Go. Freedom, whose smiles we shall never resign. Go. tell the invaders, the Danes. ’Tis sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrine Than to sleep but a minute in chains.’
—Thomas Moore
The Ideal An all-India Hindu Empire under the hegemony of Maharashtra
Our motive in undertaking the review of Maratha history was to bring out prominently, from a general confusion of details those events which, when cogently arranged, were most likely to enable us better to appraise and appreciate the value of the modern history of Maharashtra from a Pan-Hindu point of view and to correlate and fit it in comprehensive whole—the History of the Hindu nation itself—of which the first forms but a chapter, however glorious and momentous in itself it be. Therefore, it was necessary to narrate as briefly as possible the story of the Maratha movement and to ascertain the source, the spring, the motive power that propelled a whole people like that to struggle and strive and sacrifice, till they built a mighty Hindu Empire. As the first part of this history is better known outside Maharashtra and even better appreciated than the latter one which roughly may be taken to open from the rise of Balaji Vishwanath and the formation of the Confederacy and as scholars, like Ranade, had already done justice to the period it covered by presenting the activities of Shivaji’ and Rajaram’s generations in their true aspect, we have but very cursorily referred to a few events in that period and dealt in our sketch more fully—though not at all exhaustively—with the second part of the Maratha History, since it ceased to be Maratha History proper and assumed such magnitude as to cover and get essentially identified with Indian History itself.
In reviewing the story from a Pan-Hindu standpoint and in our effort to ascertain the principles that animated it from generation to generation, we have, so far as necessary, tried to let the actors and thinkers who led that movement to speak for themselves and their motives. Although these mighty generations were so absorbed in solid deeds, breathlessly busy at the hammer and anvil, forging the destiny of a nation, as to be very laconic in words and although their deeds spoke their message more eloquently than mere words could do, yet even their words few though they be sounded as mighty and expressive as their deeds. With the help of these together, we tried to prove that the main theme of that great epic, the burden of that mighty song, the great ideal which animated the whole movement and inspired the generations, not only of Shivaji and Ramdas, but essentially even those that followed them to a monumental national achievement, was the liberation of Hindudom from the political and religious shackles of Non-Hindu alien domination; and the establishment of a powerful Hindu Empire that should serve as a bulwork and an unassailable tower of strength to the Hindu civilization and the Hindu Faith against the attempts of align aggression of fanatical fury. From the SWADHARMA-RAJYA, dreamt of by Shivji, the ‘Hindavi Swaraja’ which, at the very outset of this sketch, the great Shivaji assured his comrades to be his devoted goal, down to the HINDU-PAD-PADASHAHI of Baji Rao and the triumphant assertion of the talented envoy Govindrao Kale in 1795— ‘It is a land of the Hindus—and not a land of the Turks’—We find this noble conception, this living ideal of a Hindu Empire dedicated to the service of the Deva and Dharma, of Righteousness and God throbbing and pulsating throughout the mighty movement. The fundamental principle of liberty spreading out its eagle wings of’SWADHARMA and SWARAJYA sits hatching and brooding over a century and a mighty people sprang up into existence to act out its will.
A people: not a man or two, not even a generation: but a Nation and this is the second and most important fact that our sketch convincingly reveals and which we wish to impress on the minds of our non-Maratha readers. Although this War of Hindu liberation was initiated by the generation of Shivaji and Ramdas, yet it did not cease with them, but was carried on to its logical and triumphant termination by the generations that followed them. The theme of the great national epic evolves, as we proceed, in heroic magnificencc and vastness of effects as great characters men and women, statesmen and warriors, diplomats and heroes, kings and king-makers, swordsmen and penmen, pass crowding in thousands and tens of thousands and the action thickens on the ever widening stage of centuries, all concentrated round the one Jari Patka+++(=पताक)+++, the Golden Geruwa+++(=जरि)+++, the standard of Hindudom.
This fact, considered along with the peculiar political organization into which the Maratha state soon instinctively got itself transformed as a national confederacy, owning a national commonwealth, convinces us that the Maratha movement was not only a non-personal and national movement but a great advance towards the evolution of political thought and practice in Indian life. For, in the modern history of India there is no example on such a vast scale as the wherein a confederated nation succeeded in rearing up and maintaining so long an Empire which, to all intents and purposes, was a real Commonwealth and a national commonwealth in which the principle of personal rule was so little in evidence and the theory and practice of a national commonwealth so effectively inspired the actors with oneness of life and interests and all constituents had duties, responsibilities, rights so well marked as the Maratha Confederacy. People who are trained to confederated national rule can step on to a Republican United States more easily and efficiently than those accustomed to a rule personal in theory and practice. The second example of a confederated national state, in our modern history, was that of our Sikhs: but it was on a relatively much smaller scale, was more informal and could not last so well and so long. Bust as that too was inspired by principles and ideal similarly patriotic and noble, it deserves a honourable mention as another important example of a confederated Hindu power. But in emphasising this national and Pan-Hindu feature of the Maratha movement, facts as revealed by our sketch would not justify us in assuming that, therefore, all of the actors, at all times, were inspired in their actions by public good or Pan-Hindu interests along. Civil feuds and civil wars were constantly going on side by side with the noble activities of the nation in the defence and propagation of the Hindu cause. The fact is that, as the Marathas were Hindus first and Marathas afterwards, they therefore naturally shared to some extent the essential virtues and vices, the strength and the weakness of the general and particular temperament of the race they belonged to. At the time of the first inroads of the Muhammadans, the fierce unjty of Faith, that social cohesion and valorous fervour which made them as a body so irresistible, were qualities in which the Hindu proved woefully wanting. This is not a place to discuss relative weakness and strength of the parties as they stood in the days of say Prithviraj and Muhammad Ghori; but still it must be clearly mentioned that in whatever manner the absolute merits of demerits of a militant church be judged from the point of view of expansion of political and religious conquests, the community that is out for the propagation of their faith and is taught in the fierce doctrines of believing other religions as passports to hell and all efforts to root out these satanic strongholds by force or fraud as highly meritorious is. other things equal, better fitted to fight and vanquish its opponents and rule over them when opposed to a community which belongs not to a militant church at all, condemns the use of force, nay going further, would not like to receive back into its fold even those who were forcibly carried away from its bosom, which prizes individual worship more than a public one and thus develops no organ nor organization for a common defence of their faith as a church and which, lacking thus in the cohesion and the public strength that it engenders, fails to replace it by any other principle like love for the common motherland or, common race, or a common kingdom, or a state powerful enough to weld them all into an organic whole and render them dedicated to its defence and glory with as fierce a fervour as their opponents put forth. The Muhammadans. when they came, found a source of irresistible strength in the principle of theocratic unity, indissolubly wedded to a sense of duty to reduce all the world to a sense of obedience to a theocracy, an Empire under the direct supervision ofGod. The Hindus wedded to individual liberty and philosophic views of life and the ultimate cause of causes, fallen a prey to the most decentralising and disabling institutions and superstitions, such as, the one that prevented them from crossing their frontiers and thus threw them always on the defensive and whose political organisations were more personal than patriotic, had naturally from a national point of view degenerated into a congeries of small states, bound together but very loosely by a sense of a common civilization, were more conscious of the differences that divided them provincially, sectional ly and religiously, than of the factors that bound them and marked them out as one people. So in spite of some frantic attempts to unite under a Hindu banner, they fell one by one before the first assault of fanatical fury and valorous greed. As an individual to an individual, the Hindu was as valorous and devoted to his Faith as a Moslem. But community to a community, people to a people, the Muhammadans were fiercely united by a theocratic patriotism that invited them to do or die under the banner of their God and invested every effort to spread their political rule over the unbelievers with the sanctity of a holy war. But as years and even centuries rolled by, the Hindus too learnt the bitter lesson and under the pressure of a common danger, became more conscious of those ties that united them as a people and marked them out as a nation than the factors that divided them. They too began to feel as Hindus first and everything else afterwards and sadly realised the weakness that had crept into their national life by an inherent tendency to isolated thought and action, a general lack of community of feeling and pride and national sympathy. Slowly they absorbed much that contributed to the success of the Muhammadans. A Pan-Hindu movement was set on foot and struggle for political independence and founding of a great Hindu Empire was carried on. Studying all these movements and the political situation of the Hindu world as it existed then, one cannot help coming to the conclusion that Maharashtra alone was fitted to take the lead in the War of Hindu Liberation and carry it to success. That was what Ramdas asserted when, on his return from an all-India tour, he painfully and yet hopefully declared, ‘Throughout this Hindustan there was no Hindu left so powerful and so willing as to deliver this land and this nation from the political bondage of the Moslems,—Only some hope could still be cherished of Maharashtra alone.’ With this conviction he and his school made it a point to first consolidate Maharashtra herself and then lead on their forces in a holy war for winning the Independence of all Hindustan and deliver their Rajya and Dharma, the Hindu temple and Hindu throne, from the foreign yoke by subduing all India to a consolidated and powerful Maratha Empire which, being dedicated to the Hindu cause, would serve as a defender of the Hindu Faith and a champion of the Hindu race. But in this attempt they could not and would not have eradicated at a stroke the denationalising tendencies of the Hindu race entirely either in Maharashtra of course in Hindustan. All that they could do was to eradicate them to such an extent as to enable the patr iotic impulses of the Hindus of Maharashtra on the whole to hold in check the lower instincts of the people that goaded them on to self- aggrandizement or to sacrifice their national and Pan Hindu interests to their parochial private ends. That is why we find civil strife breaking every now and then in the Maratha history but on the whole the nation as such at many a critical point succeeded in enabling their national, Pan-Hindu and patriotic instincts to have the better of their degrading tendencies and hold them in check if not eradicate them altogether. This Pan-Hindu spirit, this longing and capacity to deliver all Hindudom from the bondage of the foreign and unbelieving races, this patriotic fervour that could hold in check the lower selfish and individualistic tendencies of their nature or make them subserve the cause of their nation and their Faith which the Marathas rapidly developed and displayed, rendered them decidedly superior in all national qualities to the Muhammadans and pre eminently fitted them amongst all other Hindu people to rear up and sustain a mighty Hindu Empire which, for the very reasons above indicated, could not but be a Maharashtra Empire.
