fetish of the old Mogul, and made a show of recognising him as the Emperor just to spite the Marathas. How this tendency was evident in the public life of India could best be seen by the English anxiety to secure for them the permission of the Emperor Shah Alum to hold the Northern Sarkars, which they had already been holding through the right of their own might. So the Marathas too were not a whit behind their rivals in trying to make immense capital out of the shadows of the imperial dignities that still clung to the name of the old Mogul, long after they had firmly grasped the substance of it in their hands. That is why Mahadji made the Emperor confer the titles and powers of a Maharajadhiraj and Vakil-i-mutalik of the Emperor on the head of the Maratha Confederacy. And now that he had come all his way to Poona after a long and glorious career in the north, home sick and anxious to see his beloved infant-chief grown into a young God, his first step was to invest him with these titles and imperial powers with great ceremonial pomp.
But while the Maratha commander was anxious to formally invest the Peshwa with the honours and insignia of a Maharajadhiraj—the king of kings,—which in fact he already was. Nana, the Brahman minister, led the party that objected to it as derogatory to the Maratha king of Satara. There could be cited several examples of citizens and even officers of an independent kingdom accepting honours and even services at the hands of and under another state and without forswearing or betraying their own state, nay, at times with the explicit motive and purpose of advancing its interests. Even then, not to wound any national susceptibilities in the least; Mahadji applied to and of course secured, the permission of the Maharaja of Satara, the Chhatrapati of the Marathas himself, for the investiture. The constitutional difficulty being thus overcome, the grand ceremony was most imposingly celebrated and the dignity and insignia of Vakil-i-mutalik was formally conferred on the Peshwa as an inalienable inam to descend in his family as a hereditary office. The Peshwa could now act in the name of the Emperor, nay, his commander Mahadji was bestowed with a power even to choose an heir to the Moslem Emperor from amongst his sons. Now the great farman prohibiting the massacre of bullocks and cows throughout the Indian Empire was formally read out. The Shindia and Nana Fadanavis, along with other officers of the Peshwa, made presents of congratulations to him. Now the Marathas and empowered themselves with an effective instrument with which they could stab the jealously of their rivals, whether European or Asiatic, which pretended to look upon the Emperor as the only source of all legal and constitutional power in India just to spite the Marathas. Even constitutionally, as in fact, the Marathas claimed to be recognised and meant to act in the place of, personate to say, the Emperor of India.
They were the Commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces, the Vazir of the Empire, they could nominate the heir to the throne and above all were Vakil- mutalik and Maharajadhiraj inalienably and hereditarily.
But when once the ceremony was over, the vast concourse of people assembled to witness the procession back to the palace. The shouts of the populace, the salvos of cannon, volleys of musketry had produced all the effect that the projector of this state ceremony could possibly have desired. After the procession arrived at the palace and he was invested with the great honours by the Peshwa, Mahadji, the Commander-in-chief of the Indian Empire, laid aside all pomp and power, advanced along and, picking up the slippers of the Peshwa, lowly spoke.
‘Sire! Maharaj! Princes and Potentates, Rajas and Ranas, Moguls and Turks and Rohillas, the Moslems and the Firangees have been vanquished and reduced to obedience to thee—the head of our Hindu Empire. Thy servant has spent the best part of his life ever since thy birth, sword in hand in distant lands in the service of our Commonwealth. But all the honours and emoluments, all the pomp and power that vanquished kingdoms could yield have failed to appease my thirst for the honour of being allowed to sit at thy feet, and, resuming the duties of my ancestors, take charge of these, thy royal slippers. I long more to be addressed by the cherished epithet of a simple Patel and in Maharashtra, than as the Grand Vazir of the Mogul Empire. So, please to relieve me of these mighty cares in distant lands and let me serve thee. Give me leave to serve, even as tny ancestors served, as one of thy favoured personal attendants.'
