The idea, however, that the British have wrested the Empire from the Mohamadans is a mistake. The Mohamadans were beaten down — almost everywhere except in Bengal — before the British appeared upon the scene; Bengal they would not have been able to hold, and the name of the “Mahratta Ditch” of Calcutta shows how near even the British there were to extirpation by India’s new masters. Had the British not won the battles of Plassey and Buxar, the whole Empire would ere now have become the fighting ground of Sikhs, Rajputs, and Mahrattas and others.

Except the Nizam of the Deccan there was not a vigorous Musalman ruler in India after the firman of Farokhsiar in 1716; the Nizam owed his power to the British after the battle of Kurdla in 1795), and it was chiefly British support that maintained the feeble shadow of the Moghul Empire, from the death of Alamgir II. to the retirement of Mr. Hastings. Not only Haidarabad but all the other existing Musalman principalities of modern India owe their existence, directly, or indirectly, to the British intervention. British author, H.G.Keene

A myth that endures is often harmless – there are others that despite being utterly baseless serve to propagate the most absurd and extreme views of both history and towards their fellow man. One of these is the myth that British Imperialism saved the Hindus from Islamic rule and domination.

The myth is of almost breathtaking audacity given that the facts of history reveal very clearly the truth of the Islamic empires and kingdoms being destroyed by a steady wave of Hindu revolts and then attacks with their remnants rushing to the western powers for protection from their Hindu rivals.

By 1759 the Maratha flag fluttered over Peshawar – in the early 1800’s the Hindu Gurkhas contented with the Chinese Empire for control over Tibet a feat repeated by the Dogra Hindu warriors some decades later.

The warlord Mahadji Sindhia recovered the silver gates of Somnath from the hands of the Afghans in a symbolic gesture of the Hindu reconquest. And yet this myth endures – in fact endures to such an extent that the defeated believe that their visions of Muslim rule over the subcontinent was thwarted only by the advent of the British and the Hindus believing that they were saved from utter extinction by the Imperialist interventions.

The propagation of myths and half-truths served to prop the edifice of Imperialism during the British sojourn in India.

This edifice was supported in numerous forces and bodies that were propped up by their erstwhile colonial masters , and this the seeds of hatred and self-loathing that still afflict the subcontinent remains today.

With the fall of that once mighty edifice of the British Empire these very  forces were unleashed upon the subcontinent. These very groups weaned on the education system and myths propagated by colonialism were content to allow the same system and ideas dominate India. A new set of western educated elite preferred to maintain the myths of cultural superiority which allowed a narrow elite to lord over the vast toiling masses that comprised the majority of the nation.

The myths of Hindu defeat and slavery designed to destroy and dampen the morale of the majority population continued to be taught – the need by the imperialists to destroy the ardour and fighting spirit of the people was also grabbed upon eagerly by Islamic and other anti Hindu forces.

The myth that Hinduism was a dying and decayed body waiting to be preyed upon by its more aggressive competitors has become almost folklore to Islamists and other extremists.

To hide and cover the resistance of 800 years – the rolling back of the forces of Jihad which by the 18th century has ended in utter failure before the rise of the nascent Hindu forces leading to the climactic failure of arms by the remaining Muslim kingdoms in South Asia by the close of the 1700’s only brought to a sudden end by the entry of western powers.

The same ideology promoted the so called discredited martial race theory of certain communities being more ‘martial’ than others (once again flying in the face of historical evidence)   the same ideology allows cross border terrorism to be pushed from the Islamic republic of Pakistan  – that allowed it to engage four time in war with its Hindu neighbour each time resulting in humiliating defeat and yet continues to attempt to cause trouble for India.

And yet – despite the above-  the myth remained – and even stranger the myth remained propagated by the very forces that otherwise espouse Hindu revivalism – Thus you will find otherwise very earnest Hindus in organisations such as the RSS being weaned on the diet of Hindu passivity and non-aggression despite flying in the face of all known historical evidence and truths.

To the myth of the thousand year slavery being exposed in our previous article composed of two parts – the first being the attacks from the 11th century to the 16th century by various Islamic intruders. The second part being that of the period of colonialism – in this case the rise and establishment of the British Empire.

Having heard ad nausea the view that the British ruled over the Indian subcontinent for a two hundred year period (i.e. from 1757 to 1947) I decided that it was worthwhile into looking into the veracity of this view.

Apart from various small port colonies by the British and French living under the sufferance of local grandees it was the Portuguese who made a serious attempt to establish a lasting empire in the subcontinent. The foundation of Goa, Daman, Diu and other small settlements as part of their attempt to thwart their Ottoman enemies the Portuguese sought to dominate the trade routes to India.

Their own limited resources combined with the hostility aroused amongst both Hindus and Muslims due to their violence and religious oppression together with the fact of living within the shadows of powerful empires such as Vijayanagar, Bahmani and others created a cap on European expansion in the middle ages.

Thus over e long period of decline they were beaten into insignificance by the Marathas in the 1730’s under a vigorous set of campaigns by Chimnaji Appa.

The same period saw the dramatic decline of the Mughal Empire in India – the long period of relative stability based on a tenuous compromise between the Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent was shattered by the violent and extreme policies of the Emperor Aurangzeb. Led by the strictures of Islamic law his jaundiced administration was faced by a tidal wave of revolts and risings from the Jats, the Satnamis, Bundelas, Ahoms, Rajputs and the Marathas under the famed king Shivaji.

The initial decades of the 18th century saw the Maratha power spread across the face of India, at first under their famed leader Baji Rao and then by his generals, Sindhia, Holkar, Gaekwad and Bhonsle each given his own special area of operation

Now British rule is said to have begun after their victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 over the Mughals and their subsequent triumph over them at the Battle of Buxar in 1764. Following this the right to govern, albeit in the name of the Mughals was granted to the British over Bengal and Bihar.

By way of background it is worth noting that Bengal, Bihar and Orrisa were governed by the same appointee from the court in Delhi – in the early 18th century with the Mughal Empire cracking under the repeated hammer blows from the Marathas this province under Alivardi Khan broke off to become for all intents and purposes an independent kingdom.

It was their ill fortune that at the same time the Maratha leaders had demarcated their own spheres of influence over all of India – This region was the hunting ground of the Bhonsle family under their war leader Raghuji Bhonsle.

From the 1730’s onwards in an ever expanding series of raids the regions of Orrisa, Bengal and to a lesser extent Bihar was subject to devastating attacks by the Marathas. The Nawab Alivardi Khan made determined and energetic efforts to defend his province to no avail. Each year he drive further back with the Maratha raiders covering what is modern day Bangladesh up to the Hindu kingdom of Assam.

The only defeat suffered by the Marathas was when the Maratha leader Balaji Baji Rao  chastised the Bhonsles and drove them back to their base in Nagpur – the following year they were back however and in utter failure the Nawab of Bengal agreed to cede in perpetuity parts of Bihar, Bengal and the whole of Orissa to the Marathas – This was further compounded by having to pay a yearly tribute to the Marathas (the chauth – or one fourth of their income) – As stated above some years later the British won a victory over the Mughals in 1757 at Plassey .

At the same time Maratha expansion was halted at the Battle of Panipat a thousand miles away in 1761 – this setback the Marathas for a decade – in the interim the British who after assuming governance over Bengal had continued to pay the tribute adroitly stopped paying.

The efforts of the Marathas were then directed at North India – mainly around Delhi to hammer home their final influence over the now fast decaying Mughals – In the interim the British buoyed by their successes in Bengal sought to expand their range of influence over the region of Awadh – the Nawab of the region which covers the northern part of modern-day Uttar Pradesh was best on all side by enemies – to one side the Hindu Jat tribes were seeking to expand their power over his holdings -to the south the warriors of Bundlekhand held sway – the martial Naga Sadhus marched with impunity through the land to protect the holy sites in ranks of thousands armed with matchlocks and artillery and from 1769 the Marathas were back at his borders when a large warband under Holkar attacked their province .

The weak and incompetent ruler – Shuja Ud Dualah fled under British protection in an attempt to preserve his kingdom against his Hindu enemies and thus the British were planted within striking distance of Delhi –

Their interference began to expand and with the establishment of armies in (what was then referred to as) Bombay, Calcutta and Madras the British sought to drive a necklace around the Marathas and thus led to the First Anglo-Maratha war – this was fought across the subcontinent over a period of 7 years – it saw the sensational defeat of British arms at the Battle of Wadgaon (leading to a humiliating British surrender) to the march of Captain Goddard across north India to the capture of Gwalior and the final stalemate at Sipri after which peace was sought and secured by all parties – the Marathas were led by their maverick minister Nana Fadnavis who managed to coordinate a series of alliances to push back the British threat and pushing the East Indian company to the brink of bankruptcy – coupled with the military genius of Mahadji Sindhia the Marathas resumed their march across India and by 1788 had defeated the remnants of the Mughal forces and stretched their sphere of influence to the Sutlej river in Punjab

In 1795 there remained only two Muslim kingdom in India – that of the Nizam of Hyderabad and Tipu Sultan of Mysore (whose infantry was predominantly Hindu)  – In 1795 the Marathas delivered a crushing defeat to the Nizam  – a defeat which destroyed his power so utterly that he clung in desperation to the British for succour which they gladly gave thus allowing the recovered British arms entry into the south of India – Tipu Sultan however resisted and alone amongst his coreligionists he refused to accept the British alliance and thus perished at the Battle of Seringapatnam in 1799.

The unemployed Muslim soldiery across India could only observe with horror as Hindu arms emerged triumphant over them on all fronts. Many joined the ranks of the Hindu armies others became votaries and supporters of Hindu groups with many even joining the dreaded Thugee cult of Northern Indian becoming devotees of the Goddess Kali.

By 1799 the two great Maratha leaders were dead – Nana Fadnavis and Mahadji Sindhia  – who had kept this rising tide of colonialism at bay – their untimely deaths however plunged the Maratha Confederacy into chaos and a civil war beginning in 1799 resulted in chaos and bloodletting across the face of the country – with Sindhia’s fighting the Holkars, battling with their leader the Peshwa and other warrior bands.

A climactic battle before the city of Poona in 1803 left the Maratha capital city in utter confusion and with a series of fast moving manoeuvres the British entered the fray to face a fractured Maratha Confederacy.

Rather than combine and fight on a common ground each component of the famed Maratha army faced the British separately – Led by Arthur Wellesley (Later the Duke of Wellington) and Lord Lake the British fought a series of blooding engagements  -the Battle of Assaye – the Battle of Assaye which delivered defeats to the Sindhias and Bhonsles Marathas – following this, when all seemed lost  Holkar under their maverick leader Jaswant Rao attacked the British – defeating them in Rajasthan under Col. Monson and then attacking them at Delhi itself – following a setback he took support from the Jats of Bharatpur who then faced the famed infantry and artillery of the British – four times the British tried to attack then walls each ending in utter failure with the loss of thousands of troops – Eventually the British made a peace with Holkar each agreeing not to disturb the other

But the effects of the above were not lost on anyone – the British had by 1805 cast their sphere of influence over the whole of India – although not ruling the majority of the country they had secured their position which was decisively contested once again by the Marathas in 1818 – In a last attempt to drive the British from their positions the Marathas were finally defeated in the Third Anglo-Maratha war and the true establishment of British rule can in some degree be said to commence – This has to be seen in light of the fact that they (like the Marathas before them) maintained the fiction of ruling in the name of the by now impotent Mughal Emperor issuing coins in his name and issuing order in the same vein .

Thus many of the inhabitants could maintain the happy fiction of being independent and free.

The Himalayan foothills had been conquered by the Hindu Gurkha clans who then clashed with the Imperialist powers in 1816 almost leading to a humiliating British defeat  – the only part yet outside of the British influence was the rising empire of Ranjit Singh and his allies in Jammu.

The death of the Maharaja in 1839 led to utter chaos and whilst the allies of the Sikh kingdom – the Dogra Rajputs of Jammu managed to expand the empire into Ladakh, Gilgit and Baltistan and even conducting a daring march in the heart of Tibet to fight the Chinese empire the machinations and violence that engulfed the kingdom allowed the British to deliver, despite hard fighting the destruction of the kingdom of Punjab and hits absorption into the British sphere of influence.

