Several media reports had widely speculated that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has amended its publications, notably the 12th-class History book, and removed certain chapters on the Mughal empire. Islamists and Mughal sympathising liberals on social media started insinuating that future generations would never know about Mughals because of this change in the coursebooks. Such tweets soon came under constructive criticism that future generations should know about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj far more than Mughal tyrants and when they study the tyrants, they should lean about the full extent of their atrocities instead of the glorification they are taught today.
Defending the Mughal-sympathising point of view, Sujata Anandan – the editor of the fraud-accused Congress mouthpiece National Herald – tweeted, “Taj Mahal is no abomination. It is one of the seven wonders of the world and India gets maximum tourist returns from that monument. Chhatrapati Shivaji was great, of course. But his exploits would be reduced to nothing without the Moghuls he fought against. Defied them. Was captured by them. Escaped their high-security dungeons. Defeated them in many battles. Was a constant thorn in the side of Emperor Aurangzeb who could never overcome Shivaji. Take away the Moghuls and you take away the raison d’etre of Chhatrapati Shivaji.”
In this tweet, Sujata essentially attributed the glory of courage of Shivaji Maharaj to the Mughals as well, saying that Shivaji would be ‘nothing’ had the Mughals not been tyrants invading Bharat.
Taj Mahal is no abomination. It is one of the seven wonders of the world and India gets maximum tourist returns from that monument. Chhatrapati Shivaji was great, of course. But his exploits would be reduced to nothing without the Moghuls he fought against. Defied them. Was… https://t.co/gydB8F9NCQ
— Sujata Anandan (@sujataanandan) April 6, 2023
In the next tweet, Sujata Anandan wrote, “How twisted is the bigoted sense of RSS history. Even Shivaji’s army was looting and raping, that was what conquering armies did in those days. Your great icon Savarkar labelled Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj a rank fool for not raping the daughter-in-law of the Muslim governor of Kalyan and pulling up his soldiers for involving women in their war. Closer home, Bilkis Bano’s rapists are sharing platforms with your ministers.”
How twisted is the bigoted sense of RSS history. Even Shivaji’s army was looting and raping, that was what conquering armies did those days. Your great icon Savarkar labelled Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj a rank fool for not raping the daughter-in-law of the Muslim governor of… https://t.co/zaHMOJ1DWj
— Sujata Anandan (@sujataanandan) April 6, 2023
What Sujata Anandan has tried to insinuate through these tweets is a perversion due to an ‘unpleasant’ decisive defeat of the Mughals and their governors like Nizam in the Decccan and Nabab of Bengal at the hands of Maratha powers that flourished after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. While Twitter banter is a separate genre altogether, the dangerous lies being spread by the National Herald editor have to be countered summarily.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s army always respected women
As far as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s army is concerned, there is hardly any evidence to support the claim that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s army committed rapes. In fact, the Hindu king instructed his commanders in one of his letters to ensure that during any military expedition, they should ensure not a single stalk of the farm produce shall be harmed. There is documentary proof that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj also cared for the trees and forests in his empire. Let alone raping women of enemy soldiers and commanders, there is an incident when Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj ensured that women relatives and other family members of even the Mughal tyrant Aurangzeb are not harmed.
Aurangzeb’s maternal uncle Shahitakhan had captured the Lal Mahal in Pune. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had spent a few years of his childhood in this mansion. Shahistakhan instructed his troops from the Lal Mahal where he had made his temporary residence as he conquered Pune and its surroundings. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj executed a raid on Lal Mahal and chopped his fingers. Shahistakhan somehow escaped, leaving behind some of his family members. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and his army did not harm the women from this enemy camp.
Why Maratha forces are falsely accused of atrocities and rapes?
Maratha Empire established by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj underlined its Dharmik inclinations with the Hindu king getting coronated with Hindu rituals in 1674. The subsequent Maratha rulers like Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj and his son Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj gave a fierce fight to the Mughals and reduced the foreign dynasty’s rule to ruins. In fact, Mughals remained nominal rulers at the mercy of Marathas – that is the story of the 18th century in a nutshell. Maratha commanders like Balaji Vishwanath Peshwa, Bajirao Peshwa, Malharrao Holkar and Ranoji Shinde expanded the Hindu empire across the lengths and breadths of the country imparting many decisive defeats to Mughals and their various regional governors.