For the Hindu-pad-padashahi which so indubitably inspired the efforts of the efforts of the Maratha nation had, to be realisable at all under the circumstances, necessarily to be a Maharashtra-padashahi too. The Hindus could not have risen to be a great power and able to repulse the formidable attacks of all the haters of the Hindu cause and maintained their independence unless they got themselves consolidated into a strong and enduring Empire, a Hindu pad-padashahi. And there was, under the circumstances, no centre, no pivot, no mighty lever that could be used as an instrument in this gigantic task of uplifting the Hindu race from the political servitude into which they had sunk, other than the people of Maharashtra. In spite of the fact that they, too, though far more patriotic and public spirited than the Muhammandans and far more united and politically willing and capable to fight the War of Hindu Independence than all other sections of their countrymen and co-religionists, still fell far short of ideal patriotism and public virtues, say, relatively to the English who, therefore, beat them in the long run. In spite of this fact the Marathas were right in insisting on keeping the strings of the Hindu movement in their own hands and in assuming themselves the insignia and office of a Hindu-pad-padashahi. They dared first, succeeded so well, sacrificed so much and judging from the circumstance under which they stood were naturally justified in aimingto consolidate all Hindustan under their standard, in brining all the scattered rays of Hindu strength into a focus and by subordinating all the Hindu principalities of their sceptre. They took upon themselves the responsibility of championing the Hindu cause. They must be held justified in doing so from a Pan- Hindu point, for as our sketch would show, they proved themselves capable of championing it effectively against all hostile attacks. Of course, had any other section of our Hindu people dared first and achieved results so mighty and then called upon Maharashtra to pay homage to it and forced her into subordination to their Hindu Empire, they would have, from a Pan-Hindu point, been equally justified. It mattered little whether the Hindu Empire, the Hindu- pad-padashahi, was a Rajput-padashahi or a Sikh or a Tamil or a Bengali or even a Kolarian one: it would have been entitled to equal honour and gratitude from us all so long as it championed the cause of Hindudom so well and so effectively by welding all our people into a grand Hindu Empire even though controlled and led by its own province or caste or community.
The Best Solution under the Circumstances
But could it not have been more patriotic of the Marathas if they had been able to find out a better way to found a Hindu Empire by persuading all other Hindus, rather than coercing them to form a Commonwealth, a true Commonwealth into which the Marathas, the Bengalis, the Punjabis, the Brahmans and the Maharas, all ceased to be as such and remained only Hindus ? Surely, it would have immensely more patriotic. But had the Hindus been capable of being welded into such a political unity at a stroke, the Muhammadams would not have been able to cross the Indus at all. We must take the facts as they are and judge a people in the light of their environments. No nation, any more than an individual, can rise entirely above their environments, or can help breathing the general atmosphere of their times. If any claim is made to an ideal excellence and perfection of the Hindu movement as led by the Marathas, this absolute supposition would be perhaps a fit rejoinder. But it would be a travesty of truth to put forward any such claim. The Marathas were men living amongst men: not angels living amongst angels. Therefore, we have said they shared to some extent the political weaknesses common to all other Hindus and could not find a more patriotic way to compass their ends. Nor could any other Hindu section do it. Nay, none could do it even so well as the Marathas did. Secondly, to persuade others to a better mood depends as much on the skill of the person who persuades, as on the honesty of the purpose or moral sensitiveness of the person to be persuaded. Even had the Marathas taken only to persuasion, would others have allowed themselves to be persuaded to lose voluntarily their individual existences as principalities and kingdoms, in the name of Hindu- pad-padashahi, in which all equally shared the rights and responsibilities ? Where was this patriotic impulse to come from? Amongst those Hindus whose petty thrones were often soaked in the blood of civil feuds before they could ascend them, who freely invited the Moslems and English to decide their civil wars and would rather bow down to the Mogul who trampled upon their Vedas and broke their images than to their brother? It is foolish to expect a people at this stage of political level and national integrity to rise at a bound to the height of political thought and feeling and practice, which is implied in such absolute supposition as that and to blame only one amongst them for not doing that which none else of his generation could even conceive the probability of doing and especially the performance of which depended at least as much on others as on that one, is not only unjust but even absurd. If the question of the blame of the failure of devising such an ideal and an etymologically precise Hindu Empire is to be discussed at all then it must be primarily hared by all Hindus alike: and secondly, more by those who could not succeed contributing even so much to the realisation of a Hindu-pad-padashahi and smashing down the fetters of the foreign and fanatical tyrants as the Marathas did.
And still as it is, efforts, to persuade other Hindu brethren to join hands in the great task of building up a Hindu power were not altogether wanting; nor were noble responses wanting from some of the noblest of our Rajputs, Bundelas, Jats and other northern and southern Hindu comrades to such appeals. The sketch teems with such instances and having once, collected and related these, all important details bearing out our general remarks in this section, we will not tire out our readers by needlessly quoting them over and over again.
Sufficient time and progress of political thought and training all round amongst the Hindus would have certainly, at least conceivably, brought about an expansion of the Marathas Confederacy into such a Pan-Hindu State, or even a Hindu Republic. As their Empire extended, the Maratha Confederacy had shown every sign of being so progressively elastic as to include under its folds several Non-Maratha Hindu States, small and great, from the Deccan and the north, and assign to them a definite place in the imperial organisation with common rights and responsibilities in their Commonwealth; their attempts were often directed to invite the other Hindu states, too, to join hands with them on confederate basis, to form a great Hindu Commonwealth. In fact, by the time of the death of Nana Fadnavis in 1800, almost all India was recovered by the Hindus and was held from Napal to Travancore by Hindu princes more or less held together, controlled and often led by the Maratha Confederacy. Had not a nation, so indisputably superior in national and patriotic virtues and skill and strength even to the Marathas and of course to other Indian sections as England was, come on the scene at a very inconvenient time, the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra that had well nigh become the Hindu Empire of Hindustan would have, with the great assimilative and expansive power they ever displayed, probably a/together ceased to be provincial and evolved into an organic and well, consolidated United Hindu States or Indian Empire. As the Hindus, especially the Marathas and the Sikhs learn all it had to lean fhm the bitter defeat that Hindus suffered at the hands of the Muhammadans and succeeded in reforming and recasting fair people and their nation so as to render all the peculiar weapons of the Moslems blunt against their armour, even so they would have soon assimilated all that was best in their European antagonists and even as Japan did rehabilitated their Empire in such wise as to beat back all European encroachments. The very fact that the Marathas had already detected one of the most important factors that contributed to the success of the Europeans and had nearly mastered the art of military drill and discipline as introduced by them and proved themselves quite capable of wielding those new weapons and even in manufacturing them as efficiently under such able leaders as Mahadaji Shindia, Bakshi and others,+++(5)+++ proves that the Maratha Confederacy, that had already nearly grown into a Hindu Empire, was quite likely to expand and assimilate all that was best in the Europeans, beat them even as they did the Moslems and evolve into a United States of India, or more likely into a Hindu Empire based on the confederated Hindu states, as the German Empire had been on the German principalities.
