भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)
Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Veer Savarkar
स्वातंत्र्यवीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर द्वारा
- In fact, the creed of every national army is to march upon the enemy
even before the latter attacks—to lead a blatant aggression, not merely to
stage defensive formations! The first successful attempt to inspire this
aggressive mentality amongst the Hindus was made at the time of the
establishment of the Vijaynagar empire against the Muslims, even before
the Marathas took the lead. But it was restricted to the south alone and the
terrible defeat at Talikota deterred the Hindu mind from invading the
Muslims. It was then that the Marathas inspired the Hindus with a new war-
like spirit by successful inroads upon the Muslims. - To invade the enemy territory is the chief aim or the chief duty of a
national military strength. The nation that maintains armed forces just
strong enough for the purposes of defence—and does not build it up so as to
be capable to undertake an invasion and considers it improper to do so—-is
either basically coward at heart or is labouring under a delusion. Perhaps it
is to camouflage that inward cowardice that such high sounding
declarations are made. A nation, whose armed might is evidently built up
on the basis of its aggressive capacity, is certainly capable of self-defence. - Again, the Hindu aggression against the violent and unjust political
domination of the Muslim rulers was basically not an aggression at all. The
really unjust aggression was that of the Muslims who had invaded the
territories of the Hindus. The aggressive risings of the Hindus against the
outrageous Muslim rule can never be called revolts or rebellions. For, the
aggression of the Muslim rulers against the independent and rightfully
established Hindu states was itself mutinous and revolting. The rising of a
robber against the rightful owner can be called mutinous, not the taking up
of arms by the rightful owner to chastise the rebellious freebooters! It is,
therefore, to inspire with indomitable courage the majority of the Hindu
society all over India, which had taken fright of these Muslim freebooters
that Shree Ramadas raised his war-cry from every peak of the Sahyadri.
‘प्रस्तुत यवनांचे बंड’
“It is the Muslim-insurrection!”
“The insurgents are the Muslims and not the Hindus! In order to punish
them severely invade them from all sides all at once!” - ‘धर्मासाठी मरावें। मरोनि अवघ्यांसि मारावें।
मारितां मारितां घ्यावें। राज्य आपुले।’
(One should court death for the sake of religion (But) while dying, one
should kill (the enemies) and by thus killing them, one should win back
one’s kingdom.)
1025. The most important weapon of this aggressive war policy of the
Marathas was at least, till that time a new one to the Hindus. It was not used
so far by any before them. That weapon is
Guerrilla Warfare
1026. This type of war is called in Sanskrit’ Vrikayuddha’ (वृकयुद्ध).
This Vrikayuddha (वृकयुद्ध) of the Marathas humbled the vast armies of
the Muslims. According to the peculiar mode of this guerrilla warfare, the
Marathas never faced the highly well-equipped fourfold armies of the
enemy. Whenever the Maratha force were small in number, they attacked
the enemy from the right or the left flanks or from behind.
1027. Yet, it should be borne in mind that while thus harassing and cutting
off the huge armies of the Moghals with their meagre numbers and
inadequate arms, they never hesitated to offer pitched battles standing face-
to-face at the most unexpected moments, if they found that their own
military strength had grown sufficiently strong to do this. As even when the
Maratha forces went on increasing in number and quality, and their
responsibility about the various states, smaller or greater in size, about the
forts and territories that fell in their hands, began to assume enormous
dimensions, they did not lie idly in their different capitals, guarding their
own positions. Everyone of them had always a keen eye on the
neighbouring or the distant Moghal territories and pushed on into those
territories as soon as the monsoons were over, even before the enemy had
time to come aggressively against the smaller Maratha feudal lords and
Jagirdars or their forts. The Maratha forces attacked even the Muslim
Nawabs and Nizams, who never gave them offence under some pretext or
another. Moreover, they were hardly to be found in their usually known
capitals, great or small, or in their forts or caves known to be their usual
resorts. On the contrary, they seemed to carry their so-called capitals on
horse-back while they started on their campaigns against the Muslims. The
de facto address of the various Maratha warlords and their brave followers
was not their homes or fortresses; it was invariably their ever shifting
camps or bivouacs in the Moghal territories.
