पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

THE JUDGMENT 123
any situation arising around them. Balaji Bajirao's studies in Sanskrit were
advanced to the extent of writing verses in that language, but there is no evi-
dence to prove that the Peshwa had enough geographical information to cope
with that of the contemporary Europeans. RAJWADE'S statement⁵ that the
Peshwas possessed maps of the various provinces in India is not borne out by
any positive proof till after the First Maratha War. What knowledge they pos-
sessed was gained from gossipy news or orally from visitors to their Court, but
it was not sufficient to make these aspiring conquerors of India visualise either
the shape of their country or correctly point to the directions of the various
parts of the continent, nor an understanding of its correct extent. This had
a disastrous effect on the policy of the Marathas. Their avarice made them
grab everything which their hands could reach, but the political repercussions
of that grabbing and the pressure it would exert on their military machine they
were unable to comprehend. The non-comprehension of political and military
facts surrounding them is the chief defect which made the Peshwas act as way-
wardly as they did. No other reason can explain their actions otherwise. The
contrast can be best understood by studying the English documents and publi-
cations of those times. All their military campaigns, naval fights, political ag-
grandisements, are found fully reported, discussed threadbare and lines of
policy deduced therefrom for future guidance. Not an iota of knowledge once
gained, not a point of vantage once secured, not an inch of ground once oc-
cupied was wasted or lost by them. The Marathas in their career had to go
through many a campaign, to enter into diplomatic talks, to carry on political
controversies and to devise various ways and means for securing their end, but
scarcely any of these things are found published for public edification, for the
use of the younger students in various walks of life. A nation which carried on
wars in all directions over a wide continent for more than a century, has not
produced a single treatise on warfare. That is the basic defect in the nation.
Its want could not be supplied by any other means. When one finds such a
book published in English in the very year of the Panipat disaster with de-
tailed maps, plans of battles, illustrations of the positions of forts, giving a
visual demonstration of their military situation, naval manœuvres with drawings
of the anchored ships, together with their full political and diplomatic back-
ground, one is forced to exclaim that want of such training led to the Panipat
disaster (Vide R. O. Cambridge's War in India, etc., 1761).

THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF THE PANIPAT CAMPAIGN

The Panipat campaign takes away the charge against the Marathas that
they were not the rulers of India, but only robbers in the dominions of other
rulers. This one campaign bears evidence not only to the military organiza-
tion developed under the Peshwas, but also to the fact that they were waging
war not for aggrandisement but for the defence of a principle, India for the
Indians, governed by Indians. The Peshwa had accepted the responsibility of
defending the Mughal Empire from its internal and external foes through his

⁵ RAJWADE, op. cit., p. 99.