By now the reality of Empire was dawning on most of the inhabitants of the subcontinent – Increasing British interference in personal and religious matters as well as their obnoxious policy of wantonly grabbing the kingdoms of their supposed native allies burst into fury and violence in 1857 in a great rising that engulfed a huge portion of northern India – the fighting was bloody and intense and led by the mostly Hindu soldiers of the Bengal army – in a valiant attempt to unite the disparate factions the name of the Peshwa and the Mughal were invoked together with all of the symbolism of the old India that they sought to recover against the imperialist aggressor – After wading through an ocean of blood and violence the rising was finally suppressed in 1859 which led to the final and emphatic establishment of Imperial rule over India for the next 90 years until freedom came in 1947.

90 years – not quite 200 years as we have often been told – Even in regions where the British influence was felt the deepest and lasted the longest it was a slow and gradual process only really being deeply felt after the  end of the great rising in 1859 –

The student of history cannot help noticing that barring the battle of Tipu Sultan his co-religionists had failed to make a notable stand against the British  – indeed it can been said that they were amongst the first to flee to British protection from their Hindu Enemies – The major struggles of the Old India – from the three wars of the Marathas, the battle of the Jats, the Gurkhas – the Sanyasi rebellions in Bengal, wars of the Sikhs, the Nayar and poligar battles of the south were almost all by Hindus – This is further compounded by the great rising of 1857 which was led by the predominantly Brahmin and Rajput soldiers of the army

90 years of imperial rule were first contested by Vasudev Balwant Phadke in 1875 – these were then followed by the revolutionaries from Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab which by the 1920’s had thrown British rule into chaos (almost all Hindus)  – in response the policies of divide and rule through religion, caste and region were played (ultimately unsuccessfully) by the British due to which the subcontinent still suffers today.

It is important to have an honest and open appraisal of history and not to succumb to failed ideas and slogans – we have found even otherwise well meaning people propagate some of the most absurd and baseless theories without a modicum of basis in truth – the History of colonialism and resistance to it has to be seen in light of the facts of history.

Also Read The Myth of “1000 Years of Hindu Slavery

(4520)

Imagine an India where after hundreds of years of dogged resistance the Hindus fail to rise again. Imagine the end of the fourteenth century – a Delhi laid waste by the invasions of Timur and the horrors that lay in his wake. Imagine no renaissance of the warrior clans in Rajasthan under Rana Kumbha and the raising of the tower of victory. Imagine no resurgence in the south under the inspirational leadership of the Sangama brothers to create the golden empire of Vijaynagar. Imagine no hosts of fearless Sadhus and Saints traversing the subcontinent spreading the message of dharma and bhakti.

Imagine there was no empire of the Gajapati kings in Orrisa or the Ahoms in Assam giving the Mughals a resounding defeat in 1671. Imagine a land beaten down by the forces of Islamic Imperialism after centuries of struggle and bloodshed eventually falling by the 1400’s to the Crescent banner of the Arabs and Turks. Is it so hard to imagine ?

 Then look back upon history and see the rise of the Sassanian Empire in Persia – the inheritors of the Parthians who faced the might of the Roman Empire at its peak defeating the legions under Marcus Crassus – the same Sassans under their Emperor Shapur who defeated the Roman Emperor Valerian at the Battle of Edessa in 260 CE and after capturing him  used him as a footstool for the remainder of his captivity.

The Sassans who faced the Byzantines in perpetual conflict and turned Zoarasterism into a state religion.The rise of the Arabic Islamic Caliphate put an end to the once mighty Sassanids – from 633 CE to the final elimination of their remnants by the Ninth Century – the imposition of the Jizya, the submission of the majority non Muslims to dhimmi status led the eventual collapse of the ancient religion of Zoroaster with their scattered remnants fleeing from persecution to India.

Further west, the once all encompassing Hellenic culture which produced Socrates, Aristotle, Democritus, Plato and many others fell to the missionary zeal of early Christianity. The Byzantines became the vanguard of the Eastern Church and soon the great library of Alexandria fell together with the Oracle of Delphi and the destruction of the Sybylline books. the ancient lands of Egypt, West Asia and Greece were Christianised by the fifth century of the Common Era and the banning of the practice of ‘Pagan’ religions and the smashing of their temples led to an almost total Christianisation of the region by the early sixth century CE.

Their great rivalry with the Sassanids of Persian was partly predicated upon religious rivalry between the church and advocates of the fire temples of Zoaraster. Both were however eclipsed by the rise the Islamic Caliphate. With remarkable energy and speed the once glorious Sassanids fell into oblivion and the Imperial cult of Zoarasterianism was reduced within generations to the a few scattered remnants far from the scenes of their once exalted status.

Within a few hundred years and the decline of the Byzantines in the face of determined Arab followed by Turk incursions the majority of the region converted to Islam and in a few generations became amongst the most fanatical votaries of their new faith.

In the vast open regions of Central Asia lay the fabled Silk Route. Mighty Empires rose and fell and the wild horse borne archers of the steppes were feared for the skill and ruthlessness. Over all ruled the benign image of the Buddha – the quintessential image of peace and serenity created a curious dichotomy between the  nomadic tribesmen and the practitioners of non violence.

The great statues of Bamiyan, the organised and missionary activities of the Sangha led to whole masses of the population becoming Buddhists under the tutelage of the monks vestiges of which we can still see in the societies of Burma, Sri Lanka and Tibet. The grant empire of the Kushans which lay straddled across the Silk route saw the Emperors venerating the Buddha and facilitating his message acorss the face of the known world.

In 634 the Battle of Talas heralded the defeat of the Chinese empire by the Arabs and gradual Arab penetration and Islamisation of the region. Within a few centuries the Buddhists were fleeing eastward and towards India – those that remained saw the graven images of ‘But’ being flung to the ground and trampled underfoot as the advocates of the desert faith called the faithful to prayer. Today hardly an echo of the ancient faith of Buddhism remains in the region which can be most clearly seen in the once Buddhist stronghold of Afghanistan.

An Arab invasion stormed into Sindh in 666 CE before a determined Hindu coalition under the legendary Bappa Rawal defeated them in the Battle of Rajasthan in 738 CE bringing to an end the eastward expansion of the Caliphate, much like the westward expansion being stopped at the Battle of Tours by Charles Martel in 732 CE.

The aforesaid conversion of Central Asia led the incursions of the Turk tribes westward to fight the Crusaders and further to the east towards the fabled land of India. Centuries of resistance were eventually overcome and the kings of the frontiers known as the Hindu Shahis fell.A veritable tide of bloodshed that had few parallels in history followed. Into this cauldron of bloodletting the multi ethnic and multi religious region of South Asia was subjected to an orgy of violence and hatred that beggars few comparisons in history. Echoes of this carnage can be seen in the endless wanderings and sufferings of the ‘Gypsies’ around the world as they fled fleeing from India to escape the horrors.

The ancient seats of learning of Nalanda and Taxila were razed to the ground and the monks massacred in the sacred premises where students from across three continents would come to learn. Stupas, Temples and Holy sites were leveled to the ground or converted into mosques. Swathes of people bereft of their political and spiritual leadership were converted to the faith of the invaders.

The Buddhists seemed to be particularity susceptible in this case with their population bereft of guidance following the destruction of the stupas and the slaying of the monks. The once widespread religion of the Jains were whittled down to a handful of secretive and hidden trading clans where it remains today. It is thought that the obliteration of the materialist and atheistic Carvakas is dated from this time.

The Hindus ensured however – the resistance following the Battle of Tarain in 1192 confounded the invader. The genocidal forces of monotheistic fervour was confronted with implacable resistance – the resistance continued from the towns, to the deserts, to the forests and far into the mountains. And so amidst the raging wars and the collapse of the medieval Indian civilisation the Turkic forces suffered terrible losses.

And so Muhammed Ghori was slain by Hindu rebels in Punjab, and so Raziya Sultan was killed in revenge by the Hindus in Mewat and so tens and thousand gave their lives in a furious attempt to resist forced conversion, enslavement and submission  – And so just decades after the Battle of Tarain the nascent Sultanate in Delhi was close to collapse – According to the historian, Firishta it was the constant immigration of Muslims into India that kept their momentum up – the endless cycle of war and resistance claimed the lives of so many Arab, Turk and Persian warriors that a constant flow of migration was required to maintain the forces of Jihad in the land of the Pagans. And just as Rome and Greece fell to Christianity in the early part of the millennium and the Near East , Persia and Central Asia went under the banner of Islam it was expected that India too would inevitably fall.

But the reality defied the lessons of history – by the 1500’s the majority of the subcontinent was under the rule of the resurgent Hindus – the teachings of the wandering Saints combined with the fervour of an undefeated dharma was only brought to a tenuous compromise by the Mughal emperor Akbar with his rejection of formal Islam.

This compromise was shattered by the return of fanaticism under the iconoclastic rule of Aurangzeb and amidst the shattered remains of the Mughals rose again the Rajputs of western India, the Gurkhas in the far northern hill, the Ahoms in the jungles and forests of the east, the Jaats in the plains of Hindustan and above all the rise of the Maratha Empire from Shivaji the Great to the conquests of Baji Rao from 1720-1740.

E Keane characterised the finality of this resurgence culminating in the rise of the Maratha warlord Mahadji Sindhia as the Hindu reconquest of India – This reconquest was only stopped by the entry of the colonial powers and after a desperate struggle culminating in the bloody rising of 1857 British control was established over the subcontinent. Since independence 90 nears thereafter has seen the creation of a fast rising economic and military power of modern day India adjoining a militarised state of Pakistan veering on the edge of a collapse into medieval theocracy.

Now imagine once again the alternative – Imagine an India where Islam had emerged triumphant – imagine 1.2 billion more adherents to Islam in a single stroke increasing the worlds population of Islam to almost 40% of the total – Imagine how history would have changed – how fanatical hordes pouring from the shores and borders of South Asia into China – into South East Asia, across the shores into Africa. Imagine a war on terror with no end.

Imagine also a world with no yoga, with no spirituality, with no selfless teachers reaching out across the globe, with no Ayurveda, with no Mahatma Gandhi, no Swami Vivekananda , with no link to the ancient past which has all but been obliterated from the majority of the globe.

Think then of the sacrifices made for the sake of Dharma- think of the millions who gave their lives over the blood soaked centuries  think of the determined and relentless resistance provided generation after generation rising with arms and faith again and again – think of how the history of the world would have changed had the Hindus failed.

Charles Martel is called the saviour of Europe following the Battle of Tours but how many today remember the Battle of Rajasthan, Raja Bhoja, Shivaji, Baji Rao and countless others – Remember the struggle that has convulsed South Asia and the Hindus for a thousand years and the rise once again into the modern world of an ancient civilisation undefeated and undaunted.

Also Read : The Myth of “1000 Years of Hindu Slavery”

Save

(9238)

A True History written by blood, of a Great Warrior Sambhaji son of Shivaji Maharaj never seen before.

A Film by: Rakesh S. Dulgaj
Producer: Mr.Perfect Plus
Associate Producer: Farha Ayaz Ghani
Story & Screenplay: Suresh Chikhale
Music: Avinash – Vishwajit, Guru Sharma & Aarv

More on Sambhaji : A Heroic Death that Changed the Course of Indian History

(24357)

Directed by Praful Kadu
COABARC,Amravati ( Maharashtra,India) Film Promo by Vijay Raut.

More on Sambhaji : A Heroic Death that Changed the Course of Indian History

(9587)

In the mid-1300s the legend goes that their Raja Ajayapala performed a vigorous mantra-sadhana of various bhairava mantra-s into which he had been initiated by a natha-yogin. Consequently, he came to dominate the whole Uttarakhand, and his clan became its paramount rulers.

In this period they used to have a lineage of kali kula (kali Tradition) sadhaka-s from the city of karnavati in the lata(regional) country visit them and perform rituals for martial glory. Their power was further consolidated during the reign of mahIpati shaha, when the Tibetans accepted their suzerainty, at least in the western provinces. After the death of this king, his queen, karnavati, took over the rule of the kingdom.