- Even a solitary instance in the times of Rajaram, regarding
Aurangzeb, may be suffcient to show clearly what great havoc was caused
amongst the vast and unwieldy Muslim armies, harassed, hacked and hewed
by these Maratha guerrillas! The huge armies of Aurangzeb pursued the
Maratha force right up to Jinji (or Zinji) in the South, reducing their
territories as they went. But? - the moment they turned their back, they saw
that smaller bands of the Maratha irregulars had already crossed the
Narmada and after having entered Gujarath, they had frightened the
Subhedar of that province out of his wits. Farther off, the Marathas were
often reported to have attacked the central provinces to the utter dismay of
the already confused Moghal Emperor. In the end, giving up Maharashtra as
precipitately as they would have dropped a glowing cinder from their
hands, those huge Moghal hosts hacked, harassed and harried by the
indomitable Maratha warriors retreate, crestfallen, back to Delhi. - It is not correct to assume that the Marathas had resorted to this
aggressive war policy only so long as their martial power and their
administrative machinery had not had a sound footing or had not grown
sufficiently strong. On the other hand, they renewed their aggressive
incursions into the remaining Muslim territories under the command of the
invincible veteran war leaders, like Bajirao I, with greater rigour and zest,
when every one of the several Sardars and Chieftains had tens and scores
and thousands of soldiers under them, fighting, conquering and establishing
Maratha rule right from Jinji to Gujarat and even Malwa and Central India!
If at all, they were to establish Hindu-Padpadshahi throughout the whole of
India, the defensive war policy of preserving whatever they had, would
have been of little use. They had necessarily to adopt the bolder policy of
making new acquisitions. That way, those brave and indefatigable Maratha
warriors had an insatiable desire to assail their religious enemies whenever
and wherever they could!
The aggressive war policy of the Marathas stopped the inroads of the
Foreign Enemies beyond the Himalayas - The reports that the bold thrusts of Bajirao I right up to the gates of
Delhi, had convulsed the Moghal imperial power to its very foundations
and rendered it disjointed, and that the mighty Maratha armies were about
to invade the territories even beyond Delhi up to Punjab, did not fail to give
a rude shock to the Muslim powers of Kabul, Ghazni, Iran, Turan, Balkh,
Bokhara, Arabia and other countries beyond the Himalayas!
- It has already been shown in this book how, before the rise of the
Marathas, these very Arab, Iranian, Durani, Turk, Moghal and other
Muslim tribes had often swooped down the Himalayas into the Indian
plains with all the ferocity and barbarity at their command; how some of
these Muslim aggressors overran the Hindu states, dashed towards the
south, worsting the Hindu religion, heaping up inhuman religious
persecutions and untold devilish atrocities on its adherents; and again, how
some other of them established their own independent stable Sultanates at
Delhi and like Alauddin, made straight for the southernmost end of India. - The then Hindu Kings themselves could not invade Iran, Turan or
Arabia beyond the Himalayas even before those diabolic Muslim aggressors
could trespass the Indian territory. They could annihilate those Muslim
invaders in their very homes!
Nadirshah and Abdali - But as soon as the Marathas assumed the Hindu leadership all over
India in this millennial Hindu-Muslim epic war, and so soon again as the
ramparts of Delhi began to crumble with the forcible thrusts of the Maratha
arms, this age-old notorious habit of the Muslim aggressive tribes and states
in Asia of attacking every now and then, like Mahmud of Ghazni, with
vociferous vows of complete destruction of the Hindu and their religion was
for ever broken! Since the time the Maratha arms brought Delhi under their
control, and the imperial administration at Delhi began to obey the dictates
of the valiant Peshwa, like Bajirao I, only two—Nadirshah of Iran and
Ahmedshah Abdali of Ghazni—dared cross the Indian borders from beyond
the Himalayas, putting on the pompous airs of the former Muslim invaders
swearing terrible wrongs unto the people herein and longing in vain to
become the Emperors of India. But really speaking, none of them had come
upon India, like the former invaders, on their own initiative and with an
irresistible itch. The full knowledge that the Marathas had succeeded in
establishing the Hindu rule all over India up to Delhi or that they could do
so, had overawed both Nadirshah and Abdali, too! It was only at the
supplications of the Muslim Sardars of Delhi and Punjab and at times, the
secret invitation of the Emperor himself, that Nadirshah and Ahmedshah
made bold to cross the Hindukush and march upon India. The Rohillas, the
Pathans and the Moghals secretly pleaded that the Marathas had practically
usurped the whole power, that the Kafirs were gradually becoming
dominant throughout the whole of India and that they were approaching
५. पञ्चम एवं षष्ठ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ: मराठा साम्राज्य, छत्रपति शिवाजी एवं हिन्दू पद-पादशाही
those foreigners as the defenders of the Muslim faith in order that they
might invade India to save the Muslim imperial power at Delhi. They even
offered to make those foreign Muslim leaders, the Emperors of Delhi. It
was on the invitations of these Indian Muslims and depending on their
strength and assistance, that the above-mentioned violent aggressors could
think of attacking India.