It is because of this valour of Marathas that Islamist historians, colonialism enthusiasts, and Islamo-apologetic liberal Mughal sympathizers often attempt to demean, discredit, disregard, or defame the Maratha army in general and the supreme commanders of the Hindu empire in particular. These Aurangzeb worshippers can never make peace with the fact that in his donation letters, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj would often mention his father Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj as “Mlechchha-Kshay-Dixit” which literally means one who is spiritually initiated to kill the Mlechchhas – the tyrant Islamist foreigners.
It is because of the glory achieved by Marathas and their military commanders that attempts are often made to defame them by accusing them of rape and atrocities. Wherever a void in the documented history is seen, it is filled by misleading information that may create, propagate, and strengthen the faultlines among Hindus.
It is also important to understand that the Islamic tyrants heaped several atrocities against the Hindus throughout their invasion. There are several documented facts about rape being used as a tool against Hindu women and how they were enslaved by the tyrants. In fact, the famous incident from Chittor, where Hindu women along with Rani Padmavati committed Jauhar so as to not be brutalised by Islamic tyrants bears testament to the atrocities against Hindus. For the Left historians, attempting to prove that Hindu Kings and their men would also rape women is merely a way to whitewash the atrocities by the Mughals to show that rape as a tool of war was an order of the time and the Mughals did not subjugate Hindus for religious considerations.
Making a perverted version of Indic history has been a top priority of the colonialistic agenda of the Islamic and British rules in medieval India. Thus, fictional books, poetries, and stories would be taken as a source to support the claims while writing history whose literal Indic translation ‘Itihasa‘ means ‘so it happened’.
Jadunath Sarkar – a Hindu historian – is often cited by liberals to defame Marathas
The so-called eminent historian of his kind, Jadunath Sarkar (knighted by Britain in 1929) has also succumbed to such imaginative sources while writing the history of medieval India. Jadunath Sarkar has for sure praised Maratha warriors for their bravery, war tactics, and contributions to the Indic kingdom at certain places in his works, but most of the time he employed a colonial lens to observe the expeditions, moves, and motives of the force that arose from the Deccan and the consequences of them all put together.
British-Knighted Jadunath Sarkar said “Marathas were notorious for gang-rape”, using this Maharashtra Purana Bangāli book which was in reality undiscovered & unheard of till 1904!
— The Mahrattas ࿗ (@TMahrattas) December 5, 2021
He then used Goan PORTUGUESE Padre’s asinine source from 1680s to support this Bangāli propaganda!
Though his bibliographies and references cover multiple historic records, Sarkar primarily relied upon the accounts of anti-Maratha forces even while documenting the valourous victories of Marathas. In the case of Maratha’s military expedition of Bengal, Sarkar’s native province, he found some fictional accounts supporting the Mughal narrative as well, thereby unleashing a dubious gap wide enough for the anti-Hindu “liberals” to accuse Marathas of rape and atrocities.
When historians and opinion makers either depend upon unauthentic documents (either by locals or foreigners) to write the “authentic facts” or peddle blatant lies and insinuations as history, and generations of an independent nation rely on the courses framed by ideological successors of the colonisers, then tweets like those of Sujata Anandan are hardly surprising. Her arguments that Maratha militaries committed atrocities and rapes are essentially based on the way Maratha military expeditions in Bengal from 1742 to 1751 are described by Jadunath Sarkar.
Jadunath Sarkar penned ‘Fall of Mughal Empire’ in 4 volumes. Its first volume was published in 1932. The third chapter of the first volume is titled ‘The Maratha invasion in Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha till 1746’. In this chapter, Jadunath Sarkar detailed the military expeditions of Raghuji Bhosale and his army in the above-mentioned provinces. Jadunath Sarkar has cited an account of one Gangaram Bhat as a reference to his writing where he has claimed that apart from getting a huge ransom from Alivardi Khan, his commanders, local rich traders, and others, Maratha forces raped women in Bengal, and looted and desecrated Hindu temples.
While the account was actually folklore with no evidence, Jadunath Sarkar has mentioned it in his book as an eye witness account, that leads liberals to use this account as an authentic retelling of history, when it is anything but that.