She is said to have been an accomplished sadhaki of the Kali Kula who gave a village grant to brahmins from the lata country. These brahmins are supposed to have held for centuries an idol of MahaKali which was originally housed in a temple in karnavati, Gujarat that was vandalized by the monstrous Mohammedan Ahmed Shah. They installed the idol in a temple of kali near the town of karttikeyapura, which was an ancient kaumara kShetra and the capital of the pre-paramara(clan) rulers of the land.

Shortly there after, in 1640 CE the Mughal tyrant Shah Jahan ( of the Taj Mahal fame) dispatched Ghazi Najabat Khan with the orders to extirpate the Kafirs of the Uttarakhand. The warrior queen karnavati is said to have prepared for the invasion by leading the troops herself. She drew the Mughals to an ambush in steep mountain slopes north of Dehradun and fallen upon them with the advantage of height. The Mughal army suffered a major defeat. She is said to have prevented their retreat by blocking their rear in the narrow valley and captured several Jihadis.

She is then supposed to have sacrificed some as narabalis (human sacrifice) for kali and had rest mutilated with their noses and ears lopped off. Thus, they were sent to back to Delhi as a strong message to Shah Jahan. Stung by the defeat Shah Jahan wanted revenge and assembled another force under ghazi Kalilullah, this time to march eastwards on the capital of the paramAra-s at shrInagara, Uttarakhand. The rani, however, withdrew with a part of her troops from the capital to her preferred stations at Newada on the southeastern dun of Dehra and Kaulagarh the fort on the northwestern dun. The Mughals moved in pleased with the lack of resistance only to find themselves trapped by the Rajputs.

Then karnavati resorted to psychological warfare by sending a message to the Mughal court that she is could chop of their noses, she could also chop of their heads. The Mughals panicked and tried to force their way back, but were encircled and massacred. Thus, the Mughal advance into the mountain passes was restrained by the fierce karnavatii. She is said to have orchestrated number of hydraulic constructions, the most noted of which was an irrigation system that prevented the water from sinking underground as it exited the hill into the gravels leading to the valleys. This, allowed agricultural development that allowed an efflorescence of several towns in the region.This consequently fed a local Hindu revival which was mainly seen in the form of various production of certain tantrika, legal, and medical texts under the patronage of this dynasty.

By mAnasa-taraMgiNI
For (full version)

(6296)

”Shivaji was the greatest Hindu king that India had produced within the last thousand years; one who was the very incarnation of lord Siva, about whom prophecies were given out long before he was born; and his advent was eagerly expected by all the great souls and saints of Maharashtra as the deliverer of the Hindus from the hands of the Mlecchas, and as one who succeeded in the reestablishment of Dharma which had been trampled underfoot by the depredations of the devastating hordes of the Moghals”   – Swami Vivekananda

Schoolchildren in India learn a very specific blend of Indian history. This school version of history is stripped of all the vigor and pride. The story of Indian civilization spans thousands of years. However for the most part the schoolbook version dwells on the freedom struggle against British and important role played in there by the Indian National Congress. We learn each and every movement of Gandhi and Nehru, but not even a passing reference is made to hundreds of other important people and events.

My objection is not to the persons Gandhi or Nehru. They were great men. However the attention they get and the exposure their political views and ideology gets is rather disproportionate.

And thus it comes no surprise to me that rarely we talk about an epic war that significantly altered the face of Indian subcontinent. The war that can be described the mother of all wars in India. Considering the average life expectancy that time was around 30 years, this war of 27 years lasted almost the lifespan of an entire generation. The total number of battles fought was in hundreds. It occurred over vast geographical expanse spanning four biggest states of modern India- Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. For time, expanse and human and material cost, this  war has no match in Indian history.

Intro

It started in 1681 with the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s invasion of Maratha empire. It ended in 1707 with Aurangzeb’s death. Aurangzeb threw everything he had in this war. He lost it all.

It’s tempting to jump into the stories of heroics, but what makes the study of war more interesting is the understanding of politics behind it. Every war is driven by politics. Rather war is just one of the means to do politics. This war was not an exception.

Shivaji’s tireless work for most of his life had shown fruits by the last quarter of seventeenth century. He had firmly established Marathas as power in Deccan. He built hundreds of forts in Konkan and Sahyadris and thus created a defense backbone. He also established strong naval presence and controlled most of the Western ports barring few on end of Indian peninsula. Thus tightening the grip on trade routes of Deccan sultanates, he strangled their  weapons import from Europe and horses import from Arabian traders.  These Sultanates launched several campaigns against Shivaji, but failed to stop him.

On the Northern front, several Rajput kings had accepted to be the vassals of Mughals. Aurangzeb had succeeded to the throne after brutal killing of his brothers and imprisonment of his father. With Rajput resistance mostly subsided and the southern sultanates weakened, it was only matter of time before Marathas were in his cross-hair.

[quote]‘The death of Shivaji was the mere beginning of Maratha history. He founded a Hindu principality-it had yet to grow into a Hindu Empire. This was all done after the death of Shivaji. The real epic opens as soon as Shivaji, after calling into being the great forces that had to act it up, disappears from the scene. ‘ ...Vināyak Dāmodar Sāvarkar[/quote]

Shivaji’s death

At the time of Shivaji’s death in 1680, Maratha empire spanned an area far more than the current state of Maharashtra and had taken firm roots. But it was surrounded by enemies from all sides.  Portuguese on northern Coast and Goa, British in Mumbai, Siddies in Konkan and remaining Deccan sultanates in Karnataka posed limited challenge each, but none of them was capable of taking down the Marathas alone. Mughal empire with Aurangzeb at its helm was the most formidable foe.

For the most part, Aurangzeb was a religious fanatic. He had distanced Sikhs and Rajputs because of his intolerant policies against Hindus. After his succession to the throne, he had made life living hell for Hindus in his kingdom. Taxes like Jizya tax were imposed on Hindus. No Hindu could ride in Palanquin. Hindu temples were destroyed and abundant forcible conversions took place. Aurangzeb unsuccessfully tried to impose Sharia, the Islamic law. This disillusioned Rajputs and Sikhs resulting in their giving cold shoulder to Aurangzeb in his Deccan campaign.

Thus in September of  1681, after settling his dispute with the royal house of Mewar, Aurangzeb began his journey to Deccan to kill the Maratha confederacy that was not even 50 years old. On his side, the Mughal king had enormous army numbering half a million soldiers, a number more than three times that of the Maratha army. He had plentiful support of artillery, horses, elephants. He also brought huge wealth in royal treasuries. Teaming up with Portuguese, British ,Siddis, Golkonda and Bijapur Sultanates he planned to encapsulate Marathas from all sides and to form a deadly death trap. To an outsider, it would seem no-brainer to predict the outcome of such vastly one sided war. It seemed like the perfect storm headed towards Maratha confederacy.

Enormous death and destruction followed in Deccan for what seemed like eternity. But what happened at the end would defy all imaginations and prove every logic wrong. Despite lagging in resources on all fronts, it would be the Marathas who triumphed. And at the expense of all his treasure, army, power and life, it would be the invading emperor who learned a very costly lesson, that the will of people to fight for their freedom should never be underestimated.

Timeline – Marathas under King Sambhaji (1680 to 1689):

After the death of Shivaji in 1680, a brief power struggle ensued in the royal family. Finally Sambhaji became the king. By this time Aurangzeb had finished his North missions and was pondering a final push in Deccan to conquer all of the India.

In 1681 sambhaji attacked Janjira, but his first attempt failed. In the same time one of the Aurangzeb’s generals, Hussein Ali Khan , attacked Northern Konkan. Sambhaji left janjira and attacked Hussein Ali Khan and pushed him back to Ahmednagar. By this time monsoon of 1682 had started. Both sides halted their major military operations. But Aurangzeb was not sitting idle. He tried to sign a deal with Portuguese to allow mughal ships to harbor in Goa. This would have allowed him to open another supply route to Deccan via sea. The news reached sambhaji. He attacked Portuguese territories and pushed deep inside Goa. But Voiceroy Alvor was able to defend Portuguese headquarters.

By this time massive Mughal army had started gathering on the borders of Deccan. It was clear that southern India was headed for one big conflict.Sambhaji had to leave Portuguese expedition and turn around. In late 1683, Aurangzeb moved to Ahmednagar. He divided his forces in two and put his two princes, Shah Alam and Azam Shah, in charge of each division. Shah alam was to attack South Konkan via Karnataka border while Azam Shah would attack Khandesh and northern Maratha territory. Using pincer strategy, these two divisions planned to circle Marathas from South and North and isolate them.

The beginning went quite well. Shah Alam crossed Krishna river and entered Belgaum. From there he entered Goa and started marching north via Konkan. As he pushed further,he was continuously harassed by Marathas. They ransacked his supply chains and reduced his forces to starvation. Finally Aurangzeb sent Ruhulla Khan for his rescue and brought him back to Ahmednagar. The first pincer attempt failed.

After 1684 monsoon, Aurangzeb’s another general Sahabuddin Khan directly attacked the Maratha capital, fort Raygad. Maratha commanders successfully defended Raygad. Aurangzeb sent Khan Jehan for help, but Hambeerrao Mohite, Commander-in-Chief of Maratha army, defeated him in a fierce battle at Patadi. Second division of Maratha army attacked Sahabuddin Khan at Pachad, inflicting heavy losses on Mughal army.

In early 1685, Shah Alam attacked South again via Gokak- Dharwar route. But Sambhaji’s forces harassed him continuously on the way and finally he had to give up and thus failed to close the loop second time.

In april 1685 Aurangzeb rehashed his strategy. He planned to consolidate his power in the South by taking expeditions to Goalkonda and Bijapur. Both were Shia muslim rulers and Aurangzeb was no fond of them. He broke his treaties with both empires and attacked them. Taking this opportunity Marathas launched offensive on North coast and attacked Bharuch. They were able to evade the mughal army sent their way and came back with minimum damage.

On Aurangzeb’s new Southern front, things were proceeding rather smoothly. Bijapur fell in September 1686. King Sikandar Shah was captured and imprisoned. Goalkonda agreed to pay huge ransom. But after receiving the money, Aurangzeb attacked them in blatant treachery. Soon Goalkonda fell as well. King Abu Hussein of Goalkonda was captured and met the same fate as Sikandar Shah.

Marathas had tried to win mysore through diplomacy. Kesopant Pingle, (Moropant Pingle’s brother) was running negotiations, but the fall of Bijapur to mughals turned the tides and Mysore was reluctant to join Marathas. Still Sambhaji successfully courted several Bijapur sardars to join Maratha army.

After fall of Bijapur and Goalkonda, Aurangzeb turned his attention again to his main target – Marathas. First few attempts proved unsuccessful to make a major dent. But in Dec 1688 he had his biggest jackpot. Sambhaji was captured due to treachery at Sangmeshwar. Aurangzeb gave him option of converting to Islam, which he refused. Upon refusal, Aurangzeb, blinded by his victories, gave Sambhaji the worst treatment he could ever give to anyone.Sambhaji was paraded on donkey. His tongue was cut, eyes were gorged out. His body was cut into pieces and fed to dogs.

There were many people who did not like Sambhaji and thus were sympathetic to Mughals. But this barbaric treatment made everyone angry. Maratha generals gathered on Raygad. The decision was unanimous. All peace offers were to be withdrawn. Mughals would be repelled at all costs. Rajaram succeeded as the next king. He began his reign by a valiant speech on Raygad. All Maratha generals and councilmen united under the flag of new king, and thus began the second phase of the epic war.

“Whenever Mughal horses used to refuse to go to the water to drink water, it was feared they had seen Santaji and Dhanaji” – Kafi Khan  Mughal court historian

27 Years War TimeLine – Marathas under King Rajaram (1689 to 1700)

To Aurangzeb, the Marathas seemed all but dead by end of 1689. But this would prove to be almost a fatal blunder. In March 1690, the Maratha commanders, under the leadership of Santaji Ghorpade launched the single most daring attack on mughal army. They not only attacked the army, but sacked the tent where the Aurangzeb himself slept. Luckily Aurangzeb was elsewhere but his private force and many of his bodyguards were killed.

This positive development was followed by a negative one for Marathas. Raigad fell to treachery of Suryaji Pisal. Sambhaji’s queen, Yesubai and their son, Shahu, were captured.

Mughal forces, led by Zulfikar Khan, continued this offensive further South. They attacked fort Panhala. The Maratha killedar of Panhala gallantly defended the fort and inflicted heavy losses on Mughal army. Finally Aurangzeb himself had to come. Panhala surrendered.