The Invasion of Nadirshah
1034. Of the Muslim Sardars, Emirs and Khans who secretly invited
Nadirshah to invade India in order to crush the Marathas, Nizam-ul-Mulk
was the most prominent. As Bajirao I had vanquished him completely, he
fondly hoped that the Marathas would be squarely punished and destroyed
by Nadirshah. He did not care what would happen subsequently. Nadirshah
crossed Attock and reached Lahore in 1732. The Emperor of Delhi made a
grand show of opposing him with his army. But in the very first battle, he
was routed entirely. Nadirshah called him and put him in his prison. Nizam
too was similarly reprimanded for suffering the Marathas to be so very
powerful as to engulf the imperial power of Dehli, and because he did not
pay the several crores of rupees that he had promised, Nizam, too was put
behind the bars. Then, Nadirshah marched straight to Delhi. On the 10th
March, 1739, Nadirshah liquidated the Moghal imperial power and
proclaimed himself the Emperor of India. With precipitate haste, he not
only followed the age-old Muslim imperial tradition but far outdistanced it
with all sorts of monstrocities and orgies of blood and fire. Plunder, arson
and man-slaughter ran riot in the streets of Delhi. The Muslims, however,
hoped that Nadirshah would at least annihilate the Marathas. But
deliberately or knavishly, Nadirshah did not offend the Marathas. Why, in
his rage of Delhi, he never spared the Muslims. Nadirshah himself seated
the Nizam on the back of a donkey and forced him to undergo the
humiliation of a parade throughout this city.
1035. Soon the news came headlong that the Marathas had inflicted a
great defeat upon the Portuguese and the well known sea-port of Bassein
(Vasai) had been conquered from the latter and that the Portuguese
Governor of the place and his army had laid down their arms and sued for
peace with the Marathas, and that feeling himself free, therefore, to do as he
liked, Bajirao I had started with huge preparations and was heading towards
Delhi.
1036-37. अरे बघतां कायः चला जोरानें चाल करून!
हिंदु पदपादशाहीस आतां उशीर काय!
“Why do you look so amazed? March on to Delhi (My Boys!) What can
now delay the establishment of Hindu Padpadshahi?”
—Bajirao Peshva I.
The Maratha Sardars in the North and the various diplomats and political
workers that Bajirao I had stationed everywhere also felt keenly that
Nadirshah had to be taught a lesson. From various different places, they
informed Bajirao about the movements of Nadirshah and the state of affairs
in the north. Of those reporters one writes:
तहमास्प कुल्लीखान (नादीरशाह) कांहीं देव नाहीं जे पृथ्वी कापून
काढील। जबरदस्ताशीं सुलुक करिल। म्हणून मातबर फौजे निशी
यावे। आधी जबरदस्ती नि मग सुलुख। आता (सारे) राजपूत नि
स्वामी बाजीराव क झालिया निकाल पडेल। समस्तास बुंदेले वगैरे
क जागा करून मोठा भाव दाखविला पाहिजे। नादीरशाह तसा
माघारा जात नाहीं, हिंदु राज्यावरी निघेल। रायाचे सवाई जयसिंग
मनी राणाजी उदेपूर चा महाराणा दिल्लिचे बादशाही तख्तापर
बसवावे आसे आहे हिंदुराजे सवाई आदि करून स्वामीचे स्वारीची
मार्ग प्रतीक्षा करतात। स्वामींचे पुष्टिबल होताच जाट बगैरै फौज
दिल्ली कडे पाठवून सवाईजी आपण दिल्लीस जाणार॥
Tahmaspa Kulikhan (Nadirshah) is not after all a god who will devastate
the whole world! He will surely come to terms with a mightier adversary,
hence come with a mighty force. Pressure (should be applied) first and
peace treaty afterwards! Now it is only the combined might of all the Rajput
kings and princes and your Excellency (Bajirao I) that will settle the matter
for ever. Boundella Princes and all others should be brought together and
the invincible power (of the Hindus) should be manifested on a grand scale.