But, as it is, we must leave ail this speculation aside and deal with solid facts as revealed by history and try to appraise and appreciate them by the standards of their time and the possibilities of their environments. Judged from this historical standard, we cannot blame any sections of the Hindus particularly for their failure to have established a Hindu Republic at a bound and least of all blame the Marathas any more than we can blame Shivaji for not riding a motor car or Jaising for his failure to introduce a state press to carry on a Pan-Hindu propaganda. Such a speculative blame must, if at all, be shared by all or by none. Taking into consideration, then, only the relative merits of the case, one realises that the Hindus as such were yet far from developing a Pad-Hindu sense so intensely flS to render them willing to sacrifice their individual, parochial orprovincial existence altogether and entirely to the Hindu cause. Bearing also in mind the fact that the Marathas themselves, in spite of the relatively more consolidated public life and more intense national spirit that they developed as a people and in spite of their being passionately devoted and dedicated to the great and holy cause of delivering the Hindu Race and the Hindu Faith from the political bondage of alien fanaticism, were naturally far from nationalistic or Pan-Hindavi perfection though steadily and even rapidly progressing towards it; and finding, after a careful analysis of the relative strength of the different Hindu states or peoples in all Hindustan, that of all the scattered centres of Hindu life the only nucleus round which the forces of Hindu revival could rally and offer resistance to the mighty foreign foes with some chance of success was to be discovered in Maharashtra alone, we cannot, even from the Pan-Hindu point of view, help justifying the tenets and efforts of Ramdas and Shivaji’s generation to rally all Maharashtra under the banner of Hindu Faith to create first a Maratha kingdom strong and independent to serve as a basis, as a powerful lever for the uplift of the Hindu race, and then to extend the War of Hindu Liberation beyond the frontiers of Maharashtra, beyond the Narmada to Attock in the north and beyond the Tungabhadra to the seas in the south, and consolidating all the scattered centres of Hindu strength, as they advanced in extending the frontiers of the Maharashtra kingdom, to get it ultimately identified with Indian Empire itself as the most efficient and practical way of achieving the liberation of all Hindudom and of establishing a Hindu-pad-padashahi.
Proceeding on this design, the only one that, under these circumstances, had some chance of success and one which now stands vindicated by events and the results achieved, it was inevitable that at times the Marathas had to encounter bitter opposition from some of the Hindu people and States. Of these some were grown so callous and insensible to the fetters they wore fetters riveted by Moslem power-that they act prided themselves on them. They would not mind themselves dependents and tributaries, subjects or event of the Moslem, of this Nabob or thai, of the Nizam, or the Padashah at Delhi, but would not tolerate any proposal on£ part of the Marathas to pay fealty to the HinduEmpire that stood before their eyes warring for the5 rights and honour of the Hindu race. They had to thank but themselves for the chastisement they received at the hands of the Maratha horsemen who naturally looked upon them as allied to the Moslem and did not cease teasing them, till they were coerced into acknowledging-the sovereignty of the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra, or till their Moslem ruler became a tributary to it, But some of those of our brethren who opposed the Marathas were not so dead to appeals of the Pan-Hindu movements, but were as anxious as the Marathas themselves to root out the alien and recover the lost independence of the Hindus. But they could not understand why the Marathas alone should arrogate to themselves the right of leading this war of Hindu Liberation and insist on the submission of all other Hindus to their Empire. Why should not they, themselves some of the Non-Maratha Hindu princes and peoples urged to try to get themselves acknowledged as the paramount Hindu power in India? The ancestors of a few of them were amongst those who championed the cause of Hindudom in the worst days that ever befell their nation. The decline of the Mogul Empire invited them all equally to carve out a Hindu kingdom, great in proportion to the abilities of each. The Marathas were trying to carveout one for themselves. Why should they not try to do the same? Their claim was just nor was the claim of the Marathas unjust. From a Pan-Hindu point of view every one of them had equal right, nay owed even a duty to strike the Moslem as best as he could and, failing to found a powerful one, and invincible Hindu Empire, at least try to carve out as many Hindu Kingdoms,small or great as possible. But when the question of consolidating them all into one Empire arose, they could not, under those peculiar political environments and at that stage of national and pan-Hindu spirit help coming into conflict with each other, doubt each other’s abilities, and even suspect each other’s sincerity of purpose. The Marathas thought they had proved their right to lead the Hindu Empire by their national valour and splendid results: They as a people had doubtless achieved by maintaining, and by triumphantly maintaining, an uncompromising struggle against the Moslems and Portuguese and the English and the French and all other enemies of the Hindu cause. But that was no reason, the others thought why the Marathas should try to swallow the individual independence of other Hindu States by forcing them when unwilling to pay the blessed Chowth as a token of their subordination. It was natural. Natural also it was for the Marathas who had achieved so much to aspire to achieve more, sincerely believe, that in consolidating their power and building up a centralised empire alone, the hope of maintaining the independence and the political and the civil existence of the Hindus as a nation and a Faith lay: and as consolidation necessarily meant the reduction, submission and sacrifice, willing or forced, of all constituents to the dictates and interests of the supreme and sovereign constitution, the highest interests of Hindudom demanded the subordination of all Hindus to the Maratha Empire which of all other Hindu sections, was the only organised state that could, as in fact it well nigh did, establish and maintain a Hindu-Pad- Padashahi. This thought having championed the cause of the Hindu race and the Hindu Dharma so valorously and having inflicted such severe chastisements on the alien foes it was their right and they felt they possessed the might too, to lead and not to surrender the mastery of the Hindu Empire they had so bravely built. The others naturally questioned their right even though, and even after, they realised that they lacked the might to dare and do what the Marathas had done and rearing up so great a Hindu power to repulse the worst attacks of alien assailants. Under these circumstances the only way to decide who deserved to lead the Hindu Empire was a trial of strength, and so now and then a conflict between the Marathas and some Hindu states and people who were themselves trying to carve out Hindu kingdoms and so far were, from a Pan-Hindu point of view, to be congratulated up on their efforts, became inevitable. All movements for national consolidation and great political unions must needs face this regrettable necessity to an extent inversely proportionate to the keenness of the desire for such national cohesion and the intensity of the patriotic fervour that counts no individual sacrifice too great in the furtherance of the national cause.
Let us take the cause of the Marathas themselves. The petty Hindu zimindars, chiefs and princes, that ruled in subordination and vassalage to the Moslem kings in Maharashtra, were naturally tenacious of their relative freedom, and some of them were even cherishing an ambition just like the Bhosles to shake off Moslem fetters and establish themselves as independent Hindu princes. Those who did not like to bestir themselves or to be disturbed even by others out of their slavish ease and canine comforts of bondage, as well as those high spirited souls who aimed to smash down that bondage for themselves, rose in anger against Shivaji and his brave band and opposed their efforts to rally all the Marathas and establish a untied and powerful Hindu kingdom of Marharashtra. They questioned the sincerity of Shivaji very naturally attributed his constant appeals to the necessity of national consolidation and Hindu unity to the secret ambition of the Bhosles for personal aggrandisement under the cloak of liberating the Hindus and winning the independence of Marharashtra. Some of them pointedly asked why Bhosle should expect subordination from them; why, if Shivaji’s intention was really the establishment of a Hindu Empire, should they not acknowledge them as his superiors which in social status they doubtless were, and crown them as Chhatrapti? The mean and the slavish did not scruple to invite or join the forces of other Moselms themselves in meeting the arrogant challenge of the Hindu upstart. Those who were not so degraded, but doubted honestly either the capacity or the justice of Shivaji’s claim to arrogate to himself the leadership of the movement, chose the less objectionable course of fighting out their battles against him themselves. Thus rose the necessity of unsheathing his sword at times against the Hindus themselves, and history cannot but acquit Shivaji of any special blame attaching to him, or, for the matter of that, dare to take away the credit of being the foremost champion of the Hindu race, the defender of the Hindu Faith and the builder of the nation and the kingdom of the Maratha people. National interests demanded the reduction of all petty chiefs into an united and national state. If the other Hindu chiefs wanted to do that, well they could have risen in rebellion against the common foe, dared as Shivaji did, achieved what he accomplished, and founded a strong and united Maharashtra kingdom before he rose, rendering it superfluous for him to do it, or even in spite of him, thus proving their superiority to him as nation builders,—and Hindu history would have justified them too, as it now does Shivaji and his associates. But as all other Maratha chief and persons, whether though their fault or not, failed to do that, they ought to have allowed Shivaji to do it for them and in thrusting on him the responsibilities and the risks of the national movement, they ought to have also relinquished in his favour the right of placing himself at its head and even to get himself crowned as the king of all Maharashtra: who else in national interest should be a king but he who could be a ‘King’—the Koning—the able man!