Besides Gangaram Bhat, Jadunath Sarkar has also quoted one Vaneshwar Vidyalankar who was a court poet of the local administrator of Burdwan and pro-Muslim historians Salimulla and Ghulam Hussain to claim that Marathas looted Bengal. But for detailing the alleged heinous atrocities by Marathas, Sarkar based his writing more on Gangaram Bhat’s poetic chronicle which is hardly a credible source. Here, it is notable that, as quoted by Jadunath Sarkar, Vaneshwar Vidyalankar’s writing describes the Maratha invasion of 1745 in particular. The specific importance of this year will be explained in a later part of this article.
What is the authenticity of Gangaram Bhat’s Maharashtra Purana?
As the argument that ‘Maratha’s armies were rapists’ relies on Gangaram Bhat’s argument more than anything else, it becomes necessary to know more about this so-called contemporary poetic chronicle. It is 716-line poetry describing the times somewhere around the fifth decade of 18th-century Bengal.
In not even 1 single section of Maharashtra Purana do we get the evidence of Gangaram being a Live Eye-Witness.
— The Mahrattas ࿗ (@TMahrattas) December 5, 2021
What is interesting is Marathas looting the infamous Deshādrohī Jagat Seth, and acquiring a sum of around 2 Crore! This shows what sort of “Hindus” Marathas targeted.
The writer has nowhere specified his native place. He has not mentioned any date except the date of completion which is from the calendar year 1750. It is notable that most of the fierce battles between Raghuji Bhosale’s army and Alivardi Khan’s army took place between 1742 to 1748. The account is therefore not at all an eyewitness.
It’s clear Gangaram composing his text on hearsay added in Atrocity section after fake reports from Burdwani Opium kingpin’s harkaras.
— The Mahrattas ࿗ (@TMahrattas) December 5, 2021
In NO OTHER description of the plunder of any other settlement in Bangāl (upto Ashtami Flight from Katwa section) are such atrocities mentioned.
The so-called palm-leaf manuscript of this poetic chronicle was first ‘invented’ in 1904 in Myemensingh which is now in Bangladesh. The verb forms, phrases, and idiomatic usage in the poetry are identified as the ones from East Bengal. However, the atrocities and rapes liberals often talk about are from West Bengal.
The horrific details, which are not the truth by any stretch of the imagination and have no evidence to support them, are so exaggerated that the historian decorated with ‘knighthood’ has taken them to be the holy truth. The book ends with a note that this is just one volume of the “Maharashtra Purana“. The second volume is not yet ‘invented’. Naming it Purana and using it to defame the ones who established a state that followed Dharma. This is the key to peddling a narrative. This gives ample space to counter doubt if this piece of poetry was a product of a colonial project.
The Indic Response of Maratha Historians to the alternate history
The lie that Marathas committed mass rapes and looted temples was peddled and propagated not only in the twentieth century but was also discussed in Bengal for the 200 years before it to discredit the Hindavi state of Marathas. When in 1904, this so-called documented evidence in the form of a poetic chronicle was ‘invented’, Marathas gave a fierce argument in rebuttal. Maratha historians from Maharashtra started finding references and records to present the Maratha view and hence the Indic view towards the Maratha military expeditions of Bengal. Maratha historians wrote articles in monthly and annual issues of “Brihanmaharashtra“, “Sahyadri“, and “Rajwade Sanshodhak“.
As history written by Jadunath Sarkar started getting mainstream, the allegations based on Gangaram Bhat’s poetry were being widely accepted and welcomed by the anti-Indic intelligentsia. The 4 volumes of “The Fall of the Mughal Empire” were published between 1932 to 1938. Finally, in 1944, the Rajwade Research Society published a book titled “Military Expeditions of Bhosales in Bengal” penned by VN Sahasrabuddhe.
This book is a compiled collection of articles published by Maratha historians in response to the poetic fiction of Gangaram Bhat and the subsequent systematic defamation of Maratha warriors. It gives a Maratha viewpoint to the historic chapter as opposed to the Muslim court chronicles Jadunath Sarkar relied upon while writing the history.
OpIndia has secured an original print copy dated 1944 of this book and the reasonings are based on the records given by these Maratha historians.