Nadirshah is not likely to go back unless he is forced to do so. He will
(most surely) assail the Hindu States, Rai (Sawai Jaysingh) is of the opinion
that Ranaji (Maharaja of Udaipur) should be installed upon the imperial
throne of Delhi. Sawai (Jaysingh) and other Hindu kings are eagerly
waiting for a mighty campaign under your Excellency’s leadership. With
the strong backing of your Excellency’s forces, Sawai (Jaysingh Ji) decides
to send the Jat Battalions to Delhi first and then to follow them himself
thither!’
1038. Other Maratha leaders from North India also sent similar spirited
letters full of confidence and urging bold action! On the basis of those
letters, Bajirao addressed in these stirring words those dignitaries at
Chhatrapati Shahu’s court, who had always tried to disparage every one of
his heroic and aggressive moves and bring all sorts of impediments in his
progressive measures, O! You brave warriors, why all these doubts and
apprehensions? March on united and the glorious dawn of the founding of
Hindu-Patpadashahi is a certainty beyond all measure. I, for my part, am
determined to cross the Narmada (river) and deploy my troops everywhere
right up to the Chambal (river). I shall see then how Nadirshah dares
descend southwards!’
1039. As soon as he received the news that the Marathas were already on
an aggressive march to the north against him, Nadirshah lost all his
enthusiasm to push forward with his conquests to south India as did the
former Irani, Turani, Turkish and other Muslim aggressors before him; and
with a view to pack off before the Marathas reached Delhi, he voluntarily
relinquished the imperial authority, reinstalled the former Emperor of Delhi
on his throne and admonished all the courtiers and feudatory princes and
vassals to obey the Moghal emperor. Thereafter, Nadirshah hurriedly went
back to Persia with the enormous plunder of about five to six hundred
million rupees worth of treasure and the peacock-throne and other pieces of
art. And that, too, he did because of the fearful apprehensions of a counter-
attack by the Marathas!
1040. Along with the letter that he sent to other princes and Kings and
vassals of India. Nadirshah sent one to Bajirao Peshwa, commanding him
peremptorily to be always faithful to the Moghal Emperor and with a stern
warning of the consequent punishment, in case he failed to do so. Foolishly
enough did Nadirshah write this letter, but wisely he retreated! It goes
without saying that this preposterous letter of Nadirshah, was shown its way
to the waste paper basket, and in A.D. 1739, Chhatrapati Shahu
unequivocally declared in his court that Nadirshah took a fright of the
Maratha retaliation and fled away out of India.
Ahmadshah Abdali becomes the Emperor of Kabul
1041. In Nadirshah’s army and under his command had been rising on the
strength of his own merit, a certain Afghan Sardar (Emir) called Abdali,
who ultimately became the former’s right hand man. Abdali had
accompanied Nadirshah in his above-mentioned raid against India. After his
return to Persia, Nadirshah was soon killed in 1747. In the confusion that
was caused subsequent to Nadirshah’s death, Ahmadshah Abdali usurped
all power and since he was an Afghan, Ahmadshah proclaimed himself an
Afghan Emperor making Kabul his capital (1747 A.D.).
The Rohillas and the Pathans
1042. Now, there had been an incessant internal rivalry about the
acquisition of the imperial throne of Delhi and consequent mutual hatred
between the Moghals and the Afghans (Pathans), who chiefly led the
Muslim administration throughout the large tracts of India from Punjab,
Delhi, Farukhabad to Rohilkhand—sometimes quite openly, at other times
covertly! The former Sultanates of Delhi were Afghans. It was after
extirpating the last of the Afghan dynasties, that the victorious Moghal
conqueror, Babar, had attained the imperial power over Dehli (as has already
been shown in this book earlier). Nevertheless, several Afghan Sardars
dominated even this Moghal administration. Amongst these Afghans, the
Rohillas and the Pathans had their own states of varying sizes. Later on,
when the conquering Maratha armies soon began to establish, one after
another, Hindu state all over the Northern half of India and reached Delhi
and when in the political affairs of Delhi, practically not a blade of grass
could move without the Maratha support, all those Muslim factions became
absolutely one at least in the early years of the Maratha preponderance in
order to subvert it. Yet later, still the dissentient and scheming amongst these
Muslim leaders, secretly sought for the Maratha help for the destruction of
their co-religionist opponents.