Maratha ministers had foreseen the next Mughal move on Vishalgad. They made Rajaram leave Vishalgad for Jinji, which would be his home for next seven years. Rajaram  travelled South under escort of Khando Ballal and his men. The queen of Bidnur,  gave them supplies and free passage.  Harji Mahadik’s division met them near Jinji and guarded them to the fort. Rajaram’s queen was escorted out of Maharashtra by Tungare brothers.  She was taken to Jinji by different route. Ballal and Mahadik tirelessly worked to gather the scattered diplomats and soldiers. Jinji became new capital of Marathas. This breathed new life in Maratha army.

Aurangzeb was frustrated with Rajaram’s successful escape. His next move was to keep most of his force in Maharashtra and dispatch a small force to keep Rajaram in check. But the two Maratha generals, Santaji ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav would prove more than match to him.

They first attacked and destroyed the force sent by Aurangzeb to keep check on Rajaram, thus relieving the immediate danger. Then they joined Ramchandra Bavadekar in Deccan. Bavdekar, Vithoji Bhosale and Raghuji Chavan had reorganized most of the Maratha army after defeats at Panhala and Vishalgad.

In late 1691, Bavdekar, Pralhad Niraji , Santaji ,Dhanaji and several Maratha sardars met in Maval region and reformed the strategy. Aurangzeb had taken four major forts in Sahyadrais and was sending Zulfikar khan to subdue the fort Jinji. So according to new Maratha plan, Santaji and Dhanaji would launch offensives in the East to keep rest of the Mughal forces scattered. Others would focus in Maharashtra and would attack a series of forts around Southern Maharashtra and Northern Karnataka to divide Mughal won territories in two, thereby posing significant challenge to enemy supply chains. Thanks to Shivaji’s vision of building a navy, Marathas could now extend this divide into the sea, checking any supply routes from Surat to South.

The execution began. In early 1692 Shankar Narayan and Parshuram Trimbak recaptured Rajgad and Panhala. In early 1693 Shankar Narayan and Bhosale captured Rohida. Sidhoji Gujar took Vijaydurg. Soon Parshuram Trimbak took Vishalgad. Kanhoji Angre, a young Maratha Naval officer that time, took fort Kolaba.

While this was in work, Santaji and Dhanaji were launching swift raids on Mughal armies on East front. This came as a bit of surprise to Aurangzeb. In spite of losing one King and having second king driven away, Marathas were undaunted and actually were on offensive. From Khandesh, Ahmednagar to Bijapur to Konkan and Southern Karnataka, Santaji and Dhanaji wrecked havoc. Encouraged by the success, Santaji and Dhanaji hatched new action plan to attack Mughal forces near Jinji. Dhanaji Jadhav attacked Ismail Khan and defeated him near Kokar. Santaji Ghorpade attacked Ali Mardan Khan at the base of Jinji and captured him. With flanks cleared, both joined hands and laid a second siege around the Mughal siege at Jinji.

Julfikar khan, who was orchestrating Jinji siege, left the siege on Aurangzeb’s orders and marched back. Santaji followed him to North, but was defeated by Julfikar Khan. Santaji then diverted his forces to Bijapur. Aurangzeb sent another general Kasim Khan to tackle Santaji. But Santaji attacked him with a brilliant military maneuver near Chitaldurg and forced him take refuge in Dunderi fort. The fort was quickly sieged by Santaji and the siege only ended when most of the Mughal soldiers starved and Kasim Khan committed suicide. Aurangzeb sent Himmat Khan to reinforce Kasim Khan. Himmat khan carried heavy artillery. So Santaji lured him in a trap in the forest near Dunderi. A sudden, ambush style attack on Mughals was followed by a fierce battle. The battle ended when when Himmat Khan was shot in head and died. All his forces routed and Santaji confiscated a big cache of weapons and ammunition.

By now, Aurangzeb had the grim realization that the war he began was much more serious than he thought. He consolidated his forces and rethought his strategy. He sent an ultimatum to Zulfikar khan to finish Jinji business or be stripped of the titles. Julfikar khan tightened the Siege. But Rajaram fled and was safely escorted to Deccan by Dhanaji Jadhav and  Shirke brothers. Haraji Mahadik’s son took the charge of Jinji and bravely defended Jinji against Julfikar khan and Daud khan till January of 1698. This gave Rajaram ample of time to reach Vishalgad.

Jinji fell, but it did a big damage to the Mughal empire. The losses incurred in taking Jinji far outweighed the gains. The fort had done its work. For seven years the three hills of Jinji had kept a large contigent of mughal forces occupied. It had eaten a deep hole into Mughal resources. Not only at Jinji, but the royal treasury was bleeding everywhere and was already under strain.

Marathas would soon witness an unpleasant development, all of their own making. Dhanaji Jadhav and Santaji Ghorpade had a simmering rivalry, which was kept in check by the councilman Pralhad Niraji. But after Niraji’s death, Dhanaji grew bold and attacked Santaji. Nagoji Mane, one of Dhanaji’s men, killed Santaji. The news of Santaji’s death greatly encouraged Aurangzeb and Mughal army.

But by this time Mughals were no longer the army they were feared before. Aurangzeb, against advise of several of his experienced generals, kept the war on. It was much like Alexander on the borders of Taxila.

The Marathas again consolidated and the new Maratha counter offensive began. Rajaram made Dhanaji the next commander in chief. Maratha army was divided in three divisions. Dhanaji would himself lead the first division. Parshuram Timbak lead the second and Shankar Narayan lead the third. Dhanaji Jadhav defeated a large mughal force near Pandharpur. Shankar Narayan defeated Sarja Khan in Pune. Khanderao Dabhade, who lead a division under Dhanaji, took Baglan and Nashik. Nemaji Shinde, another commander with Shankar Narayan, scored a major victory at Nandurbar.

Enraged at this defeats, Aurangzeb himself took charge and launched another counter offensive. He laid siege to Panhala and attacked the fort of Satara. The seasoned commander, Prayagji Prabhu defended Satara for a good six months, but surrendered in April of 1700, just before onset of Monsoon. This foiled Aurangzeb’s strategy to clear as many forts before monsoon as possible.

In March of 1700, another bad news followed Marathas. Rajaram took his last breath. His queen Tarabai, who was also daughter of the gallant Maratha Commander-in-Chief Hambeerrao Mohite, took charge of Maratha army. Daughter of a braveheart, Tarabai proved her true mettle for the next seven years. She carried the struggle on with equal valor. Thus began the phase 3, the last phase of the prolonged war, with Marathas under the leadership of Tarabai.

The signs of strains were showing in Mughal camp in late 1701. Asad Khan, Julfikar Khan’s father, counselled Aurangzeb to end the war and turn around. This expedition had already taken a giant toll, much larger than originally planned, on Mughal empire. And serious signs were emerging that the 200 years old Mughal empire was crumbling and was in the middle of a war that was not winnable.

Mughals were bleeding heavily from treasuries. But  Aurangzeb kept pressing the war on.  When Tarabai took charge, Aurangzeb had laid siege to the fort of Parli (Sajjangad). Parshuram Trimbak defended the fort until monsoon and retreated quietly at the break of monsoon.The mughal army was dealt heavy loss by flash floods in the rivers around. These same tactics were followed by Marathas at the next stop of Aurangzeb, Panhala. Similar tactic was followed even for Vishalgad.

By 1704, Aurangzeb had Torana and Rajgad. He had won only a handful forts in this offensive, but he had spent several precious years. It was slowly dawning to him that after 24 years of constant war, he was no closer to defeating Marathas than he was the day he began.

The final Maratha counter offensive gathered momentum in North. Tarabai proved to be a valiant leader once again. One after another Mughal provinces fell in north. They were not in position to defend as the royal treasuries had been sucked dry and no armies were left in tow. In 1705, two Maratha army factions crossed Narmada. One under leadership of Nemaji Shinde hit as deep North as Bhopal. Second under the leadership of Dabhade struck Bharoch and West. Dabhade with his eight thousand men,attacked and defeated Mahomed khan’s forces numbering almost fourteen thousand. This left entire Gujarat coast wide open for Marathas. They immediately tightened their grip on Mughal supply chains.

In Maharashtra, Aurangzeb grew despondent. He started negotiations with Marathas, but cut abruptly and marched on a small kingdom called Wakinara. Naiks at Wakinara traced their lineage to royal family of Vijaynagar empire. They were never fond of Mughals and had sided with Marathas. Dhanaji marched into Sahyadris and won almost all the major forts back in short time. Satara and Parali forts were taken by Parshuram Timbak. Shankar Narayan took Sinhgad. Dhanaji then turned around and took his forces to Wakinara. He helped the Naiks at Wakinara sustain the fight. Naiks fought very bravely. Finally Wakinara fell, but the royal family of Naiks successfully escaped with least damage.

Aurangzeb had now given up all hopes and was now planning retreat to Burhanpur. Dhanaji Jadhav again fell on him and in swift and ferocious attack and dismantled the rear guard of his imperial army. Zulfikar Khan rescued the emperor and they successfully reached Burhanpur.

Aurangzeb witnessed bitter fights among his sons in his last days. Alone, lost, depressed, bankrupt, far away from home, he died sad death on 3rd March 1707. “I hope god will forgive me one day for my disastrous sins”, were his last words.

Thus ended a prolonged and grueling period in history of India. The Mughal kingdom fragmented and disintegrated soon after. And Deccan saw rise of a new sun, the Maratha empire.

[quote]” What some call the Muslim period in Indian history, was in reality a continuous war of occupiers against resisters, in which the Muslim rulers were finally defeated in the 18th century”  Dr Koenraad Elst[/quote]

Reflection: Strategical Analysis:

In this war, Aurangzeb’s army totaled more than 500,000 in number (compared to total Maratha army in the ballpark of 150,000). With him he carried huge artillery, cavalry, muskettes, ammunition and giant wealth from royal treasuries to support this quest. This war by no means a fair game when numbers are considered.

The main features of Aurangzeb’s strategy were :-

Use of overwhelming force to demoralize the enemy –

This tactic had proved successful in Aurangzeb’s other missions. Thus he used this even in Maharashtra. On several occasions giant Mughal contigents were used to lay siege to a fort or capture a town.

Meticulously planned sieges to the forts –

Aurangzeb knew that the forts in Sahyadri formed backbone of Maratha defense. His calculation was to simply lay tight siege to the fort, demoralizing and starving the people inside and finally making them surrender the fort.

Fork or pincer movements using large columns of infantry and cavalry –

With large number of infantry and cavalry, pincer could have proved effective and almost fatal against Marathas

Marathas had one advantage on their side, geography. They milked this advantage to the last bit. Their military activities were planned considering the terrain and the weather.

The main features of Maratha strategy were :-

Combined offensive-defensive strategy –

Throughout the war, Marathas never stopped their offensive. This served two purposes. The facts that Maratha army was carrying out offensive attacks in Mughal land suddenly made them psychologically equals to Mughals launching attack in Maratha land, even though Mughals were a much bigger force. This took negative toll on Mughal morale and boosted morale of their own men. Secondly, these offensive attacks in terms of quick raids often heavily damaged enemy supply chains taking toll on Mughal army. The forts formed backbone of Maratha defense. Thanks to Shivaji, the every fort had provision of fresh water. The total forts numbered almost 300 and this large number proved major headache to Aurangzeb.

Strategic fort defense –

Marathas had one big advantage on their side. They were the expert in fort warfare. The game of defense using forts had two components.

First component was the right play of the strategic forts . In modern warfare, you have some strategic assets like aircraft carrier, presence of which needs a substantial change of plans on your enemy side.  And then there are tactical assets, like tanks and large guns, which matter from battle to battle, but can be effectively countered by your enemy without making big plan changes. Similarly there are strategic forts, like Raigad, Janjira, Panhala and Jinji. Then there are number of tactical forts like Vishalgad, Sinhgad, Rajgad, etc.

Raigad, by its very nature, is large daunting fort. Built in 11th century by decedents of Mauryan Empire, it served as anchor to various kingdoms. Its cliffs sore high more than 1200 feet from base. It has abundant fresh water supply. Raigad, like Jinji could be defended for years at a stretch. No one could claim Sahyadri and Konkan as theirs without winning Raigad.