Military Expeditions of Marathas in Bengal – Objections, Allegations, and Rebuttal
Military Expeditions of Marathas in Bengal started in 1742. A decade-long fight with Alivardi Khan lasted till 1751 after which the Mughal governor finally made a treaty with Marathas and agreed to give a huge annual amount to Marathas as expenses of the army and administrations of the region. Though the word treaty suggests a pact of equal terms, the reality remains that Marathas gained more in the treaty than the Muslim governor. Allegations and objections by liberal Islamo-enthusiasts on this 10-year war between Marathas and Alivardi Khan are discussed below.
The prime allegation on Marathas is that they overstepped their ‘prescribed limit‘ by attacking Odisha, Bihar, and Bengal. This argument is supported by the fact that, in 1713 and in 1715, Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath had secured rights to collect quarter taxes from six regions of the Mughal Empire excluding these three areas which came under a single administrative division called Bengal. Even Peshwa Bajirao never took an excursion towards Bengal, then why did Raghuji Bhosale and his army march towards the eastern province?
In the quarter-charter obtained by the Marathas, six regions of the south were specified, but as the emperor, wazir or subheader (regional governor) asked for the help of the Marathas because of their own weakness or fought with the Marathas for some reason and lost the battles, the Marathas became dominant and spread their power to north Bharat, and therefore, the extent of the region to recover the quarter-tax increased.
Nanasaheb Peshwa used to collect the taxes till Bihar Patna, but when Raghuji Bhosale sent Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar to Bengal to collect the quarter taxes, Alivardi Khana rejected it. Neither Bengal nor Bihar did come under the quarter-charter agreement and when governor Alivardi Khan was the only chief officer in both regions, he obstructed Raghuji Bhosale’s commander-in-chief in Bengal and let Nanasaheb Peshwa recover the ransom and quarter-taxes from Patna, Mongir, Bhagalpur. This means that Nanasaheb Peshwa was superior to Governor Alivardi Khan who considered Raghuji Bhosale either unauthorized or unable to assert the Maratha power.
Well, who had given the charter or license of the Deccan to Aurangzeb, who had been camping in the Deccan and Maharashtra for 25 years? Had anyone invited or deployed him to Maharashtra with an army of 10-15 lakhs to loot the subjects? He had come with the aim of forcibly destroying the kingdoms of others in the Mughal Empire and for the purpose of spreading the Muslim religion and especially the Suni sect (Aurangzeb belonged to the Suni sect and the Sultans of Bijapur were Shias).
Aurangzeb too had no other license than coercion. Therefore, there is no question of how and why Raghuji Bhosale sent Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar to collect the taxes in Bengal when there was no mention of Bengal in the charter of taxes recovery. It was about Marathas expanding the boundaries of the Hindu empire.
It is notable that when Alivardi Khan was defeated in the first attack by Raghuji Bhosale’s army in 1742, he asked the Mughal Emporer for help. Marathas were bound to safeguard Delhi’s interests against the rights of collecting taxes in certain areas. Therefore, Nanasaheb Peshwa went to Bengal in 1742 and fought against Raghuji Bhosale, defeated him and forced him to move back.
In 1743, Raghuji Bhosale and Nanasaheb Peshwa both went to Satara and made an internal pact on 31st August 1743 and interestingly, Jadunath Sarkar mentioned this in his book. According to this, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj ordered Raghuji Bhosale – the governor of Nagpur, Gondwana, and Berar – to collect taxes and attach the region to the Hindu kingdom (despite Bengal is not mentioned in the 1713 charter).
Raghuji Bhosale was also allowed by Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj to collect the expenses for the army from the same area. Nanasaheb Peshwa was supposed not to obstruct Raghuji Bhosale’s army according to this pact. Therefore, every Maratha excursion to Bengal after 1743 stands an execution of the order of the Hindu king.
One of the most obvious reasons for Chhatrapati ordering this to Raghuji Bhosale is that subjects in Bengal faced all sorts of tyranny Hindus would face under Islamic rule in medieval India. There is ample space to believe that the Chhatrapati must have been apprised by the Peshwa and Raghuji Bhosale who visited Bengal in 1742 for tax collection overstepping the charter of 1713.
In 1743, Raghuji Bhosale sent a grand army under the leadership of Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar to attack Alivardi Khan. It was during this excursion that Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar observed the Ashwin Navaratri in Bengal. The Durga puja celebrations by Marathas were attacked by the Mughal forces on the third day of the Navaratri that year. Islamists vandalizing the Hindu processions is therefore not a recent phenomenon in Bengal. Nevertheless, the war continued.