Mahadji was a master of winning phraseology. Savai Madhao Rao, the noble- mined Peshwa, was a youth, good natured and frank and not without a trained insight in politics. Mahadji was doubtless attached and devoted to him and soon succeeded in drawing his young chief towards him. Encouraged by this, Mahadji began to aim at the position of being the chief minister of the realm and handle the power which Nana Fadnavis held. At time went on, he openly intervened in some cases against the decision of the minister and catching a favourable opportunity in one of those occasional excursions which the young Peshwa often loved to enjoy along with Mahadji, the later openly touched the subject. But he was surprised to find the good natured Peshwa seriously rejoin,
‘Listen, Nana and Mahadji are two hands of my realm: the first is my right hand, the second the left, each best fitted to do its work. Through their united help the Empire prospers. They can neither be exchanged nor cut off and cast away without fatal disabling me.’
This conversion, in spite of precautions that Mahadji took could not escape the watchful and masterly scrutiny of the intelligence department organised by Nana. The report alarmed Nana, Haripant Phadke and all the ministerial party in Poona. The grand object of their life of uniting all India under the colours of the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra with the Peshwa at their head and preventing all attempts of the confederates to assert their independence seemed to them in danger. That they could not tolerate so long as they lived. But if it was only a question of their being removed from the position they occupied, then it was their duty to withdraw, dangerous though they really deeded such a withdrawal was bound to be public interests rather than risk an open civil war. So Nana hastened to come to an explanation with the young Peshwa and enumerating the services he had rendered to the state and to the person of the Peshwa ever since his birth, he lamented the evil effects that would ensue if he allowed himself to be misled by Shindia’s ambitions designs which tended towards reducing the Peshwa to a helpless puppet in his hands as the Mogul Emperor had been. Any sudden attempt to introduce so great an innovation in the constitution of the Maratha confederacy would bring on a civil war, so terrible as to cause for the ruin of the great Empire they had built and furnish an opportunity to the Moslems who, even then were making great preparations at Hyderabad to overwhelm the Hindu power and the English who, of all were the most capable of realising the ambition of overthrowing the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra. But if it was only a question of his personal removal from power—if the young Peshwa was anxious only to get rid of Nana, then, moved to tears; the grand old minister said: ‘Here is my resignation. If that could save the realm, avoid a civil war and please thee, sire, then accept this and allow me to proceed to Benares and to retire from the world.’ The young Madhao Rao was greatly affected. Touched to the quick by this pathetic prayer of his most revered minister, that builder of an Empire—the Peshwa exclaimed: ‘What makes you minded thus? Thou hast been, not only a minister, but a guide and friend and philosopher unto me. This realm rests on thy shoulder and would come down in a crush as soon as thou withdrawest.’ Nana, his voice vibrating with emotion, said: ‘Sire, ever since thy birth, nay, even before thy birth, I have been incurring the hostility of a host of enemies for having been faithful to thy cause and persisting in my dutiful services towards this realm. But now the services are forgotten, the enemies alone survive.’ The generous-minded youth, thrown at this in a transport of grief, forgetting that he was the chief and the other his minister and overpowered by simple human affection, threw his hands round the neck of Nana and sobbed out; ‘Forsake me not, nor grieve: thou hast been not a minister only but a veritable father unto me since my infancy. Forgive me if gone astray. I will not permit thee either to resign or to retire. I will not forsake thee.’