What acquits Shivaji of any special responsibility or guilt for facing the inevitable, though regrettable, necessity of at times unsheathing his sword against some of his Maratha brethren themselves or Ranjit Singh for reducing the several Sikh misals and coercing them into submission towards him, acquits the Maratha Confederacy, too, for forcing many a recalcitrant Hindu chief to submission to their Empire. It must again be clearly pointed out that a few of those Hindu chiefs, though not all, cannot also be blamed for their opposition to the Maratha claim of sovereignly. For they too were, taking into consideration the general level of political and Pan-Hindu thought, as well as their own ambitions to carve out independent Hindu kingdoms for themselves, naturally and rightly tenacious of their individual independence. But as the very existence of the Hindus as a race, as a civilization, as a faith, and as a nation, depended on the establishment of a powerful, consolidated and Pan-Hindu Empire, whether it be monarchical or confederate, autocratic or plutocratic, Bengali or Rajputi, Tamilian, or Telugu, but a Pan- Hindu and centralized and mighty empire, the Marathas who alone of all Hindu people could vanquish the foes of Hindudom and found and maintain that Empire, must be absolved from any special guilt or responsibility for using at times force against the Hindus themselves. The responsibilities, as we said, must be shared either by all Hindus alike or by none, at any rate not by the Marathas alone. Their fitness to lead the War of Hindu Liberation and establish a mighty Hindu Empire gave them the right to expect all other Hindus to forego their individual ambitions and interests and submit and if recalcitrant, to be forced to submit to its suzerainty.
Viewed in the Light of Ancient History and Modern
That is the reason why our ancestors not only justified but actually sanctified the institution of Chakravartitva, of the right of a Hindu conqueror of all other states to hold the reins of sovereignty and wear the crown of all Hindustan. In spite of many and obvious drawbacks and dangers attendant on it, that institution served as one of the effective meant which under those environments our forefathers could find to develop slowly a national organisation that could train all Hindudom into political solidarity and oneness of public life. It always brought forward the best man, the best organisation, the best people best fitted to lead the Hindu nation forced all mediocrities to restrain their blustering ambitions from aiming beyond their worth to the detriment of national interest and entrusted the defense and the leadership of the realm to the strongest and the best-fitted man his times could produce. It rallied the moral forces of the nation to the side of the most capable and demanded as a national duty submission to him from the incapable, but vainly ambitious recalcitrant element in the society whose claim to the leadership of the realm rested on no other ground than the dubious one of heredity or sheer malic. Accordingly the centre of the political Power of the Hindu shifted from province to province, from Hastinapur to Pataliputra, from Pataliputra to UJjain. from Ujjan to Pratishthan, from Pratishthan to Kanouj, and so on. as fitness and public and organised capacity to defend the Hindu Empire against all alien attacks dictated from time to time. Whenever national exigency demanded formation of a strong empire, the moral forces of the Hindu people instinctively rallied round the banner of a Hindu world-conqueror and not only condoned his fighting with and vanquishing all other Hindu rivals to that honour, but actually hailed it as the only test practicable under the circumstances to hit upon the best candidate to whom they could safely entrust the preservation and defcnce of their land and people. Nor did they look down on those also, who challenged him in the field before they acknowledged his right to suzerainty over them. Harsha could not consolidate his empire in the north, nor Pulkeshin in the south, without forcing into submission their mutual rivals, even if they too were Hindus like them, sometimes their castemen or actually their blood relations. We condemn not these latter, for it was but human, nay in the absence of any other higher motive, even manly, that they did not surrender their individuality for the mere asking of it. But for the matter of thai, we surely do not hesitate to acknowledge the grand national services that Haraha and Pulkeshin rendered by succeeding in the establishment of two such great and mighty Hindu Empires imparting solidarity of political thought and life to the Indian people. Nay, later on when Harsha and Pulkeshin both came to measure their swords against each other, we from the Pan-Hindu point of view watch the struggle with parental impartiality and tolerate the sight of this internal fight even as a gymnast or a general tolerate, as necessary evil, the combat between his own disciples or tournament parties with a view to train them and find out the best of them who could safely be trusted to face the hostile camp when and if the time comes. If India and our Hindudom have developed any national instinct, any feeling that we in spite of all divisions, are a people essentially one, sharing a common blood, a common sacred language, a common polity, philosophy, institutions and thought, it is doubtless chiefly due to these great empires that were fostered by that institution of Chakravartitva and which, as they shifted their centres from Ksahmere to Kanouj and Patliputra, to Kanchi and Madura and Kalyan, carried with them, to and fro the different currents of our provincial lives and intermingling fused them all into a mighty national stream. It is for this service that we prize all these ancient empires in our history and reckon both those who were valorously vanquished and those who valorously won, Harsha and Pulkeshin are the cherished names of our history and we pride ourselves on the achievements of the empires of the Magadhas or of the Andhras or of the Andhra Bhrtiyas, of the Rashtrakutas or of the Bhojas or of the Pandays, even though none of them could rise into big Hindu stales unless they subjugated some lesser Hindu stales to their rule and altogether absorbed others, without waiting to hackle them as to why they failed to find out a belter and more patriotic way to such political amalgamation, even when we know that their empires had to subjugate and rise at the cost of those very provinces which we to-day happen to recognise as our provincially separate localities. The Maratha movement, too, for identical reasons, for having succeeded in rearing up a Hindu Empire larger and stronger than any of those ancient ones and at the cost of far less amount of civil blood-shed in civil feuds and wars, is entitled to the same amount of respect, admiration and honour from us, Hindus, irrespective of our province or creed or caste.
Nay, more, for, as the national urgency that propelled the Maratha movement was far more pressing, the moral justification for a Pan-Hindu standard for these efforts and wars and conquests must also be far nobler than a Harsha or a Pulkeshin could claim. It was not a mere zeal or a lust of conquest that made them draws their sword. It was not only the glory of being a Chakravartin that made them subjugate others to their rule. It was the question of the very existence of the Hindus as a nation—as a Faith. The northern bard’s tribute—1 ^ ????? is no empty eulogy. Recentness sometimes strips an event of grandeur and hallowedness that, if remote, would have invested it with a sanctified halo. Otherwise the services rendered to the Hindu cause by the Maratha Confederacy are no less important in nature and far more superior in magnitude than those rendered by our ancient Hindu warriors, either in the glorious days of Vikram or of Shalivahan or of Chandragupta himself. Though the empire of Chandragupta was undoubtedly the most glorious and mighty that our post-Pandaviya history records, yet the national danger which it had actually to ward off was far less serious and the means it had at its disposal far more effective than in the case of the Maratha movement. Foreign histories talks glibly of Alexandr’s Indian conquest. But in fact it means only the conquest of the Punjab. The centre of Hindu strength at Pataliputra remained unhit though supine. The genious of Chanakya and the strength of Chandgraupta forced Nanda to abdicate for his failure to drive Mlenchhas out, took upon themselves the imperial burdens and with resources of this empire at their command ably drove away the Greeks from the Indian soil. But compared to this, how difficult was the task the Marathas had to undertake, how gigantic the contrast of the dreadful magnitude of the danger and the poverty of the means % had to face! All India lay trampled under the feet of the Moslem, the Portuguese and several other alien and powerful foes for centuries; all virility and even hope squeezed out of it- demoralization born of constant defeats fed itself on the vitals of the nation till it grew into a superstition that the Mogul Emperor was born to rule and possessed a divine right to do so: the sword literally broken, the shield literally torn: and yet they rose, yet they fought and yet they won in a contest the like of which the Hindus as a nation were never called upon to confront. The Huns and the Sakas, though they had penetrated further in India than the Greeks had done, yet never rose into such formidable foes and never could subdue all India to their rule. Even when a Toraman or a Rudradaman ruled, the national civilization, the essence of a national life, was not assailed with such perilous and fatal hostilely as Moslem or Portuguese fanaticism did. The valour and the patriotic fervour and sacrifice that defended our land and our nation from the attacks of the Huns and the Sakas were glorious indeed and deeply are we indebted to those our national heroes and warriors and statesmen who not only freed our land from the hated yoke of the foreigners, but contributed uo much to our national solidarity and strength by uniting all Hindudom under the imperial standard of the Magadhas or the / Malavas, under the scepter of a Chandragupta or Vikramaditya or Shalivahan.
Every patriotic Hindu, irrespective of his province or caste, in spite of the fact that the empires they built had necessarily to subdue and subjugate the provinces which he happens to own to-day as his own, in spite of the fact that perhaps they had to shed the blood of his own ancestors in those internecine wars that their’ digvijays’ then necessarily implied, every patriotic Hindu, knowing full well that national interest demanded that these necessary evils must be tolerated as the only price that under those circumstances could secure to our nation the inestimable blessing of independence, of glorious peace, of invincible strength, bows down in reverence at the mention of their names and worships the memory of a Chandragupta, of a Pushyamitra, of a Samundragupta or Yeshodharman, or the illustrious ‘grandson of Gautami’ for having delivered this land from the political bondage of the Huns and the Sakas. Should not a Hindu bow down in reverence and deep gratitude at the mention of Shivaji and Baji Rao, a Bhau, a Ramdas, a Nana, a Jankoji, and cherish with feelings of love and national pride the memory of that Empire which saved out Hindudom from a danger which in magnitude and intensity, was so immensely more threatening than what Chandragupta or Vikrama had to face, a danger that almost spelt death, with means so hopelessly inferior to what those our ancient heroes had at their disposal and achieved results so glorious that, barring a couple of instances, no ancient empire recorded in our history can claim even to equal ?