Another nonsensical section spread by Bangāli regionalists.
— The Mahrattas ࿗ (@TMahrattas) December 5, 2021
First sovereign-Hindu conducted Durga Puja in Bangāl after centuries of humiliating slavery was left unfinished as Alivardi attacked Marathas treacherously with 2 Lakh Qatūās.
Leftist Bangālis hail this horrible event. pic.twitter.com/GCHCZOsjTW
Later in 1744, as Alivardi Khan sensed that he may lose the battle again, he called Maratha commanders to make a treaty by holding a diplomatic discussion. As Maratha commanders entered the Mughal camps, equipped with minimum resources as needed for any diplomatic discussions between any two ruling parties, Alivardi Khan ordered his men to kill Maratha frontline commanders.
Alivardi Khan killed 22 Maratha commanders over the pretext of a diplomacy meeting. This took place in 1744. It is because of this betrayal that Vaneshwar Vidyalankar has specifically described Maratha atrocities during the 1745 revenge attack by Marathas.
The names of the 22 Maratha commanders killed by Alivardi Khan on 3rd April 1744 at Mankara situated between Murshidabad and Katwa on the banks of Ganga are as follows – Senapati Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar, Alli Karwal, Yashvantrao Gujar, Neelkanthrao Mohite, Dadaji Bhosale, Bapuji Mahadik, Shah Mohammed Khan, Manaji Bhosale, Narayanrao Bhosale, Sambhaji Bhosale, Krushnarao Nimbalkar, Bapuji Kadam, Shripatrao Mehkar, Vyankatrao Bhau, Dajiba Patankar, Yashvantrao Shirke, Govindrao Shelkar, Satwaji Jadhav, Shivaji Jamdar, Subhanji Rao, Nana Bakshi, and Jotiba Karbhari.
The so-called rapes and atrocities by Maratha forces in Bengal often discussed by liberals to defame Marathas are mostly attributed to the wars after this incident. We have earlier discussed how the accounts of raping women and desecrating temples are exaggerations of a poetic chronicle that hardly holds any credibility.
Burning farms, destroying crops, and collecting ransom from Sahukars in the enemy land was a typical way of war in those times. This ensured the collection of huge money needed to meet the expenses of the army and it would also break the supply chain of the enemy which would ensure that enemy forces starve and surrender. Marathas looted every single “Jagat Seth” of Bengal because they supplied money to the Mughal governor.
The descriptions of atrocities on subjects in 1745 are so intense because Raghuji Bhosale’s forces took revenge for the heinous killing of the 22 commanders whom Alivardi Khan killed on the pretext of a diplomacy meeting. Accusing Marathas of atrocities in the Bengal War is thus either ignoring or whitewashing this heinous war crime.
What about Savarkar?
Let us announce at the very beginning that Islamists and Islamo-apologetic liberals have no moral ground to talk about any atrocities because Islamic scriptures support the idea of keeping women of enemies in their harems as sex slaves. These scriptures also support the idea of sex slavery imposed on these women. A simple Google search on Maal-e-Ganimat is enough to explain these concepts. Every Islamic invader has followed these orders. Even the dead bodies of the enemy women were not forbidden to these vultures. This is why the history of Rajasthan overflows with references to Hindu women committing Johar.
Amidst these realities, the tales about Marathas raping women in only a ruse to whitewash the atrocities suffered by Hindu women at the hands of Islamic invaders.
What is Maal E Ghanimat? pic.twitter.com/ocFD8h4bBn
— The Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues) September 9, 2021
Sujata Anandan has also mentioned Veer Savarkar calling Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj a rank fool for not raping the daughter-in-law of the Muslim governor. Let us debunk this in the way it should be.
It should be noted that Jadunath Sarkar has relied upon a poetic chronicle to blame Marathas for the rapes and atrocities in Bengal. It is considered as some holy truth by the liberals because in this case, Marathas – read Hindus – are apparently at fault.
Veer Savarkar’s objection to Hindu kings not raping enemy women is mentioned in his book “Six Golden Epochs“. In this book, he has described six parts of Indian history in which Hindus successfully resisted invasions. He relied on the sources he could avail in those times. He also made an effort to connect the dots where court historians of enemies of India comfortably remained silent.