Strengthened by these moving assurances of the Peshwa, Nana, Haripant Phadke and other leaders the ministerial party took Mahadji, too by an equally effective surprise. Mahadji, whatever his personal ambition be, was as devoted as any of his co-workers to the magnificent Hindu Empire their nation had built and would have been amongst the first to sacrifice his life to prevent any non-Hindu alien from any attempt to dominate or undermine it. Mahadji was not a Raghoba Dada. In spite of his ambition to hold absolutely in his hands the helm of the Maratha realm, he did not mean to embark on civil war, and so readily undertook to come to an understanding with the ministerial party and abide by the wishes of the Peshwa. When on being confronted all of a sudden by Haripant Phadke and others, he was informed that, whereas he meant to concentrate all ministerial powers in his own hands and whereas the rivalry between themselves was sure to do the greatest harm to the cause of Hindu Empire they so dearly loved, by strengthening the hands of their foes. Nana had decided to lay down that pen which made and unmade kingdoms and voluntarily resigned his powers rather than involve his nation into a disastrous civil war. Mahadji could not but be deeply and touched and promised to withdraw all oppositions to Nana and his party. As it happened on several other occasions, so on this one, too, the patriotic and noble national instincts of the Maratha people got better of their selfish proclivities and the two most powerful men once more met as friends. Sitting at the feet of the Peshwa, they swore to forget all that had passed between them and to continue in their respective capacities to serve their common chief and the great national Commonwealth that stood for the holy cause of the Defence and the propagation of the Hindu Faith and Hindu- pad-padashahi.+++(5)+++
The news of this happy event that the giants had shaken hands, that the misunderstanding between the two most prominent leaders of their Empire had disappeared, gladdened Maharashtra from end to end. How great was the relief felt by every lover of the Hindu cause could best be seen in the eloquent latter dispatched by Govind Rao Kale, one of the most talented and patriotic diplomats of Maharashtra, on learning this happy news. He writes to Nana Fadnavis from the capital of the Nizam where he held the position of Political Resident of the Maratha Empire:
Your letter thrilled me with joy and made me inexpressibly happy. It spoke volumes and gave rise to a flood of thoughts in my mind. All the country that lies from a river Attock to the Indian ocean, is the land of the Hindus—a Hindustan, and not a Turkstan, the land of the Turks. These had been our frontiers from the times of the Pandavas down to those of Vikramditya. They held it against all aliens and ruled over it. But those who succeeded them as rulers turned out so incapable and impotent to wield the sceptre that the Yavanas, the aliens, conquered us and deprived us of our political independence. The descendants of Babar seized the kingdom of Hastinapur, of Delhi, and eventually, during the reign of Aurangzeb, we were reduced to such straits that even our religious liberty was denied to us and the wearer of a sacred thread was required to pay a poll-tax and forced to buy and eat impure food.
At this critical time in our history was born the great Shivaju the founder of an era, the defender of the Hindu Faith. He liberated a corner of our land and that afforded protection to our Faith. Then came Nanasaheb and Bhausaheb, heroes of preeminent prowess, the grandeur of whose greatness shone anongst men as does that of the Sun. Now everything that was lost had been regained by us under the benign, auspicious tetgn of his Excellency the Peshwa, owing to the astute skill and invincible sword of our Patel—our Mahadji Shindia. But the wonder is how could all this happen? Success once surely won makes us blind to its marvelous achievements. Had the Muhammadans won any such triumph, volumes of history would have sung its glory. Amongst the Moslems a trifling deed is immediately tolled to the skies. But amongst us Hindus, however magnificent our exploits be, not even a mention is made of them by us. But, in fact, the marvelous has happened. The inaccessible is won. The Moslems openly lament that the kingdom has passed into the hands of the Kaffirs; the Kafir- shahi has come.
And really every one who dared to raise his head against us in Hindustan, Mahadji smashed him down. Indeed, we have achieved what seemed beyond human achievement to consolidate and put all in order and to enjoy the blessings of sovereignty and empire even as the mighty emperors of old did. Yet much remains to be done. No one in the meanwhile can tell when or where our merit will fail us, or the evil eye of the wicked cause harm. For our achievement is not limited only to the acquisition of territory, merely material rule, but it also means and includes the preservation of the Vedas and the Shashtras of Hindu civilization, the propagation of Righteousness, the protection of the cows and the Brahmans, of the humble and the good, the conquest of an empire and national suzeraignty, the diffusion of fame and far-reaching triumph. The secret of the alchemy that yielded such miraculous results lies in your hand and that of Mahadji. The slight estrangement between you two strengthens the hands of our foes. But the news of your mutual concord has now set all my misgivings at rest, encompassed as we are by malevolent foes and secret enemies on all sides. Now let these our forces lie encamped in the plains of Lahore and press on towards, the frontiers. Let the enemies get bitterly disappointed who expected them to come in collision amongst themselves. I was so restless about it all. But your letter has cleared the mist. Well done: Splendid indeed; Now I feel quite at ease.