Even in these days of steam and electricity; even a Mazzini or a Garibaldi found impossible to consolidate all Italy by moral propaganda alone. In spite of their high intentions of effacing all provincial distinctions and fuse all their people into one Italian kingdom, they could not dispense with means of relatively doubtful character. Neopolitans and Romans failed to understand why they should sacrifice their individual independence and identify for a vain cry of United Italy. When the King of Piedmont and other leaders like Garibaldi, Crispi, Cavour and others, all Piedmontese, went on deliberately annexing province after province to the Piedmontese empire, these provincialists naturally questioned the sincerity of their actions and professions. They did not mind the yoke of Austria or France, so immured they had grown to it, but, as slaves are generally wont to do, could not tolerate the idea of obeying and acknowledging one of their equals as superior to them, as their master. So even for the sake of Italian unity Garibaldi, Victor Emmanul and others had to fight, not only with the foreigners, but with the Italians themselves. But history absolves them of any guilt of fratricide and all Italy to-day including the sons of those very Neopolitans and Romans whom they vanquished in war, takes off her hat in utter reverence and kneels down in gratitude and love at the mention of those makers of Italy. As that very King of Piedmont was later on recognised as the King of Italy, so also time and circumstance favouring, the King of the Marathas was almost destined to be formally crowned as the Emperor of India which in fact he virtually had been. Viswasrao was even reported, by friends and foes alike, to have been proclaimed by Bhau as the Emperor of India. The history of the modern German states and their Independence and Unification affords a nearer parallel to the probable development of the Indian politics in the Maratha period, which approached so near the fulfilment into a confederated empire of the Hindu princes with the King of the Marathas as their Emperor. As the Italian kingdom of Piedmont, as the German Empire of Prussia, even so the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra constitutes, in spite of civil feuds, a national and Pan-Hindu achievement, for which every Hindu patriot must be grateful, feeling proud of the memory of those who worked and fought and died in its cause.
The Means: Maratha Warfare
We have said at the outset in our sketch that the new era that the birth of Shivaji introduced into the modern history of our Hindu race, so momentous and so triumphant was doubtless due as much to the great spiritual and national ideal which Shivaji and his spiritual preceptor Ramdas placed before our race, as to the new strategically methods the Marathas introduced into the battlefield. We believe the records of events even as cursorily reviewed by us, has convincingly borne out the proposition that the Maratha warfare was as truly an addition to the science of war as it was in vogue amongst the Indians, as the Maharashtra Dharma was a force animating the dying spirit of the Hindu race. If of course suited Shivaji’s circumstances best and was perhaps a natural outcome of them. But even the generations that followed Shivaji found it so peculiarly adapted to their genius and so flexible, that they used it with singular effect against their foes, even when they marched at the head of armies, instead of a few bands of revolutionists as Shivaji had to do in the first days of his career. The military tactics of their great leaders were gradually adopted and extended to the movement of larger masses by the succeeding Maratha Generals and, as our sketch shows from page to page, used so effectively as to render it hopeless for their foes to face them and to avoid them. The Maratha cavalry dispersed in all directions in the presence of a superior enemy and observed him for neighboring hills or woods. Their opponents general ly took the movement as a sign of cowardice and hesitation to face them and kept exultingly marching on till they were lured into a difficult position and sometimes occupied the very ground the Marathas had actually chosen for them. Then suddenly the Marathas rallied together, closing their ranks as deftly as they dispersed them, and fell like a thunderbolt on their devoted prey, and crushed their foes before they could realise it all. Whenever they chose to fight they fought with such dogged bravery as to strike tenor into the hearts of their foes: the battle that Hambir Rao gave, the battle at the Ghat of Badau and several other actions reveal the valorous tenacity of the Maratha warriors which rendered as dangerous for the Moslem to face the Marathas in a pitched battle when he chose it as to force him to give battle when he chose it not.
The tactics of war and the theory of sacrifice that inspired them were based on the principle. Righteous war they worshipped: for without war neither
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independence nor kingdom could be won. Sacrifice, unstinted valour, even Tanaji- like were their pre-eminent qualities that made them masters of Hindustan. But still they placed above valour which without it was brutal. Sacrifice was adorable only when it was, directly or remotely, but reasonably, felt to be indispensible for success. Sacrifice that leads not to ultimate success is suicidal and had no place in the tactics of Maratha warfare. They were always eager to devise much ways as to inflict in the long run more losses on the enemy than they themselves incurred. So calculating, and yet so reckless when the hour came, when recklessness at the moment meant caution in the long run, the Marathas avoided pitched battles, but once they entered into one, deathless was their oppositions.
They first kept hanging and whirling round the ir foes ready to cut off solitary foremen or surprise small parties in ambush. If pursued they would disperse. When the pursuers gave up the useless chase, in a minute they were upon them. These tactics they employed on such vast scales when they commanded divisions that, instead of interrupting and dispatching few stragglers, they dispatched or captured whole armies of the enemy. The campaigns of Holkar and Patwardhan against the English in the first Anglo-Maratha war who how successfully the Marathas extended and adopted the military tactics of their illustrious master down to the days of Nan Fadanavis and Mahadji Shinde.
Another important feature of their warfare was the care they generally took to throw the enemy on the defensive as soon as war broke out. Thus, they would generally be the first to invade, taking good care to cover their country and force the hostile territory to undergo the devastations of war. They would march to and fro avoiding battle, cutting off supplies of food and spreading a general panic in the subjects of the enemy which sooner or later was sure to upset the mental vigour of his soldiers and demoralise them. The consequent disorder ended in cessation of all regular Government, in scarcity, and famine. While on the one hand they hampered and harassed their foe, they levied heavy contributions of war, freely assessed revenue 0n their own account and thus forced the enemy to maintain not on|y his army but also the army of his opponents. The enemy could never avoid them nor face them. He exclaimed in despair: ‘To fight with these Marathas is to battle with the wind, is to strike on water.’ The best example of these tactics is Raghoji’s campaigns in Bengal. We have shown how year in and year out he harassed the realms of the impudent Moslem ruler of Bengal till he was forced to surrender, hand over Orissa and became tributary to the Hindu power. This campaign would show that it is not correct to say that although those tactics of devastating enemies’ land and realm were justifiable in Shivaji’s days, they were doing nothing but plundering in the days of the Peshwas as they could have maintained their armies out of their regular revenue. For, first of all such a warfare was practised as a recognised weapon of war by all nations alike especially in those days. Moslems, fighting against the Moslems or the Hindus, freely resorted to it, The Portuguesse the English and all other nations whether in
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Asia or Europe, deemed it necessary to levy contributions of war on those hostile towns and territories which they succeeded in occupying. Secondly the Marathas who had to fight simultaneously with several foes, the majority of them aliens, oppressors and aggressors, could not have, and even if they could, should not have maintained vast armies simultaneously engaged in campaigns so far from their base at Poona, as, the Punjab on one side and Arcot on the other should not have abandoned these tactics, for it was a most effective weapon in their hand which hitting the very sinews of war of their foes brought him to his knees sooner than otherwise.
It is this feature of the system of Maratha warfare which their enemies have often dubbed as loot or reckless plunder. As far as this hackneyed, and at times intested, charge is concerned, apart from the military principle that is deemed as sufficient excuse in a Boer war, in a German war, in the annexations of Dalhousie and the campaigns of Neil in 1857, and which, therefore, one should expect to be an excuse in the War ot Hindu Liberation, too, especially when Aurangzeb.Tjpp,, and Gulam Khader were to he dealt with-— apart from fey argument that everything is fair in a war, or without citing u^ juster rule that everything is fair in a righteous war—vy,e waste no words beyond quoting the reply which the great Shivajj himself gave to his opponents once for all : ‘Your Emperor/ wrote he, ‘had foroed me to keep an army for the defence of my people and my country, that army must be paid by his subjects.’ Even the English contemporary writers admit that’on his way as he goes he gives kaul (assurance) promising them that neither he nor his soldiers shall in the least do any wrong to any that obeys him which promise he hitherto kept,’ And we may add that similar promises given by the Maratha Generg|$ as a rule were as faithfully kept down to the days of last war with the Nizam which ended in the glorious Maratha victory at Kharda in 1795.