Aurangzeb knew difficulties in winning Raigad by war. So he managed to win it by using insider traitor, Suryaji Pisal. Had Marathas kept Raigad, Aurangzeb’s task would have been much tougher. Marathas lost Raigad early and could not win in back till much later. But they played the remaining two forts, Panhala and Jinji very well. Panhala is strategic because of its location on the confluence of multiple supply chains.  Thus Marathas defended Panhala as long as they could and tried to win it back the earliest when they didn’t have it.

The second component of defensive fort warfare was matching the movements with weather.  Forts are an asset in rest of the year, but are a liability in monsoon as it costs a lot to carry food and supplies up. Also the monsoon in coasts and ghats is severe in nature and no major military movement is possible. Thus Marathas often fought till Monsoon and surrendered the fort just before Monsoon. Before surrendering they burned all the food inside. Thus making it a proposition of loss in every way. Often times Marathas surrendered the fort empty, but later soon won it back filled with food and water. These events demoralized the enemy.

Offensive attacks in terms of evasive raids –

Marathas mostly launched offensive attacks in the region when Mughal army was away. They rarely engaged Mughal army in open fields till later part of the war. If situation seemed dire, they would retreat and disperse and thus conserve most of their men and arms for another day. The rivers Bhima, Krishna , Godavari and the mountains of Sahyadri, divide entire Maharashtra region is in several North- South corridors. When Mughal army traveled South through one corridor, Marathas would travel North through another and launch attacks there. This went on changing gradually and in the end, Maratha forces started engaging Mughals head on.

A noted historian Jadunath Sarkar makes an interesting observation. In his own words, “Aurangzeb won battle after battles, but in the end he lost the war. As the war prolonged, it transformed from war of weapons to war of spirits, and Aurangzeb was never able to break Maratha spirit.”

What Marathas did was an classic example of asymmetric defensive warfare. The statement above by Mr. Sarkar hides one interesting fact about this asymmetric defense. Is it really possible to lose most of the battles and still win the war?

The answer is yes, and explanation is a statistical phenomena called “Simpson’s paradox.”. According to Simpsons paradox, several micro-trends can lead to one conclusion, however a mega-trend combining all the micro-trends can lead to an exact opposite conclusion. Explanation is as follows.

Say two forces go on war, force A with 100 soldiers and force B with 40 soldiers. Now say in every battle between A and B, the following happens.

If A loses, they lose 80% of the soldiers fighting.
If B loses, they only lose 10% of the soldiers fighting.
If A wins, they lose 50% of the solders fighting.
If B wins, they lose only 10% of the soldiers fighting.

In the case above, the ratio of (resource drain of A / resource drain of B ) is higher than (initial number of A soldiers / initial number of B soldiers). So even if A wins battle more than 50% of the time, they will lose their resources faster and, in the end, will lose the war. All B has to do is keep the morale and keep the consistency.

One of the most famous warrior in ancient Indian history seems to agree with the conclusion above. In “Bhishma- perva” of Mahabharata, pitamah Bhishma begins the war-advice to king Yudhisthira with a famous quote –

“The strength of an army is not in its numbers’

For centuries , the mountains and valleys, towns and villages of Deccan had gotten used to being a pawn in the game of power. They changed hands as kingdoms warred with each other. They paid taxes whoever was in a position to extract them. For the most part they remained in a sleepy slumber, just turning and twisting in their bed.
Once in a while they sent their sons to fight in battles without ever asking why exactly the war is being launched. Other times they fought amongst themselves. They were divided, confused and did not have high hopes about their future.
This was the condition of Deccan when Shivaji launched his first expedition of fort Torana in 1645. By the time of his death mere 35 years later, he had transformed Deccan from a sleepy terrain to a thundering volcano.

Finally, here was a man whose vision of future  was shared by a large general audience. An unmistakable characteristic of a modern concept of “nation-state”. Perhaps the most important factor that distinguishes Shivaji’s vision  is that it was “unifying”. His vision went beyond building an army of proud warriors from warrior castes. It included people from all rungs of society sharing a common political idea and ready to defend it at any cost.+++

His vision  went far beyond creating an empire for himself in Maharashtra. It included a building confederacy of states against what he thought were foreign invaders. He was trying to build an Alliance of Hindu kingdoms. He went out of his way to convince Mirza-Raje Jaisingh to leave Aurangzeb. He established relations with the dethroned royal family of Vijaynagar for whom he had tremendous respect. He attempted to unify the sparring Hindu power centers.

And  they responded. Rajputs in Rajasthan,  Nayaks in Karnataka, rulers of Mysore, the royal family of Vijaynagar were of valuable help to Shivaji and later to Marathas. It was certainly a step towards a nation getting its soul back.

While he was creating a political voice for Hindus, Muslims never faced persecution in his rule. Several Muslims served at high posts in his court and army. His personal body guard on his Agra visit was Muslim. His Naval officer, Siddi Hilal was Muslim. Thus Shivaji’s rule was not meant to challenge Islam as a personal religion, but it was a response to Political Islam.

Last but not the least, we must give due respect to one more thing. The seeds of every political revolution can be traced back to a spiritual one and this was no exception. The “Bhakti” movement in Maharashtra that began with 12th Century saint Dnyaneshwar and spearheaded by saint Tukaram (who was contemporary of Shivaji), played a role of social catalyst of immense effect. It created a forum, a pool in society where everyone was welcome.

It’s tempting for a Maharashtrian to claim the root of success of Marathas solely be in Maharashtra. But at the height of it’s peak, only 20% of Shivaji’s kingdom was part of Maharashtra. When Marathas launched northern campaigns in 18th century, it was even more less.

Soldiers in Maratha army came from diverse social and geographical backgrounds including from areas as far away as Kandahar to West and Bengal to East. Shivaji received a lot of support from various rulers and common people from all over India.

Thus limiting Marathas to Maharashtra is mostly a conclusion of a politician.  It must be noted that the roots of Maharashtra culture can be traced to both ancient Karnataka and Northern India. Shivaji himself traced his lineage to Shisodia family of Rajputs. Maharashtrians should not be ashamed to admit that their roots lie elsewhere. In fact they should feel proud that land of Maharashtra is truly a melting pot where Southern and Northern Indian cultures melted to give birth to a new vision of a nation. Shivaji was far more an Indian king than a Maratha king.

Dear readers, here ends the story of an epic war. I hope this saga gives you a sense of realistic hope and a sense of humble pride. All you might be doing today is sitting in a cubicle for the day ,typing on keyboard. But remember that the same blood runs in our fingers that long long time ago displayed unparalleled courage and bravery, the same spirit resides within us that can once soured sky high upon the call of freedom.

by Kedar Soman

References:

“History of Mahrattas” by James Duff –   http://www.archive.org/details/ahistorymahratt05duffgoog

“Shivaji and His Times” by Jadunath Sarkar – http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024056750

“A History Of Maratha People” by Charles Kincaid – http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmaratha02kincuoft

“Background of Maratha Renaissance” by N. K. Behere – http://www.archive.org/details/backgroundofmara035242mbp

“Rise of The Maratha Power” by Mahadev Govind Ranade – http://www.archive.org/details/RiseOfTheMarathapower

“Maratha History” by S R Sharma – http://www.archive.org/details/marathahistory035360mbp

(visit the links to download the full books in PDF form free)

(622722)

Prof. Mukhia replied to a critical query about Islamic history in India: “If you derive all your knowledge of medieval Indian history from ‘historians’ like Sita Ram Goel and Koenraad Elst and so forth, this is the shoddy history you will land up with. Sita Ram Goel was a publisher and seller of RSS books and his knowledge of history was confined to what he had learnt in the RSS shakhas. And the Belgian Elst is an honorary member of the VHP and knows no Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, any Indian language, much less Persian, so essential for getting to know medieval Indian history. And since Persian is not taught in the shakhas, Goel had no inkling of it either.”

Let us first set the language allegation straight before addressing the historical and political issues. Sita Ram Goel (1921-2003) had Hindi as mother tongue, a language in which he published several historical novels that were praised precisely for their pure and imaginative language. He went to an Urdu-medium school where Persian was part of the curriculum. He graduated from Delhi University where he studied History through the medium of English, a language in which he published many books. After his studies he lived in Bengal for a decade and became fluent in Bengali. He also read the Mahabharata and other Hindu classics in the original Sanskrit. As for myself, since Harbans Mukhia is unimpressed by real-life experience, let me just point to the testimony of my diplomas: I studied Hindi, Sanskrit and Persian, apart from Chinese and a number of European languages. After health problems starting in 2000, I haven’t been to India much, so my colloquial Hindi has become distinctly rusty; but I can still consult writings in that language. I also learned a smattering of classical Tamil a few years ago as well as biblical Hebrew and modern Arabic in my student days, now all but forgotten but I still know the grammar and some religious terminology. In all more than enough to do history.

Sita Ram Goel was a lifelong critic of the RSS, but unlike Mukhia, he knew what he was talking about. Already as a student, he remarked that only mediocre fellow-students were going to shakhas whereas the brighter ones were concentrating on other pursuits or were seduced by Communism. Anyone who has read some of his work (but that is where the problem for Mukhia arises) has seen for himself that its message is quite different from the RSS line.

Mukhia continues: “In the shakhas, they do tell you that Aurangzeb demolished temples and erected mosques in lieu of them (which he did at Mathura and Varanasi), but they never tell you that he was also giving monetary and land grants to other Hindu temples, including some in Varanasi itself, the original document for which is on display at the Bharat Kala Bhavan on BHU campus. Historians KK Datta and Jnana Prakash have also published numerous documents of Aurangzeb giving such grants to temples, maths and other Hindu institutions, and many more remain unpublished. Naturally ‘historians’ like Goel and Elst wouldn’t know of them, nor would care to know.”

It is not only in the shakhas that they tell you this. Aurangzeb himself gave orders for a general destruction of temples and literally demolished thousands of them. Many other Muslim rulers acted likewise. No amount of special pleading by the eminent historians can change Islam’s record in this regard. It is possible that earlier, Aurangzeb gave some grants to Hindu institutions, as had been the Moghul dynasty’s policy since Akbar. We should of course not take Mukhia’s word for it (the eminent historians have a well-established reputation for mendaciousness), and “numerous” is certainly an exaggeration, but it remains possible. This only shows the inertia of changing a policy, as well as Aurangzeb’s increase in devotion to Islam, from a compromise-prone successor of Akbar to a zealous activist for Islam, which does not tolerate idolatry.

One issue where the much-maligned RSS is clearly wrong in its assessment of Aurangzeb, is its condemnation of him as a fanatic person. The said grants to temples, if true, may further prove a point that I have had to make repeatedly: it is not true that Aurangzeb was a cruel character, he was not more so than his less notorious predecessors. If he was cruel and fatatic, it was because he started taking the core doctrine of Islam to his heart. He was a pious person, more than is good for a ruler, so he became increasingly averse to the religious compromise on which his great-grandfather Akbar had built the Moghul empire. So at some point in his advancing years, not his personal predilection but his growing commitment to Islam took over. That is when he ordered all Pagan temples destroyed: when the Moghul empire became truly Islamic at last. But the RSS is fearful to say this, so it tells itself and its listeners that Islam is okay but that Aurangzeb “misunderstood” his religion due to his cruel and fanatic personality.

The professor has some advice for my friend: “If you really want to study history look at the works of professional historians — Tara Chand, RP Tripathi, Mohd. Habib, ABM Habibullah, Satish Chandra, Irfan Habib, RM Eaton, Cynthia Talbot and many other stalwarts who gave their life time to studying medieval history from the original Persian sources, not from third rate and motivated translations like History of India as Told by its Own Historians. Motivated? Sir Henry Elliott, who compiled this 8-volume series, wrote in his Preface: The series is being compiled ‘to let the bombastic babus of India know how terrible Indians’ life was until the British came to their rescue’!! So, Sir Elliott translated only those passages from the Persian language chronicles of medieval India which spoke of Muslims’ atrocities on the Hindus!! He will tell you that Aurangzeb demolished temples, but not that he also patronised them!!! Much like the RSS does now and chaps like Goel and Elst follow in their footsteps.”