This one single letter penned with such ease and grace by one of the actors gives a truer expression to the spirit of our history than many a dull volume had done.
But amidst this clash of great fears and hopes, Mahadaji, to the intense grief of all Maharashtra, was caught by a violent fever and breathed his last his camp at Wanavadi, near Poona on the 12th February, 1794.
As was very natural, this sudden death of the most powerful of the Maratha chiefs and commanders revived the designs of her enemies against her power and made them eager to attack her before she recovered her strength again after this blow, which they fondly fancied to be a dreadful one. Amongst these enemies the Nizam of Hyderabad had of late been making great preparations for wreaking a terrible vengeance on that Hindu power which for generations had held him under its thumb and reduced him to be a mere tributary to it. He had increased his force from two regular battalions to 23 regular infantry under the command of a capable French officer. His minister, Mushrulmulk, was an ambitious Moslem who could not tolerate the latest assumption of imperial prerogative and power by the Marathas under Mahadji’s directions. The Moslem population of the state was sedulously whipped into a war fever and kept bragging from bazar to bazar of the day that was soon to come when the standard of the Faithful would float over Poona and the Kaffirshahi—the Rule of the Hindu—come to an end. The bellicose attitude of the minister of the Nizam grew so daring as to demand, when he was presented with claims for Chowth by the political Resident of Maharashtra there, the presence of Nana himself at Hyderabad to explain the claims. ‘If’, he continued “Nana will not come, I will soon bring him.’ As if this insult was not deemed sufficient to excite a war, the Nizam arranged for a royal show to which envoys were deliberately invited and in their presence made some of his courtiers masquerade the parts of Nana and Savai Madhao Rao—the Peshwa himself—to the great merriment of the Mogul court. Thereupon Govindrao Pingle and Govindrao Kale, the two Maratha envoys at the Nizam’s court, got up and entered a strong protest against the insolent treatment meted out to them. ‘Listen’, said the spirited Maratha in the end ‘Oh Mushrulmulk! thou hast more than once assured thyself of thy power to compel Nana, the minister of all Maharashtra, to come to thy court. Thou hast also made thy courtiers exhibit the mask of my master. Here I throw a counter-challenge that I am no Govindrao Kale if thou art not captured, carried away alive by the Marathas, and exhibited in person in the streets of the capital of our Hindu Empire.’ With these ominous words the Maratha envoys left the court of the Nizam, repaired to Poona and demanded a war. The English attempt to arrogate to themselves the right of negotiating between the parties was so sternly rebuked that they gave up all thought of dabbling in Maratha affairs, and dared not even to raise a finger in favours of the Nizam in spite of his solicitations. The Nizam had made great preparations for the war. The Moslem element in his state was roused by appeals of their sentiments, till they talked of a holy war against the Kaffirs and secured the sympathies of Moslems from far and near for the undertaking. Poona was to be burnt and looted by the armies of the Faithful. These vaunts of the populace were nothing to the vain glorious bombast that Mushrulmulk, their minister, publicity indulged in, when he seriously declared that he was bent on delivering the Moguls once and for all from the tyrannical sway of the Marathas and send their head the young Brahman Peshwa, to Benares with but a rag about his loins as a mendicant to beg from door to door.