It is true that, in such campaigns, often the Hindu subjects of the enemy suffered. We need not reiterate any more reasoni that led to these cruel necessities of war, that under such circumstances rendered it impossible to discriminate minutely, nor at times even advisable to discriminate thus. For as the Moslems or other hostile people, had to pay contribution as indemnity, so also the Hindus, too, who ought to have actively sided with the Marathas and yet remained supine, nay, even hostile to them and would not pay for the national struggle and were, therefore, often made to pay it. It was a war-tax informally levied and collected from all Hindus for the maintenance of those armies of the Hindu Empire to whose valour alone they owed the existence of temples, race and civilization, and but for whose might they would have probably been converted perforce to Muhammadanism and ceased to be Hindus at all.
Of course we do not mean to condone any particular excess that at times were committed by the Maratha soldiers here or there. But this also must be borne in mind that they were as nothing to those which were held as pardonable, nay even at times advisable by the Moslems, Portuguese and other nation with whom the Marathas had to fight. They never forced even the very fanatical Maulvis who
120 were guilty of converting Hindus perforce to non-Hindu faith to embrace Hinduism perforce, when they had the power to do so. They razed no mosques or churches to the ground, when they knew that their temples had been mercilessly pulled down to prove the might of Allah or the Lord—although they could have done so to vindicate the might of Shri Rama or Shri Krishna too. And so far as acts of vandalism and moral outrages were concerned, not even their worst enemies could attribute to them any wholesale butchery, or crimes against the honour of womanhood, or reckless and fanatical persecution, burning of the sacred books of hostile faiths and the like. The levying of war contributions and rendering a country barren of all food and fodder as a necessary military step which went by the name of loot was all that even their enemies could allege against them. But how necessary a weapon it was under the circumstances could best be seen by the fact that the Marathas resorted to it even as regards to themselves when a foreign foe invaded their land. The campaign of Aurangzeb in Rajaram’s time and the two attempts of the English to march against Poona failed so ignomintously, chiefly because the Marathas hesitated not to desert, devastate, and deprive their own territory of all food and fodder and even threatened to burn down their own capital, if ever the Lnglish succeeded in approaching it. That clcarly shows that it was no sign of reckless hatred or disregard of the interests of their Hindu brethren in other parts of India, that made them take to the tactics of quartering their troops on the enemies’ land and upset all peace and order and government in it thus to undermine ill his supplies and revenues and even moral prestige and moral courage. This also continued as long as the war lasted or the demands of the Marathas were not aqutesced in. But as soon as the province was regularly annexed or reduced to be a tributary to their Hindu Empire, their inroads ceased. Where «inhabitants had themselves invited the Marathas to free them from Moslem or European bondage, or at least sympathised with them when they came of themselves to wrest that province from the alien hands, it needs no mention that they treated the inhabitants of that province with as much lenity and love as possible.
Occasional excesses must be condemned. But it must be borne in mind that occasional: excesses marked even the return of Garibaldi from Rome, marked every great revolutionary movement from the French Revolution to the Irish Sein Fein, from the American War of Independence to the War of German Liberation and Imperial Unification. As those excesses and civil feuds do not darken the essential grandeur of those brilfiant national movements and render their noble and patriotic message doubtful even so in spite of a few excesses here and there— so few compared to those committed on them by their foes,—or inevitable civil feuds, the movement that gathered up the standard of the Hindus from the dust of centuries of slavery ami impotence raised it in the teeth of mighty opposition of emperors and kings, of Shahis and Badshahis, and planted it on Attack, forcing those very Shahis and Badshahis, to kneel and to homage to it—that movement
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and that Hindu Empire which it ushered into existence do not cease to be entitled to the loving and grateful tribute of every patriotic Hindu heart.
The Empire fosters an all round
Hindu revivalAlthough the Hindu revival that was signalised by the rise of the Marathas had necessarily to assert itself first in the political and military spheres of Hindu life Mid create a powerful and national state, which must ever remain the sine quo non of a nation’s progress in all other departments of life, yet it did not fail to manifest itself in these as soon as the categorical imperative of national political independence was achieved under the aegis of the Maratha power. The Hindu Empire of Maharashtra initiated, patronised, financed and promoted several activities and reforms that were inspired by this revivalist movement amongst the Hindus. Assimilating much that was best in their adversaries, they strove to liberate and free all Hindu life from the grip of the killing overgrowth of the foreign influence. The Hindu languages all over India were well nigh dominated to suffocation by the invasion of Persian and Arabian influences. The State records were generally in Persian. But the Marathas as soon as they created a Hindu state ordered that State records must cease to be in Persian. Then they tried to purify their language, which but for their timely efforts must have by this time succumbed to Arabic or Urdu as ignominiously as for example, the current literary language and even the script of the Punjab and Sind did. But a National State revived the national language. A learned Pandit was commissioned to compose an authoritative dictionary called Rajavyavahara- kosha wherein were collected and enlisted suitable equivalents to all those alien Moslem words that had monopolised the political records and thoughts of that generation. Public opinion too, was created and encouraged against the use of alien words. The effect of this campaign on the Maratha language was remarkable. The political letters and despatches show much improvement and at times betoken studied attempts to boycott all alien words. While literature, historical or political, poetical or prose, grew slowly chastened, till we come to the magnum opus of Moropant’s Mahabharat, in which monumental work one would hardly detect a dozen foreign words. The ‘Bakhars’ too, are no mean production. Nay, some of them write a Marathi which throbs with life and seems inimitable in its vigour and impressive simplicity. Political life made history living and the language of a generation whose time was almost wholly claimed by grand and mighty deeds necessarily leaving little to spare for words, naturally developed a laconic eloquence that remains the despair of our age which has to write history without it, to sing of valorous deeds without the daring ability opportunities that can actualise them in life.Not only Marathi, but even Sanskrit, the sacred lanou of the Hindus, naturally received a great impetus under Maratha rule. Ancient learning in all its branches, Veda, Vedangas, Shastras, Puranas, Poetry, Astronomy and Medicial- all branches of Hindu literature revived. The dozen and main capitals, great and small, of the Hindu Empire, scattered all over India, became centres of Hindu learning and patronised Hindu scholars and students, started and maintained colleges and | schools in all parts of India. Moral education of the people was not neglected. Saints and Sadhus could go up and down freely under the protection of the Maratha arms from Rameshwarto Hardwar. from Dwarka to Jagannath. preaching and teaching men and women the best principles of Hindu morals and Hindu philosophy and Hindu traditions. To maintain and help those and do what they wished, the great Kings and Viceroys and Governors and Generals of the Empire vied with each other. Great and organised agencies like the one founded by Ramdas had spread out a regular network of Mathas and Convents throughout India, w ere financed by the Empire and served as so many centres, not only of religious but also of political propaganda. Besides all this, a vearK assembly of learned men, from all India, met in every Shrawan in Poona under the patronage of the Peshwa himself w hose regular examinations were held in all branches of Hindu learning and prizes and degrees and endowments were distributed and conferred on the deserving candidates. No less than a hundred thousand rupees wiere spent \earl\ on this occasion alone in encouraging and rewarding Hindu learning. These gatherings served to unite and focus all the divergent currents of Hindu thought and moral torves—help to fuse them into a correlated w hole, make them leel that tf\e> were, in spite of all diverjrence in creed and caste, Hindus united under one national banner that had vanquished the Ives of Hindudom ami floated triumphantly over the Hindu Empire, shielding and championing the cause of their faith and their country and their civilisation.
Works of public utility, too, received the special attention of the Peshwas and their vassals. If wealth flowed in tribute from Attock and Rameshwar to Poona, it did neither lie miserly hoarded there, nor was wantonly squandered away in dissolute luxuries but eventually flowed back in most useful channels to Tirthas and Kshetras all over the land of Hindustan. There is no sacred river in India that owns not useful and beautiful ghats; no important ghat that is not adorned by a spacious Dharmashala or a towering and graceful temple; no famous temple that is not endowed with a rich donation as inam or as allowance and stands not a witness to the generous munificence of the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra. In spite of great and pressing military preoccupations, wars and rumours of wars, the people that inhabited the vast territories which were under the direct rule of that Empire from Jinji and Tanjore to Gwalior and Dwarka to Jagannath, were far more lightly taxed and justly governed, enjoyed more peace and plenty than those under any other Indian state. The roads, the postal systems, the jail administration, the medical relief and departments of public utility, we have ample evidence before us to show, were in better state and more regularly conducted than they were in many other contemporary states. That the people on the whole appreciated the blessings of independence and in spite of occasional disorder not only loved their government, but felt themselves intensely proud of their state and thankfully acknowledged their indebtedness to him for being born in those glorious days, could best be seen by a perusal of the first hand evidence of letters, poems, ballads, bakhars and other contemporary literature.