See, the eminent historians are as good at the use of exclamation marks as your average Hindutva internet warrior. And yes, Elliott was guilty of espousing the same theory which the eminent historians have been spreading, viz. that the British took India from the Moghuls, omitting the successful Hindu effort to liberate most of India from Muslim occupation and then succumbing to the British. But that doesn’t make his translations wrong. He selected those parts which would be most telling for the atrocities undergone by the Hindus under Muslim rule so that they would appreciate British rule by contrast – and then translated these faithfully. He reminded his Hindu readers that their “own historians” (meaning India-based Muslim chroniclers) had reported these Islamic atrocities. Anyway, I would like to see the secular improvement, e.g. how do you translate the frequently-used Arabic verb q-t-l, Persian kushtan, both meaning “kill”. There aren’t too many nuances to that, are there?

Elliott’s translations were correct, but yes, they were selective. Secularists would have preferred to plough through an 88-volume rather than an 8-volume translation. But they are at liberty to go through all the untranslated parts and try to find a refutation there of what was described so explicitly in the translated parts. The Muslim chroniclers were in no mind to undo all the destruction they had evoked, so in the less dramatic parts of their work, they explored more leisurely subjects but refrained from trying their hand at what the secularists would like to read there, viz. any refutation of the grim picture they had first painted, and which Elliott and others have ably translated.

For lack of facts, Prof. Mukhia likes to throw names around instead. But a real historian remains unimpressed by this show of name-dropping. The fact that Prof. Mukhia has many like-minded colleagues in academe while his opponents have to remain on the outside is not the result of better competence among his friends, but of a deliberate policy in university nominations. Any young historian who lets on too early that he has pro-Hindu convictions, will see his entry into academe barred. Word will spread around that this man is “dangerous to India’s secular fabric” and he will be excluded. There have been some old historians who entered the profession before their cards were on the table and who only became forthright critics of Islam at the end of their careers, the likes of Prof. Harsh Narain and Prof. K.S. Lal, both since long deceased. Today among university historians, the school that sets the record on Islam straight is simply non-existent.

Fortunately, the political equation that makes the present secular-Islamic bias possible, is bound to come to an end one day. The elderly Prof. Mukhia won’t live to see that revolution anymore, but it is sure to happen. The truth which the eminent historians have long suppressed, will shine in the open. On that day, I wouldn’t like  to be called Harbans Mukhia.

The professor concludes: “I know this would have no effect on you. But just by chance if you can pick up enough courage to study history on your own and not parrot the history taught in the shakhas. Best wishes, Harbans Mukhia”

It seems Harbans Mukhia mistook his correspondent for some fanatic Hindutvavadi, the kind who remains impervious to facts. Not that I know many such cases, for even the most extreme ones I’ve met remain true to a central fact that really occurred, viz. Islamic atrocities against Hindus. Some of them have personally lived through the Islamic carnage at the time of Partition or during the Bangladesh liberation war, massacres which completely dwarfed all Indian religious riots put together (including the largest of them all, the killing of three thousand Sikhs by Congress secularists in 1984). But this correspondent is a successful cyberprofessional in Silicon Valley, who has made a more sophisticated study of just what it was that Islam wrought in India.

The greatest insult which the eminent historians could fling at Sita Ram Goel or myself is that we are “parroting history taught in the shakhas”. First off, I don’t even know what history they teach there. I have visited a few shakhas and can’t remember any history being taught there. I speculate it is streamlined to fit the Hindu and nationalist narrative, or at least that Mukhia wants to convey that impression. So be it, but historians have other sources for their history-writing and are not parrots of a party or movement. The main exception are the Indian secularists, whose conclusions are invariably those desired and taught by the Nehruvian rulers.

A second mail by the professor starts out by ridiculing the RSS concept of history: “First, the RSS rant started in the 1960s with the figure of 300 temples destroyed by the Muslim rulers; then in the 70s another 0 was added. Yet another got added in the 80s. But by the 90s the Sangh Parivar ran out of 0s, so they adopted another arithmetical formula of multiplying by 2 and the figure now stood at a respectable 60,000.”

 This claim may be true or not, but I am not privy to RSS historiography. As a matter of fact, 60,000 may just happen to be a good number, for the documented cases of temple destruction (and they already run into the thousands) are necessarily only a fraction of the more everyday cases, which must have been even more numerous. But we as historians can only deal with documented cases, especially since these are difficult enough. Indeed, of the ca. 2,000 cases listed by Sita Ram Goel, and more than 20 years after having been out in the open, not one has been refuted by Prof. Mukhia and his school.

So, like most secularists, he goes hiding behind an American self-described Marxist, Prof. Richard Eaton: “RM Eaton, who would necessarily be suspect in your eyes because he is a an American historian, examined the number of temples destroyed in the whole expanse of medieval India from 1200 to 1760 and came to the figure of 80. He has located the exact source of information or each demolition and put all the information in a tabular form. His brilliant article is called ‘Temple Desecration in Medieval India’. By the way, Eaton is aware of the figure of 60,000 handed out to credulous people like Sita Ram Goel, Koenraad Elst and yourself.”

In several respects, Eaton’s count is incomplete. Muslims destroyed Hindu temples before 1200 and after 1760 too, witness the near-absence of the once-numerous Hindu temples in Pakistan, witness the regular occurrence of temple destruction in Bangla Desh. It is also seriously false that for this period, Eaton’s count is complete. How could it be? Off-hand, Venkat could name a few cases from his own Tamil village, which was only briefly touched by the Islamic invasions but nonetheless already lost several temples, and they don’t figure in Eaton’s list. Archeologists regularly find remains of destroyed temples, often underneath mosques, which do not and cannot figure in Eaton’s list. Finally, one item on Eaton’s list doesn’t mean one temple destroyed. The thousand temples destroyed in Varanasi during Mohammed Ghori’s advances ca. 1194 form only one item on his list. What Mukhia calls “eighty” is in fact thousands of temple demolitions. So in spite of his Islam-friendly intentions, Eaton has only proven what Hindus have been saying all along: Islam has destroyed thousands of temples.

I had in fact answered Eaton’s list and explanation when they were published: “Vandalism sanctified by scripture”, Outlook India, 31 Aug. 2001 ( http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?213030). Needless to say, my arguments have never been refuted by anyone. Secular historians are so sure about controlling the information flow through education and the media that they don’t bother to interfere when their falsehoods are exposed. In the article, I also mention Eaton’s sidekick Yoginder Sikand, then a furious Hindu-hater and secularist journalist. But in the meantime, he has recanted and exposed the whole self-serving buffoonery that does by the name secularism: “Why I Gave Up On ‘Social Activism’”, Countercurrents.org, 19 April, 2012: (http://www.countercurrents.org/sikand190412.htm).

Prof. Mukhia goes on: “Incidentally, Hindu temples were also demolished by Hindu rulers long before Muslims came to India. King Harsha of Kashmir had appointed an officer, devopatananayaka (officerin-charge of uprooting of gods) as reported by Kalhana’s Rajatarangini and mosques were also destroyed by the Hindu rulers in medieval India. Details of it can be found in my book, The Mughals of India. Incidentally, I have never been funded by any US agency, University or institution and all my education has been in India, and all schooling in Hindi medium. This is just to guard you against the stupidity of levying charges such as you have done against the most outstanding Indian historian of our time, Romila Thapar.”

As for Harsha, chronicler Kalhana says: “Prompted by the Turks in his employ, he behaved like a Turk.” It is simply not true that his case exemplifies a Hindu type of iconoclasm. On the contrary, he merely shows the influence of Islamic iconoclasm. Half-literate secularists keep on repeating this story a decade after it has been refuted in my paper “Harsha of Kashmir, a Hindu iconoclast?”, ch.4 of my book Ayodhya: the Case against the Temple (Delhi 2002; http://www.scribd.com/doc/10022510/Ayodhya-3-Books-by-Koenraad-Elst).

It should be granted to Prof. Harbans Mukhia, as to his colleague Prof. Irfan Habib, that they have faithfully followed the old Nehruvian line of distrusting the “foreign hand”, particularly the Americans. This is very unlike their colleague Prof. Romila Thapar, who has been lavishly sponsored in Washington DC. And among their generation, this was still exceptional. Indian secularists were admired from afar, followed by the leading American scholars of India, like Prof. Paul Brass or Prof. Robert Frykenberg, but keeping their distance because of the reigning anti-Americanism. Now however, Indian academics of the right persuasion are openly courted and hosted by American colleagues.

 Returning to the subject-matter, the professor asks: “But the question is more complex: how is it that Aurangzeb, an orthodox Muslim on RSS account, waited for 21 years after coming to the throne to reimpose the jazia? You remember the date of its abolition by Akbar but not one of its reimposition which is 1679. How did he keep his religious zeal in check for 21 long years when he was the undisputed sovereign of India? And why was he giving grants to temples while he was keen on demolishing it? The questions is WHY?”

“The answer is that huge and complex empires are not governed by religious zeal of its rulers but by an enormously complex interaction of political, administrative, cultural, social and religious considerations. Remember Rajiv Gandhi passing a Bill in Parliament after the Shah Bano judgment of the Supreme Court and getting the doors to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid disputed site opened almost simultaneously? Was he being a zealous Muslim or a zealous Hindu or just a clever political manipulator?”

Strictly speaking, not the Government but the Court opened the locks of the Ayodhya building. But it stands to reason that the two played together, and that the Court executed the policy desired by the Government. At any rate, yes, Rajiv Gandhi was a clever manipulator, zealous only in furthering his personal power and wealth. He intended to solve the communal situation bloodlessly by handing the Hindus full control of Ayodhya (including the right to rebuild a temple instead of the Babri Masjid) and giving the Muslims other goodies, such as a Sharia-inspired change in the law  on Muslim divorce or the ban on Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses. This not-so-principled but very practical policy, typical of the “Congress culture”, would have succeeded but for the intervention of the eminent historians and like-minded intellectuals: they raised the stakes on Ayodhya and the Babri Masjid (“the bulwark of India’s secular polity”, etc.) so much that the Government could no longer pursue its pragmatic give-and-take plan. The result was endless religious riots, the surreptitious demolition, and more riots culminating in the Muslim bomb attacks on Mumbai of 12 March 1993, which pioneered a new Muslim tactic repeated in many other bomb attacks including those on the US of 11 September 2001. The eminent historians have blod on their hands.

It is also true that the Moghul empire was based on a religious compromise, that Aurangzeb’s conversion to a more principled Islamic policy jeopardized this compromise, and thereby endangered the empire itself. At the end of his life, amid Hindu rebellions, Aurangzeb understood this well enough. But he was too much of a pious Muslim to turn the clock back.

“As for Sita Ram Goel — he used to rant regularly in the Indian Express about the little that RSS had taught him of history: Islam teaches you intolerance, every Muslim ruler was inspired by Islam to destroy Hindu temples and Hindu society etc. etc. and how Marxist historians cannot face up to the truth of all his rants. You obviously read all this avidly. You obviously did not read ‘Reflections of the Past’ in the same paper dated 30.4.1989 by a non-descript historian called Harbans Mukhia. Since that date, Sita Ram Goel did not write a thing at least in the Indian Express. Please check it out; it should be available on the IE website. If not, you will find it in the same non-descript historian’s book Issues in Indian History, Politics and Society, pp. 31-34. Please forgive me for advertising my own writings; I avoided reference to myself in my earlier response, but since you were out to challenge us secular historians, I felt compelled to reverse my earlier decision. In any case you wouldn’t have heard of many historians anyway; the RSS never lets you know that they exist.”

Well, I didn’t know about this episode. 1989 is the year when I first met Sita Ram Goel, at the end of the year. Arun Shourie was then the editor of Indian Express, and in that capacity, he published a number of articles that went against the secularist opinion. In his books on religion and communalism, he made use of insight he had learned from Goel. It is very much news to me, and does indeed sound highly unlikely, that Shourie would have censored Goel. And it sounds completely ridiculous to assume that Goel laid his pen aside because of what an eminent historian wrote. For the next 14 years, Goel keept on writing forcefully against all anti-Hindu forces including those represented by Mukhia.

As a parting-shot, the eminent historian informs us a bit more about his locus standi regarding translations: “By the way, the translations of the medieval Indian Persian texts are quite often atrocious. I happen to know because my doctorate at Delhi University back in 1969 was an evaluation of these texts. It is called Historians and Historiography During the Reign of Akbar.”

