पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

THE JUDGMENT 109
Jamuna to avoid the oft-trodden and direct road to Gwalior After Panipat
he fought against the rebels in Malwa and Bundelkhand In November 1761,
he decisively defeated Madhosingh of Jaipur, getting a wound himself He
fought in the Rakshasabhuwan campaign and helped in defeating the Nizam in
1763 Returning to the north, he again joined Jawahirmal Jat against—be
it noted—Najib All these incidents make it difficult to believe that Malhar-
rao was treacherous towards Bhau or the Peshwa A man's character ought to
be judged as a whole and not by his suspicious behaviour in one incident only
Govindpant Bundele has been made the chief scape goat for the Panipat
disaster One third of RAJWADE'S renowned introduction to his first volume
of letters is devoted to an analysis of Govindpant's behaviour and his down-
right condemnation, making him solely responsible for the miscarriage of Bhau's
plans RAJWADE'S charges against Govindpant are as follows Firstly, he was
not successful in bringing Shuja ud daulah to the Maratha side Next, he had
not made proper arrangements for Bhau's transport into the Doab Thirdly,
he had not sent the monies called for Fourthly, he would not invade Shuja's
dominions and create a diversion in that direction And last, but not least, he
did not cut off Abdali's supplies coming through the Doab, thus making Bhau's
plan futile We have seen in the course of the campaign how none of these
charges can be substantiated RAJWADE, and following him other critics also,
have wrongly assumed that Govindpant was a military captain On page 19,
RAJWADE puts Govindpant in the list of renowned generals of the time⁷ The
suffix Pant as opposed to Rao appended to the name of Govind is itself a proof
that the man was taken as a civilian and not a soldier He was not a Saran-
jamdar or Jagirdar maintaining troops out of the income of his Jagir He was
an ambitious mamlatdar who on account of a boastful temperament, aspired
to be a captain He had to call in various military captains like Antaji
Manakeshwar, Naro Shankar, Gangadhar Bajirao, Manaji Payagude and
others for helping him in meeting the rebels in his districts Occasionally he
had himself acted as a captain, but that was against insignificant opponents
and in the company of regular troops Even Bhau looked towards him as a
mamlatdar first and a military sardar afterwards In RAJ 1, Letter No 244,
Bhau specifically says, "You are not now only a Mahalkari You have with
you as many troops as with a sardar" This means that Bhau was bolstering
up Govindpant and asking him to take upon himself work which was nor-
mally not his His age (sixty five) and habits of life were against Bhau's ex-
pectation This was not a question of ordinary times but of a fight to the
finish Only exceptionally good captains could have done what Bhau asked
Govindpant to do The argument that as Bhau asked Govindpant repeatedly
to do certain things, it must have been in his power to do it, is faulty The
fact is, geographically, Govindpant was living in a region to the rear of Abdali,
and as such he was the only man who could have done anything in the mat-
ter Bhau could not detach a part of his army and send it to Abdali's rear, as
Abdali was sitting across the path Upto October, Sadashivrao had ordered
Govindpant not to come to the north⁷ but to invade the enemy dominions be-
⁷ RAJ 1.258, 260