Nor were other far reaching and liberalising movements altogether wanting. Many a custom or superstition that hampered the political or social progress of the people was either rendered less rigid or altogether got rid of. Notable attempts were made to introduce reformed worship, intermarriages amongst castes, to encourage sea-faring habits, revive naval daring and strength, readmit those who crossed the seas and had visited European shores or went beyond Attock, to effect reconversions of those who had been converted top the alien faith either through force or through fraud by the Christian or the Moslem. As regards the last movement interesting details have come to light that show that the Shuddi movement was anticipated by our ancestors ever since the rise of the Maratha power. The Portuguese record* tell us of occasional efforts of leading Brahmans to organise reconversions, when they secretly administered purificatory baths to those whom the Portuguese had forcibly converted and readmitted them into the Hindu fold.+++(5)+++ On one of such occasions the Portuguese, having scented it suddenly, surrounded the secret assembly and dispersed them at the point of the bayonet, when a Gosavi earned the admiration even of these fanatical foes by his refusal to budge an inch till he was cut down.+++(5)+++ The case of Nimbalkar,—a great Maratha Sardar who was forcibly converted by the King of Vijapur who subsequently gave his daughter in marriage to the convert, but who, in spite of it all, escaped, joined the Maratha camp, was with the permission of the Pandits purified and taken back to the Hindu fold under the patronising directions of Jijabai, the illustrious mother of Shivaji and to lay at rest all the misgivings of the orthodox element was allowed to marry his eldest son to the daughter of Shivaji himself—is now well known.+++(5)+++ Another notable case is that of Netaji Palkar. That brave Maratha Commander who was respected as a second Shivaji, falling in the hands of the Moguls, was taken to the frontiers and forced to live amongst the ferocious tribesmen under the order of Aurangzeb after being converted to Muhammandanism.+++(4)+++ But he somehow found an opportunity to return to Maharashtra and implored his people to allow him to re-embrace Hinduism. The Pandits recommended his case to Shivaji and he too was readmitted into the Hindu religion. The Peshwa continued this policy down to the days of Nana Fadnavis and longer. We have original orders and documents, published in the Diary of the Peshwas, to show that several cases used to happen wherein a repentant person or persons forced to take to Muhammndanism or Christianity were taken by the Hindus and their castes were consequently asked to resume all intersocial relations with them as before. For example, one Putaji, a soldier in the army that was serving in Surat district, fell in the hands of the Moslems and was forcibly converted to Islam. But when Balaji Bajirao was returning from Delhi, Putaji escaped and joined the Peshwa’s camp. All his caste people gathering in a meeting declared their willingness to take him back into their caste and intimated their decision to the Peshwa and were by the issue of a special order allowed to do so (pp. 215-6). Tulaji Bhat Joshi, who was converted not by force but by ‘allurements’ to Muhammadanism repented of his action repaired to Paithan and standing as a supplicant before the assembly of Brahmans, admitted his guilt and implored for pardon and permission to re- embrace the Hindu Faith. Whereupon the assembly of the Brahmans of Paithan— which was looked upon as a stronghold of orthodoxy,—decided to readmit him on the sole ground of honest repentance and dined with him. +++(5)+++ Consequently orders were issued by the officer of the Government to see that the decision of the Pandits was properly respected and Joshi was invested with all the rights and privileges of his caste. Even the disturbed days of Sambhaji proved no exception to this practice. An interesting order, issued by the authorities under the direction of the king and the Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, shows us not only that a man named Gangadhar Kulkarni who was, after being forcibly converted to Muhammadanism readmitted into the Hindu fold but also the details of the purification rites he had to undergo and concludes with an emphatic injunction, — perfectly consistent with a well known verse of Manu, that those who would refuse to resume interdining and other acts of social intercourse with him would be guilty—they would be guilty of betraying the cause of Devas and Brahmins and would themselves be looked down upon as sinners. +++(5)+++ We may also mention here in passing the case of the Princess Indra-Kumari of Jodhpur who, long after her marriage with the mogul Emperor was readmitted into the Hindu fold by the Rajputs after her It was but natural that those who took upon themselves the mission of healing the political wounds that our motherland had so grievously sustained should also try their best to heal the social and religious wounds too, which in a way were far more deadly than the political. The movement of Hindu liberation and Hindu revival that had inspired great achievements in the political and military fields was not likely to betray a deadly callousness in feeling and striving to retrieve the deplorable losses that our civilization, policy and faith had to undergo during the stupendous fight we had to face from century to centuiy. But still while in less than a hundred years the Muhammadna rule spread their Faith throughout the Deccan to such an extent as to claim hundreds of thousands of Hindu converts to their proselytising swords, how regrettable is it that the Hindus, in spite of the Hindu rule that could conquer and crush Moslem thrones and crowns, could not convert or even reclaim a few hundred Moslems back to Hinduism or even when that proselytising Moslem sword was broken to pieces by their valpur and when they could have done so, had they willed it—had they been brought in that tradition. The reason is that although fetters of political slavery can at times be shaken off and smashed, yet the fetters of cultural superstition are often found far more difficult to knock off. In addition to this human characteristic, when we take into consideration the second fact that much of the energy of the people of Maharashtra was necessarily’ consumed in the first and imperative necessity of achieving and maintaining political independence of their nation and the great Hindu Empire, nay, build in the teeth of such deadly opposition from so many enemies sworn to destroy the political supremacy of the Hindus—we cease to wonder much that they could not spare more of it for such secondary movements—though in themselves of the utmost importance,—of social reform and Shuddhi. The real wonder is that they could initiate so revolutionary a movement as Shuddhi at all and succeed in attacking the centre of old superstition so effectively as to actually change the Hindu mentality and public opinion in favour of readmission of apostates into the Hindu fold and—what is far more difficult to bring about—to reinstate them into their old castes and guilds.
A Debt of Love and Gratitude
And now let the curtain fall—alas so abruptly—on this our last and, so far as the past history of our race is concerned, one of the foremost of our Hindu Empires.
On the black day on which Dahir, our brave Hindu king of Sind, fell on the Indus; with him fell our fortune too. Trilochanpal, the Hindu king of Kabul, Jaipal and Anangpal of the Punjab, Prithviraj of Delhi, Jaichand of Kanoj, Sang of the Ghittoor, Laxman Sen of Bengal, Ramdeorao and Haripal of Deogiri, Vijaynagar kings and queens, crowns and coronets, One after another rolled in dust from the Indus to the seas; and the intrepid, the insolent, the irresistible foe stood with his knee firmly planted on the gasping breast of our race. Not only Chittoor, but on a vaster scale and in a less glorious manner, all India was reduced to a monumental heap of ashes with but a few cinders of martyrdom glowing out now and then in momentary sparks and with that monumental heap of ashes, of the hopes of our race lying at his feet sat Aurangzeb securely seated on his imperial peacock throne with a hundred thousand swords ready to flourish out death at the slightest stamp of his angry foot.
Just when a band of Hindu youths gathered in a secret conclave in a little corner, ’leka lahanasha konant’ and by their dead kings and queens, by those fallen crowns and coronets, by that monumental heap of the hopes of their race, swore to rise in revolt against their formidable foe to avenge the wrongs inflicted on their nation and their Faith and to vindicate the honour of the Hindu arms and the Hindu flag. The band of youth came out with but a few rusty swords to swear by, ‘Absurd’ naturally exclaimed the world : ‘Pooh !’ snorted out Aurangzeb : ‘suicidal’ warned the wise. Nor were they very much in the wrong. For Shivaji was not the first to rise in revolt. Many a spirited youth had risen before him and failing, paid the dreadful penalty of a revolt. But the band still persisted, very warily though, believing that if they too happened to fail and had to pay the dreadful penalty of a revolt, such a revolt that would leave its memory like a seed to germinate in apparent oblivion, should still be more covetable than a lifelong servitude.
Some twenty years pass by : the brow of Aurangzeb is perceptibly sad and his speech low. For that little band of Maratha youths have become the nucleus of a Hindu kingdom : Never mind, said the mighty Mogul. M will stamp these Kaffirs out of existence while they are still confined to that wretched little corner.’ Soon with those hundred thousand flashing swords of his, the angry Moslem fell upon that devoted little Hindu kingdom and in his formidable wrath, stamped so mightily on the soil, that gave those wretched rebels birth, that the soil cleft under both his feet. The mighty Moslem tottered. He could neither steady himself nor get out of the yawning, ever widening, and deepening gulf. The more furiously he stamped and strove, the deeper he sank, never to rise again. It was only over his grave and on that of those his hundred thousand flashing swords that the soil of that little corner closed again and by the very steps of that imperial grave rose that little Hindu kingdom to the heights of a Hindu Emprie.