As already said, “killing” is something that happened frequently when Muslims encountered Hindus, and the Muslim chroniclers thus had to describe this process quite often. Harbans Mukhia has not convinced us that under the hands of the translators, “killing” only got mentioned as a mistranslation of, say, “tolerating”. Maybe the more abstruse elements in the narrative were subject to mistranslation, but the relation between Hindus and Muslims was pretty straightforward and hard to mistake for friendship.

The august professor bids us goodbye: “Voila, this is my last intervention in this so-called debate. I have better things to do than rectifying the RSS version of history. Best wishes, Harbans Mukhia”. Amen to that.

(5949)

After the death of the great king Shivaji in 1680 the nascent Maratha kingdom faced a great challenge. The Moghul Emperor Aurungzeb had been confounded and defeated by the repeated battles with the Marathas and the high spirit of Shivaji. With the forces of fanaticism released throughout South Asia and to sustain himself the aged emperor leaned ever heavier on the clerics and upon religious exclusivism. The king of the Marathas with his slaying of the Afghan war leader, Afzal Khan, the daring attack on Shaista Khan and the escape from the very depths of the Mughal Empire in Delhi were the stuff of legend in the lifetime of Shivaji himself. The deaths of the great Rajput Chiefs, Jai Singh and Jaswant Singh around the same time seemed to open the floodgates of repression and extremism even further. Orders were issued to demolish the Hindu temples and impose the hated poll tax on non-Muslims – the jaziya.

As the empire groaned in its agony resistance began to multiply and grow leading to further repressions. The Bundelas in central India began fighting; the Jats of the Mathura region and the Rajput clans of the Rathores and Sisodiyas in Rajasthan even leading to a son of Aurangzeb named Akbar  to join the Rajput’s. In fury the enraged Emperor led the main imperial army to crush his son and his erstwhile rebellion.

Further south the Mughals believed that the Marathas would be unable to repeat their exploits under the son of Shivaji, Shambaji thinking that the sustenance of this new Hindu kingdom rested on one able man alone. Like so many other rebellions in that period, he thought the Maratha movement too must have received its death blow with the passing of its able leader, and by the fact that Shivaji had been succeeded by his brave but incapable son, Sambhaji. Sambhaji had courage, which he indeed demonstrated on various occasions, but also indulged in excesses leading his father on occasion forced to consider a severe punishment for his own son. Sambhaji in his rage left and joined the Moghuls! This was an intensely painful time in Shivaji’s life. Sambhaji left the Moghuls and begged for forgiveness when he witnessed first-hand the atrocities against Hindus.

Shambaji offered refuge to Akbar and in 1682 the lost son of Aurangzeb escorted by the Rajput’s arrived in safety in Maharashtra. Close behind the Emperor entered the Maratha Kingdom in the same year. Few would have guessed that he would never return to the north spending the last 27 years of his life in a futile and eventually failed war with the Hindus.

The war was engaged and raged from this period onwards in a steady ebb and flow in the hills of western India with neither side able to emerge over the other. The steady courage of Shambaji was only matched by his impetuous and rash nature. Only his minister Kavi Kalash was able to exercise any control over the headstrong king. An equal measure of the rage of shamabji was directed towards any perceived rivals or dissenters in his kingdom and he dealt with the same with extreme severity and with all the rage for which he was justly famous.

Blood flowed over the mountains and the land was ruined but the people fought on. The full force of the empire was now borne down on the barren hills and the prime generals and troops of the Mughals now all entered into the fray. For seven years more that war continued with its monotonous tale of attack and counter attack – of determined sieges and equally determined sieges. Of forts falling to the Mughals only to be retaken months later and for the cycle of destruction to continue.

In 1689 however the situation changed. The Maratha king was at Sangameshwar unaware of the nearness of his enemies and with a scant force around him. After a sudden raid under Muqarrab Khan a Mughal force reached the place and after a bitter fight succeeded in capturing Shamabaji and Kavi Kalash.

The next chapter is best described in the words of the : Masir I Alambiri, the official history of Aurangzeb’s reign:

Shamba was brought before the court. The Emperor out of his devotion to Islam ordered that from four miles before the camp Shambha should be made an object of ridicule …..so that the Muslims might be encouraged and the Hindus discouraged by the sight. The night in the morning after which he was brought to the Court …in the joyous expectation of seeing the spectacle, and the day was like the day of Eid because all men, old and young went out to see such a scene of joy and happiness.

The Emperor ordered that man to be removed to the prisons and in that moment Aurangzeb descended from the throne and kneeling down on the carpet of prayer bowed his head to the ground in thanksgiving and raised his hands in prayer to Allah….and drops of marvel(lit tears) fell from his far reaching eyes As the destruction of this wicked infidel in consideration of the harshness and disgrace that he had inflicted by slaying and imprisoning Muslims and plundering Muslims — and by the decision of the Doctors of the Law all were in favour of killing Shamba and thus he was killed with Kavi Kalash.

After two days the Emperor ordered Ruhullah Khan to ask Shamba where he had kept his treasure . In these circumstances that haughty man opened his mouth in defiant and vain words about the Emperor (Aurangzeb) – So the Emperor ordered him to be blinded by driving nails into his two eyes -So it was done. But that proud man from his high spirit gave up taking food from that day onwards and continued to shout defiance to The emperor and the tenents of Islam.

Maratha sources report:

When they were brought face to face with Aurangzeb, the latter offered to let Sambhaji live if he surrendered all the Maratha forts, turned over all his hidden treasures and disclosed the names of all the Mughal officers who had helped him. Sambhaji refused, and instead sang the praises of Mahadev (Lord Shiva). Aurangzeb ordered him and Kavi Kalash to be tortured to death. Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash were brutally tortured for over a fortnight. The torture involved plucking out their eyes and tongue and pulling out their nails. The later part involved removing their skin. On March 11, 1689, Sambhaji was finally killed, reportedly by tearing him apart from the front and back with ‘Wagh Nakhe’ (‘Tiger claws’, a kind of weapon), and was beheaded with an axe. This grievous death was given to him at Vadhu on the banks of the Bhima river, near Pune.

From the Persian history (Fatuhat I Alamgiri) :

“At last the case was reported to the Emperor and by his order Shambaji was taken to the place of execution and his limbs were hacked of one after the other- his severed head was publicly exposed across the Empire and taken to Delhi and hung on the gate of that city”

All accounts refer to days of horrific torture and agony which were borne with astonishing firmness and stoicism by Shambaji and his Brahmin minister Kavi Kalash. Even the purported offers of clemency on the public display of submission and/or an escape from the horror by conversion to Islam had little effect on the unfortunate Maratha king. After being blinded and his tongue cut from his mouth he surprisingly with great difficulty was still able to communicate and to continue to offer defiance to his oppressors.The memory of his inspirational father must have been close to Shambaji in the last days – given just sufficient time to rest between the tortures and removal of limbs after nearly two weeks of horrendous and unthinkable pain the broken and limbless king was executed – His head was cut off and placed in public display around the cities and towns of Maharashtra as a warning. But it did not have the desired effect.

The news of the execution of the son of the much revered and loved king Shivaji send a wave of horror and revulsion throughout the land. His brother Rajaram took the crown and retreated to the great fortress of Jinji to endure a 10 year long siege by the Mughals. The excesses of Shamabji were forgotten – news of the method of his death and more importantly the accounts of the dead king spread like wildfire amongst the Marathas. For his adherence to the Hindu Dharma the people named him ‘Dharamveer’ the warrior of Dharma

In the moment of his apparent triumph Aurangzeb was beset by an even greater tide of enemies. The Marathas under their war bands and leaders took to fight all over the western and southern parts of India from coast to coast. Their soldiers everywhere continually harried and fought the Mughals in an even greater tidal wave of resistance. The harried and worn emperor continued to fight in the face of ever increasing odds. The peoples of the north of India began to rise in rebellions and struggles eventually leading to the destruction of the Mughals. For 27 long years Aurangzeb continued with his fight against the Marathas only to die in despair in 1707.

The son of Shivaji had redeemed the pledge of his father of Hindu Padshahi – His heroic death led to the eventual victory over the forces The Maratha Hindu empire rose on the ruins of the Mughals and a hundred years after the execution of Shambaji a defeated and blinded Mughal Padshah, Shah Alam fell at the feet and mercy of the Maratha warrior and kingmaker Mahadji Sindhia.

The dreams and inspirations of the great Hindu Monarch Shivaji echo through history as a lesson against the forces of fanaticism and prejudice.

(132164)

None however provoked as much terror and fear in the hearts of their enemies as the slogan of the Hindu Padshahi coined by the first great leader Shivaji of the irresistible cavalry pouring from the arid hills of Western India. These were the Hindu Marathas. From the inspiration of Shivaji and Sant Ramdas they unleashed such energies into India that the Mughal Empire fell in ruin.

Following the death of Shivaji and the 27 year war of liberation the Marathas freed their homeland from Mughal tyranny when the son of the prime minister, a 19 year old named Baji Rao made an inspired speech in the court of the Maratha king.

[box_light]

‘Strike, strike at the heart of the rotting tree and the branches will fall of themselves. Then this land of the Hindus will be free’

[/box_light]

He then embarked on a ceaseless twenty year campaign in a strike northwards, every year inching nearer to Delhi and the extinction of the Mughal Empire. It is said that the Mughal emperor was in such terror that he refused a meeting with Baji Rao, fearing to sit in his presence. The holy pilgrimage routes of the Hindus from Mathura, to Benares to Somnath were made free of harassment.

The greatest of the warriors of the empire, Mughal, Pathan and Central Asian alike were defeated by Baji Rao: Nizam ul Mulk, Khan I Dauran, Muhammad Khan are but a few of the names of the warriors who failed before the Marathas. The Battles of Bhopal, Palkhed, the victories over the Portuguese invaders in Western India are amongst his great achievements.He died at the untimely age of 39 in 1739, in military camp surrounded by his army.He has been described as the incarnation of Hindu energy, ceaselessly striving for 20 years to establish the Hindu Padshahi.

His sons continued his mission of carrying the saffron flag to the gates of Afghanistan in 1758 to the fort of Attock in the North and simultaneously marching to the Southern shores of India. He represents the creative and destructive power of Dharma as he unleashed the urge of a people yearning to be free and remains as a symbol of victory to the modern day.

What others said :

J. Grant Duff says in “History of the Marathas”:

“Bred a soldier as well as a statesman, Baji rao united the enterprise, vogour, and hardihood of a Maratha chief with the polished manners, the sagacity, and address which frequently distinguish the Brahmins of the Concan. Fully acquainted with the financial schemes of his father, he selected that part of the plan calculated to direct the predatory hordes of Maharashtra in a common effort. In this respect, the genious of Baji rao enlarged the schemes which his father devised; and unlike most Brahmins of him, it may be truly said- he had both- the head to plan and the hand to execute.

“Sir R. Temple says in “Oriental Experiences”:

“Bajirao was hardly to be surpassed as a rider and was ever forward in action, eager to expose himself under fire if the affair was arduous. He was inured to fatigue and prided himself on enduring the same hardships as his soldiers and sharing their scanty fare. He was moved by an ardour for success in national undertakings by a patriotic confidence in the Hindu cause as against its old enemies, the Muhammadans and its new rivals, the Europeans then rising above the political horizon. He lived to seethe Maratha spread over the Indian continent from the Arabian sea to the Bay of Bengal. He died as he lived in camp under canvas among his men and he is remembered among the Marathas as the fighting Peshwa, as the incarnation of Hindu energy.

“Jadunath Sarkar says in his forward to “Peshwa Bajirao I and Maratha Expansion”

“Bajirao was a heaven born cavalry leader. In the long and distinguished galaxy of Peshwas, Bajirao Ballal was unequalled for the daring and originality of his genius and the volume and value of his achievements. He was truly a carlylean Hero as king- or rather as Man of action.’ If Sir Robert Walpole created the unchallengeable position of the Prime Minister in the unwritten constitution of England, Bajirao created the same institution in the Maratha Raj at exactly the same time.