Now, firstly, taking a broad look at Savarkar’s whole literature, it is seen that he primarily started to write as a poet. So, when he turned towards prose writing, he did not lose any of his writing peculiarities, but he forged his sentences with an equally impactful composition which made him an excellent writer who would not write to please anyone but to enlighten those who sought the thoughts he gave.
What did Savarkar actually write?
In Chapter VIII of the book ‘Six Golden Epochs‘ Savarkar describes what he calls the ‘Perverted conception of virtues’. In three-four subsections of this chapter, he has described the effects of practising chivalry towards women of enemies and what Hindus received in its reciprocation. Savarkar does not call off Hindu Kings for not raping or forcibly converting the enemy women, but he presents an alternate “what-if” version of the history of woman-chivalry Hindus are proud of and explains what it would result in against prolonged Islamic rule in India.
When Savarkar calls any Hindu ruler to be wrong for not raping any enemy women, he is not necessarily blaming the Hindu kings and their values, but he is essentially underlining the fact that violence, disrespect to women, killing masses, desecrating shrines, and looting the masses was the only language the tyrants could better understand. Enlighting the Hindus about the kind of enemy they were facing for centuries, therefore, does not qualify to be an insult to the Hindu kings who saved our faith, spiritual centres, people, and even deities.
In Savarkar’s writing, he talks about Rani Padmini, the queen of the Mewar Kingdom, who committed Jauhar to escape the brutality of Khilji. Rani Padmini along with other women of the Kingdom had thrown themselves into the fire so that Khilji and the Islamic tyrants could not brutalise their bodies and rape them even after their death. Talking about Rani Padmini, Veer Savarkar in angst writes to Shivaji Maharaj saying that with the honour displayed by him, Rani Padmini would cry out to him asking him, “Oh King, don’t you remember how we died”. Essentially, Savarkar’s prose was about the angst of Hindus who were defiled, murdered and raped by Mughals, not necessarily belittling Shivaji’s valour.
What is interesting is elements like Sujata want to claim that Shivaji and the Maratha militaries raped Muslim women but at the same time, wish to quote Veer Savarkar whose prose proves that the Marathas treated the women of defeated Mughals with honour and respect, regardless of what Veer Savarkar thought about it.
Moreover, Savarkar – citing Pauranik and historic incidents – gives a model to rehabilitate the Muslim women had Hindu kings not allowed to set them free. Rather than endorsing sex slavery, Savarkar suggests that Hindu kings could take these women into the Dharmik fold and give them a respectable life – a method practised by Shaliwahans and Mauryas in the past with the women of invaders they defeated.
Also, the values of current times cannot always be imposed on or expected from the people who lived in the past. Therefore, despite employing 4-5 Muslims, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj remains a Dharmik king and not a secular king. Similarly, despite someone from the Mughal clan scribbling some good lines about Hindu deities does not diminish the tyranny they unleashed on Hindus for centuries. Exceptions cannot be quoted as generalised examples. Veer Savarkar’s book can be accessed here.
And so what if Marathas committed atrocities?
There are allegations of terrible oppression by the Marathas who went to Bengal. If “holier than thou” is the only criterion for a sustainable and acceptable argument, it becomes imperative to be seen whether the Marathas were more oppressive or the Mughals were more oppressive. So let us now dive into that sea of the known-unknown authentic-unauthentic rapes and atrocities committed by either side and see what emerges.
Aurangzeb did never hide his intentions. He and his forces were pretty clear about their religious goal. When he entered the Deccan, he had huge troops. Wasn’t this army making a splash in Maharashtra for years? For this large army, leave alone months, but there was no salary year after year. At that time, did the people of these armies not destroy Maharashtra?
All these atrocities happening in front of his own eyes would be reported or written down by his own reporters or historians. Therefore, Aurangzeb stopped sending the news to the masses and at times even prohibited them from writing chronicles. As a result of this ban, the untold atrocities committed on the people of Maharashtra went unreported. Did none of it take place just because Aurangzeb’s handlers or court historians preferred to be silent on it?
On the contrary, Alivardi Khan did not give a quarter tax to Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar, so the battle between the two broke out. Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar captured him in the siege and made him miserable and while Alivardi Khan retreated from Burdwan to Katwa, as Gangaram Bhat described in the poetry book “Maharashtra Purana“, naming 50 villages on a 40-mile path in this retreat, and claimed that these villages were looted and burnt by the Marathas.
