पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

INTRODUCTION
SHIVAJI founded the Maratha State for doing good to the Maratha
people But he was also conscious of his role in Indian history as a defender
of the Hindus against the onslaught of Islam At the same time he was no
crusader against Islam as an alien faith, he only wished to divest it of its
political role in India In the first part of his life, he was not sure of his
line of action or final goal He made up his mind finally after his return
from Agra in 1666 The establishment of an independent Hindu State as a
rallying point for all Hindus became his aim thereafter Compromise with
Muslims or service under an Islamic State he found incapable of rousing the
Hindus from their age long stupor These would neither defend Hinduism
in the long run, nor allow the Hindus to grow to their full stature Only a
direct challenge to the Islamic idea of State—that Islam only is to live and
grow while others must wither away and die—was the surest way of defending
Hinduism and the Hindus Aurangzib wished to unite India under one
sceptre, that of Islam under the Mughals Shivaji girded his loins to establish
an independent Hindu sovereignty in India free from the shackles of the
Mughal octopus He succeeded in his determination and crowned himself
as the Chhatrapati in 1674 He forged new weapons to gain his ends at the
cost of his enemies While his subjects were well protected, he made the
enemy subjects pay for his wars against their state by the imposition of the
Chauth, to escape which the only remedy was to come under his rule
Aurangzib revived the Jizya in the Mughal dominions after a lapse of a hun
dred years, to propagate Islam and weaken the infidels Shivaji hurled back
the missile with the aim of meeting the new menace by his demand for Chauth
from the enemy lands Aurangzib pulled down the temples and desecrated
the Hindu shrines Shivaji replied by reviving the temples turned into mosques
by the Muslims in the south While Aurangzib's manner was aggressive and
bigoted, Shivaji's was defensive and moderate This distinction should be
borne in mind when judging Shivaji and Aurangzib, a distinction which marks
the modernity and secularism of the one and the medievalism cum ecclesi
asticism of the other Not understanding this difference, Toynbee in his Study
of History (3 203) has classed Shivaji with Ivan the Terrible, Saladin and
Suleyman the Magnificent as champions of alien (non western) civilizations
Shivaji was not only a champion of old-world Hinduism, but its modernising
reformer also He not only endowed temples or patronized Hindu learning,
he also (and primarily) built new forts on the sea coast for protecting his
newly established navy on the European model, and sent his own ships to
Arabia for direct trade He would not turn his new state into a closed, hermit
kingdom after the manner of Japan in the sixteenth century, but left it open
to all foreign influences in all walks of life, after due regulation to guard his
independence Had Shivaji's ideas and ideals been properly understood and
followed by his successors, there would have been no occasion for a Panipat
in 1761
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