“Surendra Nath Sen says in “The Military System of the Marathas”:

“The lover of Mastani knew well how to appeal to the religious sentiments of his co-religionists, although he could scarcely be considered an orthodox Brahman… Shivaji had given the Marathas a common cry, and none appreciated the potency of that cry clearly than Peshwa Bajirao. Shivaji’s military reforms he would not or could not revive, but he stood forth, as Shivaji had done, as champion of Hinduism. People of Central and Northern India saw in him a new deliverer.”

(11918)

These and other such theories are happily put forward as history of Hindus for the past 14 centuries and postulated by self proclaimed scholars from both within and without the Hindu fold. It was something I have heard from my youth and accepted without question.

However some thoughts rankled in my mind. If the Hindus were truly slaves for a thousand years plus, then how have we survived to this day with dignity and honour and with a spiritual tradition stretching back to the mists of time and beyond? Many other cultures, civilisations and spiritual traditions have been reduced to museum pieces, but the words of the Holy Vedas are recited in an identical fashion today as they were thousands of years ago when first revealed to the Rishis.

This is no mean achievement.How did Hindus survive and manage to maintain a civilisational identity stretching into the dawn of human history? How was Sanatana Dharma kept alive as a living presence in the world, and indeed regenerated over time if the Hindus were slaves for so long? This impelled me to look for the truth myself, and undertake a study of the history of the Hindu people.

The beginning of Hindus’ “thousand years of slavery” is supposed to have begun with the overrunning of India by Muslims of Arab and Turkish origin. It is popularly believed that Hindus put up a feeble defense and that the Islamic armies had a cake walk through India. If we examine at what actually happened, however, we see that Hindus put up a huge struggle, which was eventually victorious.

Following the death of their founder, Muhammad we see the Arab Khilafat expand swiftly over the Middle and Near East, pouring over the deserts of North Africa and crossing the waters to begin a six century occupation of Spain and beyond. The combined might of Christian Europe struggled again and again to reclaim the ‘holy lands’ to end in bitter failure with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled over a large part of Eastern Europe for centuries.

On the other side, the lands of Iran, home of the ancient and historical Persian civilisation fell to the yet undefeated Arab warriors and within a short period the indigenous culture becoming extinct or expelled, today being largely the confine of museums and relics. The Arab hordes then pushed into the Indian Subcontinent, land of the Hindus, overwhelming the small desert region of Sindh and then attempted to push and conquer the existing Hindu kingdoms. Here however their advance was stopped.

With the inspiration of Sant Gorakhnath the warrior clans of the Rajputs united under their legendary king Bappa Rawal and in a series of Battles known collectively as the Battle of Rajashtan inflicted a heavy defeat on the Arab invaders in 738 CE. Any further advances by the Arabs were repelled, impelling the formation of large organised Hindu states in the centre and west of India. Frustrated by their failures in India the Arabs turned northwards shortly after defeating the Chinese Empire in the Battle of Talas in 751 CE opening the gate for the Islamisation of Central Asia. India remained unaffected for another three hundred years. (the “thousand years of slavery theory” was beginning to shake)

The Islamisation of Central Asia began to grow apace and one by one the ancient Buddhist kingdoms began to totter and fall as tribe after tribe joined the ranks of the growing Muslim religion. The destruction of Buddhism and its centers in the region prompted an exodus towards India, and the conversion of the remaining clans to Islam. The Muslim armies were expanded, filled with the zeal and energy of new converts, who were sent spiraling towards the Middle East to fight the advancing Crusaders under the leadership of Saladin. Another wave of attacks poured towards India resulting in large scale damage and loot from the subcontinent under the leadership of Mahmud of Ghazni around 1000 CE.

Two further centuries passed as further advances were resisted until a breakthrough around 1200 CE allowed the invaders access to the North Indian plains. The remaining Buddhists were slaughtered or converted in an unprecedented orgy of violence and horror. The majority Buddhist regions of Afghanistan, Kashmir and West Punjab joined the crescent banner of Islam. However the conversion of Hindus was slower and the resistance was more fierce. Hindu warrior clans kept up a relentless resistance fighting from the deserts, the mountains and the forests. The heavy cavalry of the Muslim Turks which had proved fatal to the Crusaders of Western Europe were victorious on the plains of North India but this did not prevent an endless cycle of attack and counter attack by the Hindus.

It took nearly another hundred years under the leadership of the infamous Aladdin Khilji for the Muslims Empire firmly established itself in India. This mantle was inherited by the Tughlaqs only to lead to a revival from the Hindu population.

The religious traditions of India had been severely mauled by the endless bloodletting over the past two centuries. Many important institutions and temples were destroyed. Prosperity suffered, as it tends to in times of continuous war. This created a certain weakening of Hindu society. Religion became preserved in rituals which were less and less understood. Sanskrit learning was on the decline. Caste became more rigid.

However, a religious renewal took place in the form of the “Bhakti movement”. A simplified form of Hinduism particularly suitable to the times emerged. A new wave of spiritual teachers preaching that simple devotion and love of God and love of all people and creatures is the simplest root to salvation. A message of defiance and brotherhood from saints and rishis from all corners of India emerged. From Tukram and Namdev from the west of India, from Nanak in Punjab, from Chaitanya in the east and Kabir in the north plus many others, the message of dharma revived itself in the teeth of an implacable enemy.

The fearless postulating of the brotherhood of all mankind defied the savagery raging around them as the Turks endeavoured to convert the entire subcontinent to Islam and the Hindus fighting tooth and nail to resist. The Muslim empire seemed to rest on specified military encampments and cities surrounded by a sea of hostile Hindus usually left to their own devices. Hundred of Rajahs and Maharajahs dotted the nation living in virtual independence from the central authorities in which traditions of culture and religion were maintained unchanged through the centuries.

Other larger organised resistance emerged in the Vijaynagara Empire of South India around 1336 CE which consolidated Hindu resistance for over two centuries. In the north the revival of the Rajput kingdoms and the defiance of kings like those of Orissa under the Gajapati Kings, the hills of Punjab under Jasrath Khokhar and the rise of neo Hindu kingdoms in the north east of India along with the entire hill region signaled the revival of Hindu rule over vast tracts of India.

A steady period of Hindu growth then ensued until by the dawn of the 1500’s the southern region of India was dominated by the mighty king of the Vijaynagara Empire, Krishnadevarya and the north by the revival of the valiant Rajputs under the charismatic leadership of Rana Sanga (grandfather of the equally illustrious Rana Pratap).

The tides of history however turned again – with the influx of cannons and other artillery utilised by Babur the Mughal entered into the Indian subcontinent against which the wild charges of the Rajputs and Pathans had no answer. The reckless disregard of their own lives in the defence of dharma saw a series of battles in which the Hindu forces fought quite literally to the last man woman and child, most famously the siege of Chhitor in 1567. The utter refusal of the Hindus to surrender in the century old tussle with Islam for political control over the subcontinent was a lesson not lost by the new Emperor Akbar.

He instead moved away from the tenets of Islam to a new faith of the Din i Ilahi. By following the age old traditions of religious toleration in India he endeared himself to the majority population and through a period of compromise and alliance brought a brief period of peace to the troubled land.

This tenuous alliance was shattered by his descendant Aurangzeb who in his zeal for the establishment of an Islamic state caused an upheaval which left the Mughal Empire fall beyond all hope of repair.

The renewal of the civilisational Hindu-Islam conflict saw the rise of a generation of Sants and holy men inspiring the people for the defence of dharma which saw the might of the Mughals humbled by Rajputs, Marathas, Jats, Satnamis, Ahoms,  Bundelas and others. In a cataclysmic wave of defiance the Mughal Empire lay broken and on its ruins rose a number of Hindu states competing for space in the subcontinent.

The inspirational rise of the Maratha king Shivaji and his bold defiance of the Mughal empire in the noontide of its realm is an apt example.

Who did the British wrest control of India from?

When the British came on the Indian scene, it is thought or assumed by many people that he British took control of India from the Mughals. This is not true. In fact, by the time that the British emerged as a major force in India, the Muslim political power in the subcontinent had been virtually cast down.

The situation is best defined by a British author, H.G.Keene

[box_light]

 The idea, however, that the British have wrested the Empire from the Mohamadans is a mistake. The Mohamadans were beaten down — almost everywhere except in Bengal — before the British appeared upon the scene; Bengal they would not have been able to hold, and the name of the “Mahratta Ditch” of Calcutta shows how near even the British there were to extirpation by India’s new masters. Had the British not won the battles of Plassey and Buxar, the whole Empire would ere now have become the fighting ground of Sikhs, Rajputs, and Mahrattas and others. Except the Nizam of the Deccan there was not a vigorous Musalman ruler in India after the firman of Farokhsiar in 1716; the Nizam owed his power to the British after the battle of Kurdla in 1795), and it was chiefly British support that maintained the feeble shadow of the Moghul Empire, from the death of Alamgir II. to the retirement of Mr. Hastings. Not only Haidarabad but all the other existing Musalman principalities of modern India owe their existence, directly, or indirectly, to the British intervention.

[/box_light]

The march of western civilisation ended the Hindu revival at a time when Hindus exercised control over almost the entire subcontinent. But it took Three wars with the Marathas, two wars with the Gurkhas, war with the Jaats, also smaller ranging wars with the Santhals, Sanyasis and many others .

Hindus unwillingness to surrender culminated in the huge uprising from the predominantly Hindu sepoys in 1857 which almost brought the British Indian Empire to a swift conclusion being the largest anti colonial uprising in history. The end result was 90 years of imperialist rule.

This was matched by a concerted disarming of the population by the British rulers, leaving only select regions free from the disarming which were perceived as loyal to the British under the flawed marital race theory. This theory propagated by the forerunners of the concepts of eugenics and Nazism believed the Indian races could not match the British combination of physical and mental facilities.

Thus a large percentage of Hindu population, despite holding sway of almost all of the Indian subcontinent were delegated into the non martial section by the British. Other sections believed to be of sufficient physical abilities (but not mental development) were delegated by the Imperialists as ‘martial races’ This flawed theory was propagated as an absolute truth (still followed by some) and together with the disarming of the population led to the diminishing of the martial spirit amongst Hindus.

However the theories propagated by the British found challengers from the Hindus. Spurred by a revaluation of their history and the knowledge of western theories a new revival began to take fruit. From the universal preaching of Swami Vivekananda to the guns of the Anushilan Samiti the Hindus were at the forefront of a growing anti colonial challenge to the most powerful empire in the world. Finally finding control of the subcontinent untenable in the teeth of endless opposition the British Indian Empire collapsed in a wave of unprecedented bloodshed which has seen a slow and steady spread and reach of the Hindu world.

So again, I was stumped by this ‘thousand years of slavery’ theory. I was even more surprised to find this postulated by otherwise very earnest Hindus in the mistaken belief of their own history.

When examining our history I saw a spirit of defiance stretching over a thousand years in the face of implacable and merciless enemies, who put an end to many other cultures and civilisations. The same forces which had overcome virtually every indigenous civilisation in the world had thrown their entire might against India – and failed.

Attack after attack was defeated. Horrific massacres did not force the people to abandon their religion and identity. The destruction of holy places did not see dharma die but rise again and overcome their opponents with the power of truth. The banner of freedom was raised generation after generation despite the best attempts of some vested parties to blur the truths and sacrifices made again and again.

So 150 years of effective rule by the Muhamadans and 90 years of British rule was suddenly expanded into ‘one thousand years of slavery’ an utterly absurd contention is being bandied about like an absolute truth but has failed to hide the facts that remain unaltered in history. Ancient faiths like Buddhism and Zoroasterism were almost obliterated from the Middle East, Central Asia and India but the Hindus rose in defiance to emerge even stronger at the end of the blood soaked millennia.

Even well wishers of Hindus, lost in their Victorian outlook on India have propagated the same absurdities in total insult of the enduring Hindu spirit. The spirit is best exemplified by the renowned historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar when talking of the legendary Maratha king Shivaji:

[box_light]He [Shivaji] has proved that the Hindus can still produce not only clerks and soldiers but rulers of men. (…) Shivaji proved that the tree of Hinduism is not really dead – that it rose from the seemingly crushing load of centuries of attack and put forth new leaves and lifted its head to the skies.[/box_light]

 Read Part 2 of this article > Did the British save Hindus ?

(41258)