While the minister at Hyderabad was bragging and boasting to no end, the minister at Poona was coolly calculating his forces and laying down his plans. In spite of the death of the most powerful of their generals and chiefs, Mahadji Shindia, the Marathas rose equal to the occasion. The genius of Nana never shone so brilliantly, his influence over his people never proved so supreme, as now. His word moved armies from distant capitals of the far-flung Maratha Empire. His wisdom rallied the most recalcitrant constituents into a harmonious whole. The great national standard of war was unfurled at Poona and round that Hope of Hindu-pad-padashahi began to muster the armies of Maharashtra from far and near. Daulatrao Shindia who had succeeded Mahadaji was summoned there with Jivba Dada Bukshee, the defender of Agra, and others of his generals and troops that had subdued all north—Pathans, Rohillas, Turks. Tukoji Holkar with his forces was already there. Raghoji Bhosle with a powerful army set out from Nagpur. The Gaikwad led a strong detachment from Baroda to fight in the common cause. Patwardhans and Rastes, Rajebahadur and Vinchurkar, Ghatge and Chavan, Dafle and Pawar, Thorat and Patankar, with several other less conspicuous chiefs and officers and generals, attended the summons. The Peshwa himself marched out with his armies accompanied by his great minister. This was the first time that the young Peshwa personally accompanied a battle march. This presence of their popular prince inspired the Maratha soldiers most, and constituted the chief attraction of this campaign. The Nizam was first in the field. His army was no less than one hundred and ten thousand horse and foot, supported by powerful artillery brought to an up-to-date efficiency. His forces presented such an imposing display of martial strength and fanatical fervour that the Moguls grew cocksure of the results, The Marathas, in spite of the fact that large bodies of their efficient forces were necessarily held back to guard the frontiers of their Empire, spread out in all parts of India, mustered one hundred and thirty thousand strong. The two grand armies came in touch with each other near the frontiers of the Maratha territory about Paranda. Nana had asked for written opinion from his chief generals as to the best plan of campaign, and chose what he deemed best. He entrusted the post of the generalissimo of all Maratha armies to Parasharam Bhau Patwardhan. As soon as the advanced guards of both the hostile parties came within musket shot, the fight began. In the few first skirmishes the Pathans forced detached parties of the Marathas to fall back and Parsharam Bhau, happening to be in one of these on a reconnoitering expedition, the affair was magnified in the Mogul camp into so big a success as to be celebrated by a public congratulatory Darbar. But the Nizam soon found out his mistake when the main body of the Maratha forces came to close quarters, Ahmed-alli-khan, with 50000 picked force met the Marathas and charged them with great vehemence. The Maratha division belonging to Bhosle’s forces received them with a terrible discharge of rockets. Soon the batteries of Shindia opened a dreadful side fire. The fight was furious, but caught between the Maratha fires the Muhammadans, in spite of the exhorting shouts of Alla-ho-Akhar could not hold their ground. The broke and their cavalry was utterly routed. The Marathas advanced and closed them in to complete their discomfiture. The Nizam too got alarmed out of his wits, withdrew from the field and could only find shelter behind the darkness of the approaching night. Irregular fight continued all the night, causing so great a havoc and confusion in the Mogul army that the forces of the Faithful, in spite of the stimulating assurance of frothy maulavies of their being engaged in a holy war, did not desist from plundering their own camp and take to heels as fast as they could. But the Maratha camp- followers were on their track, and soon eased them of all that ill-gotten booty. The morning revealed the Nizam taking up a new position behind the fortifications of a village fort at Kharda and his army, numbering some ten thousand men, posted round in battle array. The Marathas there upon brought forth their cannon, and from every hill and hillock in the vicinity a dreadful fire opened. Two days the Mogul bore it all. Not only his beard, but even his moral courage got literally scorched by the batteries of Maharashtra. At last on the third day, parched with thirst, smothered and throttled, the enemy asked for cessation of arms. The Maratha answer was: ‘Mushrulmulk first and then the talk of anything else. He must make amends for the gross and cowardly insults he so wantonly flung at the Maratha envoy, nay at the minister of all Maharashtra’ Crestfallen, the Moslem handed over his Faithful minister Mushrulmulk to the Marathas and signified his wish to sign any terms the Marathas dictated. All the territory lying between the Paranda and Tapti was handed over to the Marathas, besides 3 cores of rupees as the arrears of Chowthai and indemnity of war in addition to 29 lakhs to be separately paid out to the Bhosle. On these conditions the Marathas allowed the man to go back alive to his capital who came out to burn and loot Poona and send the Peshwa to Benares to beg from door to door.