For, soon the brave bands of Maharashtra came out and led by their Geruwa banner, the sacred symbol of Hindudom spread far and wide the War of Hindu Liberation. Gujarat they entered, Khandesh they entered. Malwa they entered, Bundelkhand they entered; they crossed the Chambal, they crossed the Godavari, they crossed the Krishna, they crossed the Tungabhadra; they camped at Tanjore, they held Jinji, they held Nagpur, they held Orissa. Step by step, stone on stone, they built, till from the Jamuna to the Tungabhadra and from pwarka to Jagannath, the whole territory was systematically and entirely freed from the Muhammadan yoke and held and consolidated into a continues, contiguous and powerful Hindu Empire. Then they crossed the Jumna and the Ganges and the Gandaki; held Patna, the capital of the Guptas, worshipped the Kali at Calcutta and the Vishveshwar at Kashi. They—the descendants of that band which in tens and dozens had met in a secret conclave and sworn by a few rusty swords—their descendants marched no longer in tens but in hundreds of thousands, no longer in secret but with banners unfurled and bands playing—marched on the very capital of the Moslem Empire and knocked mightily at its gate. The blustering Maulanas and Maulvis, who till then had ever been busy in convincing themselves and forcing others to get convicted of the truth of the Koran by citing the political victories of Islamite arms over the forces of the followers of the Puran, saw to their utter dismay that the Hindus, in spite of their caste and creed, their image worship and beardless chin, knocked down the gates of Delhi and advancing in irresistible might, planted the Geruwa on all the strongholds of Islam. No Zebrial came to contest the triumph of Puran over Koran, as in days of old the Moslems fancied he was wont to do. No longer could it be said that the victory which attended the arms of the Moslem was one of the most convincing proofs of the truth of the Moslem Faith that the dust of the temples bore witness to the falsity of the teaching of the Hindu Faith. This argument, so specious but in times of racial panic and national defeat and consequent demoralisation so overwhelming, that it could claim more converts from the Hindu fold to the Moslem Faith than all over learned discourses and theological persuasions and proofs could do, was knocked so dreadfully on its head that it could have easily been made to tell quite the contrary tale. The temple towered high above the mosque. The crescent waned and gasped for its life and the sun rose heating the proud and splendid summits of Hindudom in molten gold- Delhi once more was held and ruled by the descendants of Prithviraj. and as Bhau would have it, the Hindus .conquered back the kingdom of Hastinapur. Aurangzeb had snorted out ‘Rats’, the rats bearded the lion in his own den and fttltod out his claws and teeth one by one; the cows killed the butcher; even as our Guru Govind foretold, the hawks were hacked to pieces by the sparrows.
Thence, their forces bathed at Kurukshetra as warriors do. as martyrs do and carried their triumphant Hindu arms to the walls of Lahore. The Afgans intervened and were driven beyond Attock. There the Maratha soldier drew in the T-eins, lighted down from his horse and rested a little, while his Generals and leaders at the headquarters were busy laying out their plans of a campaign to cross the Indus which would take their Hindu forces to Kabul and the Hindukush, embassies from the Persians, the English, the Portuguese, the French, from Holland and from Austria, visited Poona and requested that they should be allowed to reside there as ambassadors of their nations at the Imperial Court of Maharashtra. The Moslem Nabob of Bengal, the Moslem Viceroy of Luc know, the Moslem Nizam of Hyderdabad, the Moslem Sultan of Mysore, not to mention the chiefs and chiefflings from Arcotto Rohilkhand, paid them tribute and Chowth and Sardeshmukhi and what not, if but permitted to live. The Nizam was reduced to a revenue collector of the province he held, a bit troublesome but who somehow was made to pour out from time to time all he used to collect into the Imperial Treasury of the Marathas. Nor were the Moslems the only foes they had to encounter. As we have seen, the Shah of Iran and the Shah of Kabul, the Turks and the Moguls, the Rohillas and the Pathans, the Portuguese and the French, the English and the Abyssinians, each and all had challenged their supremacy, had maintained and fought field after field, by land, by sea : but the forces of the Hindus struck in the name of their Deva and Desh and smote all the haters of the Hindu Cause, of Hindu Independence, wherever they met them by land or by sea. Rangana, Vishalgad and Chakan; Rajapur, Vengurla and Barsinor; Purandar, Sinhgad, Salher, Oombrani, Sabnoor, Sangamner, Phonda, Wai, Phaltan, Jinji, Satara and DindoTi; Palkhed and Petlad; Chiplun, Vijayagad, Shrigaon, Thana, Tarapur and Vasai; Sarangpur, Tiral and Jaitpur; Delhi and Durai; Serai and Bhopal; Arcot and Trichinopoly; Kadarganj; Farukabad, Udgir, Kunjpura and Panipat; Rakshabhuvan, Unavadi, Motitalao and Dharvad; Shukratal and Nasibgad; Vadgoan and Borghat; Badami, Agra and Kharda; breaches mounted, sieges sustained, trophies captured, navies vanquished, battles won : these are but a few of those Fields where their armies and navies won such glorious distinction that each of them would have occasioned, in our ancient history and the history of any other nation, the erection of commemorating columns. The Haribhaktas from the birth of Shivaji to the death OfNana Fadanavis literally knew no defeat. As they advanced fhey dropped secondary capitals, as large as the metropolises of many a sovereign nation in the world, as carelessly and copiously as you drop coppers from your overflowing pockets. Satara, Nagpur, Kohlapur, Tanjore, Sangli, Miraj, Gunti, Baroda, Dhar, Tndore, Jhansi, Gwalior, not to mention a host of lesser once, were the capitals of provinces and districts as large as kingdoms inliurope. They had freed Haridwar and Kurukshetra, Mathura and Dakore, Abu and Avanti, Parasharam and Prabhas, Nasik and Trimbak, Dwarka and Jagannath, Mallikarjun and Madura, Gokul and Gokarn from the iconoclastic fury of the Haters of the Hindu Faith. Kashi and Prayag and Rameshwar once more raised their towers and turrets, fearlessly high and thanked the Lord that a Hindu Empire yet lived to avenge their woes—a Hindu Empire that comprised nearly all the territories forming the ancient kingdoms of the celebrated iniperial dynasties of old : of the Maukharis, Chalukyas, Pallavas, Pandyas, Cholas, Keralas, Rashtrakutas, Andhras, Kesaries, Bhojas, Malvas, of Harsh and Pulkeshin, of the Rathoda, and Chavans. Its Governors and Commanders ruled at times Over territories, as in the case, say, of Mahadaji Shindia, so vast as would have entitled a king to perform an Ashwamedha in ancient days. Barring the glorious Empire of Chandragupta-1 and perhaps of the second Guptas in their palmiest days, no Hindu Empire fa our history, written and mythological could match it in extent, or in magnitude or in achievement and so far as national services and sacrifices are concerned almost none was called upon to face to such awful difficulties, dangers and disasters and yet none succeeded, if so magnificently, in surmounting them all.
We feel that in our ancient history a technical distinction seems to have at times been attached to the words Chakrawartin and Vikrama or Vikramaditya. A king who subdued all Hindu kings and proved his title to the assumption of the dignity of a paramount emperor was Chakravarti. But he, who was not only as great a conqueror as Chakravartin, but had won that distinction not only by subduing our countrymen but by subduing some foreign powers, had liberated our nation or civilisation from some alien domination, was honoured by the special distinction of being designated as Vikramditiya. The first Vikrama is reputed to have driven out the Scythians, the second too, liberated our motherland and our race from the fetters of the Western Sakas. The third, Yasho Dharma Vikrmaditya, drove away the Huns and killed their king in a great battle. If then this our suspicion be true and the high title and designation ofVikramadittya denoted essentially a warrior who warred in a righteous and holy cause against the alien foes of our land and our nation, a conqueror who went on a Digvijaya, not only for the sake of military glory, but for a moral and patriotic duty—national necessity— and saved our people from some imminent and great public danger by conquering the forces of aggressive fanaticism and lust, then those who built this last of our Hindu Empires—last, so far as the past history of our race is concerned— ,performed deeds no less heroic and sublime in motive and far more glorious in magnitude than many a Chakravartin and Vikramadittya of old, are therefore entitled to the same respect and love and gratitude that we Hindus cherish for and bear towards the celebrated and hallowed names in our ancient history. For they took up the banner of our race from the dropping hands of our Rajput kings, declared a holy war against all those who hated the Hindu cause and avenged the martyrdom of Dahir and Anangpal, Jaipal and Prithviraj and Harpal and Pratap and Pratapadittya and Chittoor and Vijayanagar which the genius of Madhavacharya and Sayanacharya and the might of Harihar and Bukka, had built as a temple unto our Gods.
They won a gigantic war that continued so fiercely for some six centuries and more and by demonstrating what triumphs the Hindu race, even when partially organised and but half awakened, could achieve, indicated its magnificent potentialities, if ever it rouses itself to fulness of corporate l ife and effort.
Let us acknowledge then our deep debt of love and gratitude that we all Hindus owe to them and pay the fealty ! and homage of a grateful people at their feet, even while they sit on the pinnacle of power and glory, and have a last lingering look at them and the great Hindu Empire they have so triumphantly built:—for the curtain is soon to fall, alas so abruptly and sharply switch out the magnificent past from the weeping eyes of the present.