Even if it is believed to be true, one should not forget that Aurangzeb’s army had destroyed not 50, not 500, but thousands of villages and the entire region of Maharashtra and Deccan during his time. If an impartial person would have imagined a devastated Maharashtra at that time, he would not blame Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar for burning away just 50-100 villages.
Didn’t Afghans commit any atrocity that had a theological base?
If the atrocities committed by the Marathas in Bengal have indeed taken place, there is another big reason often ignored by liberals. That is, Raghuji Bhosale had got a clever and cunning Muslim chieftain named Mir Habib. Alivardi Khan became governor of Bengal by killing Governor Sarfaraz Khan. Mir Habib was a chieftain in Sarfaraz Khan’s army. He led a troop of Afghan soldiers who had earlier settled in Hindustan. With his help, Raghuji Bhosale sent Maratha warrior Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar to Bengal and Bihar, which is 1,000 miles away from Nagpur.
Mir Habib’s army was also fighting on the side of the Marathas, and he had to take revenge against Alivardi Khan. Though there can be no evidence to prove exactly who raped whom in or after the war times, the heinous atrocities Marathas are attributed to is not a Hindu phenomenon and it can match only with the gory acts committed by Islamists in the past, as described earlier in this article. So, one should not forget that these Afghans who earlier looted Bengal for Sarfaraz Khan were also looting Bengal while fighting against Alivardi Khan.
Later, Alivardi Khan, seeing that Bhaskarrao Kolhatkar can’t be defeated in the battle, lured him to the treaty, summoned him and his 21 chieftains to the governor’s own camp and killed him inhumanly in the village Mankara between Bhagalpur and Katwa. In the history of Bharat, however, there is no incident of betrayal matching this atrocity. Maratha historians have published the said book refuting Sarkar’s claim in 1944 as Maharashtra marked the 200th death anniversary of these military commanders.
Due to this cruel and vile act, Raghuji Bhosale got furious and made more attacks on Bengal from 1745 onwards. It is also pertinent to note that before the Marathas entered Bengal, the governor of Bengal and other Mughal authorities committed atrocities on Hindu subjects there for almost 4 decades after Aurangzeb’s death. The so-called wrath of Marathas was way softer and shorter than that.
Marathas hit where it hurts the most
Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj went to the heavenly abode on 15th December 1749. Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj (also known as Ramraja) came to the throne. On 18th September 1751, Alivardi Khan signed a treaty with Raghuji Bhosale only after the former had suffered enough military and financial loss in the decade-long war. Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj had given Raghuji Bhosale the right to collect taxes in Bengal. Raghuji Bhosale completed this task and brought confirmation from the defeated enemy during the tenure of Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj. Let us read the document of the treaty quoted by none other than Jadunath Sarkar.
Alivardi Khan signed this draft – “I swear by the Quran that I have accepted to give Chhatrapati Ramraja the quarter taxes of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and established a friendly relationship with Raghuji. From September 18, 1751, I agreed to give twelve lakh rupees annually for holding Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. This quarter taxes will be sent to Banaras every six months in two instalments. But I will consider it appropriate only when neither Raghuji nor his descendants nor any other Maratha will live in these provinces and will never attack us any further.”
Raghuji Bhosale signed this draft – “According to the condition of this treaty, I am entitled to get twelve lakh rupees every year. It includes everything. I or my descendants or any powerful chieftain with whom I have a treaty will not make a residential stay in these three provinces – which are under Alivardi Khan – nor will in any way disturb the landlords there. Chhatrapati Ramraja has given me the right to collect the quarter taxes of the above provinces, so any other chieftain will not be sent to these provinces.“
No Islamo-apologetic liberal can digest what Alivardi Khan was made to sign. This is the way Marathas asserted power. They too were into the tiring decade-long war. But, they avenged everything and everyone they lost. Raghuji Bhosale too fulfilled the task of asserting administrative powers in the eastern province during the tenure of Chhatrapati Rajaram. He was assigned it by Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj.
It is because of this decisive defeat and subsequent heavy ransom imposed on the Mughal governor that liberals often paint Marathas’ revenge for 22 commanders’ murders in Bengal as atrocities and try to insinuate that even Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s army committed rapes because he too hailed from the Bhosale clan. Sujata Anandan is the editor of the National Herald. To know more about the National Herald, click here.