Mushrulmulk was escorted to the Maratha camp through rows of the victorious ‘Kaffirs.’ As he passed a captive through the camp the rank and file raised uncontrollable shouts of victory of Harhara Mahadev. They had caught him, the person who had bragged of capturing Nana. They had kept the promise of their envoy: but after having done this the noble-minded minister and the amicable Peshwa of Maharashtra treated their fallen foe with distinction and having proved that they could have exhibited him in person from door to door in Poona, spared him any further humiliation. Nana forgave, as the Marathas were prone to do after having proved that they possessed the power to punish.
The Peshwa with all his officers entered the capital of Maharashtra in a great triumphal procession. Great multitudes from far and near poured into the capital to offer a national welcome back to their warriors and their beloved young Peshwa. Poona was gaily decorated and accorded the grandest and heartiest reception to her victorious sons. The ladies lined the balconies and galleries and terraces of the princely mansions of the richest capital of Hindustan and showered flowers and the auspicious ‘Lahyas’ on the warriors, commanders, statesmen and the Peshwa as the procession passed by. Young maidens and damsds siood waiting in front of their doors, and loyally waved their little lights about the noble person of their youthful priace. He proceeded towards his palace, receiving imperial salutes from his devoted people. Many of the most distinguished oomaodcfs+++(??)+++ and Chiefs of the Empire lay encamped with their vast and victorious armies for miles and miles round their national and presented to the world such a bold and united and conquering front as to make all recall the palmiest days of the magnificent Hindu Empire when the great Nanasaheb ruled and the heroic Bhau led its forces.
Let us leave them there for a while: the young fortunate and happy prince to enjoy the devoted popularity of his people: the grand mighty minister busy now in distributing the splendid acquisitions of the conquest amongst the constituents of the Commonwealth, in settling the different claims and complaints and various questions of policy and in consulting with envoys, viceroys and commanders, as to the future activities and undertaking of the Confederacy for the maintenance and extension of the magnificent Hindu Empire they had built: the people of Maharashtra to enjoy the national triumph they had so deservedly earned: the bards and the minstrels to compose and sing to stirring tunes the glories of their sires and the no less glorious and mighty deeds of their sons in accents which even today draw tears of joy and set nerves tingling with heroic emotions whenever listened to: the veteran standing erect amidst admiring groups of villagers and citizens in public places, slowly twisting his mustaches and he listened to the recitals of the fresh ballads telling the story of Kharda to eager crowds at the mention of his personal or regimental exploits: the peasant proprietor singing happy songs over his plough, confident that no harm could come to him or the fruits of his labour as long as Nana ruled at Poona: temples proudly raising their fearless heads to which devotees in their thousands brought their offerings and conducted their worship as freely and as variously as they chose; the pilgrim and the sanyasin and the saint and the philosopher from Haridwar to Rameshwar to think or to pray as pleased him best carrying and diffusing broadcast the highest moral precepts as he passed through the land : the savant and the scholar carrying on their studies in flourishing colleges and monasteries relieved from all cares of the necessaries of life through the liberality of the rich chiefs who spent millions in encouraging ancient learning and shastras: the sailor and the soldier each relating his deeds of valour by land and by sea to his young sweet heart or doting mother, displaying his share of booty carried home from the hostile camps or ships in pearls and in gold to substantiate his tale: the capital, the town, the village,-let us leave the whole nation to enjoy the fruits of independence and national greatness which the labour of generations of their sires have so deservedly won. Imagination itself loves to linger on that pinnacle of glory, although it knows that it must be but for a while and although it is prepared to face the abrupt fall which is soon to be the fate of this great Hindu Empire: let it rejoice over it while it lasts.
In the meanwhile, let us review this sketch which we have so summarily drawn of the modern history of Maharashtra with a view to appraise, correlate and fit it in the long and noble History of Hindustan, of which it forms an organic and important chapter.