The first invasion of India by Abdali
1043. Abdali was closely watching these developments in Delhi. He knew
full well that the Pathans over there were highly perturbed lest the hated
Marathas might leave a vestige of their own existence, unless in the
meanwhile, the Pathans overthrew the Moghal imperial authority over
Delhi, and on its ashes raised their own. They could find only one way out
of this predicament: to invite the new Afghan emperor, Ahmadshah Abdali
who had all along supported their political moves. So, the Pathan-Rohilla
leaders sent letters to Abdali, importuning his armed help, if at all Islam in
India was to be saved. Abdali, too, had cherished the ambition to strangle
the moribund Moghal imperial authority in Delhi and to revive in its place
the Pathani rule, as of yore. But earlier, he had visited India along with the
warriors of Nadirshah's invasion and was fully conscious of the growing
Maratha influence in the imperial administration at Delhi. So, he was far too
cautious in making his moves. After having secretly supplied all sorts of
armed help to the Pathans and the Rohillas in the Doab, Abdali himself
came aggressively in the month of January 1748 up to Lahore and captured
it. This was the first of his invasions of India.
1044. But the Moghal imperial army defeated Abdali's advance guards
just near Lahore and blocked his way to Delhi. Just at this time, he got
reports that his enemy, the Emperor of Persia, was preparing to invade
Kabul and that at the invitation of the Moghal Emperor to help arrest his
onward march, the Marathas had set out with a large army towards Delhi.
So considering it to be inopportune to press onwards to Delhi, that shrewd
general Abdali retreated immediately to Kabul. But before his departure, he
had it proclaimed throughout India that the whole of Punjab was subject to
the sovereign Afghan rule under him.
The first treaty of surrender by the Moribund Moghal Empire with
the Marathas
1045-46. In the meanwhile, the Moghal Emperor at Delhi had delegated
most solicitously all administrative authority over the whole of India right
from Bengal, Bihar, Orissa to Sindh (including the Subba of Multan), the
whole of Punjab, Rohilkhand, Doab and all the South Indian divisions of
the Moghal empire to the Marathas by a special treaty.
1047. By this treaty, at least by this written consent of the Moghal
emperor, the Marathas had become since that date the de facto sovereigns of
the whole of India, and the Moghal Emperor himself had been reduced to a
non-entity.
1048. The tremendous reponsibility that devolved upon the Marathas
because of this change in the imperial administrative authority was, of
course, the onerous one of defending the Moghal empire against all internal
as well as external dangers—against internal rebellions and revolts as well
as against foreign invasions. Gigantic as this responsibility was, it was only
the Maratha sinews that could bear it efficiently—the sinews that had
almost realised the dream of the foundation of Hindu—Padpadshahi! That
is why they accepted that condition of the treaty quite readily as if it was a
boon.
Abdali's second invasion of India
- Abdali had been secretly given reports of this forthcoming imperial
treaty with the Marathas six months or more before the actual event. That is
why in 1749, he invaded India for the second time simply to oppose the
Marathas. So the imperial governor of Punjab, Mir Mannu, himself ceded
helplesssly Thattha, Sindh (Multan), Punjab and other adjoining territories
to Abdali and accepted the overlordship of the latter over that region.
Satisfied with the thought that the Maratha authority over that region,
relegated to them by the imperial treaty, was wiped out by the abject
surrender of Mir Mannu, the imperial officer-in-charge of that part, and that
the time for further advance was not yet, Abdali once again went back to
Kabul. - But the Marathas were highly infuriated at this duplicity of the
imperial officers and the reported mute consent of the Emperor himself to
the treacherous act. The Marathas vowed to avenge Abdali's usurpation of
the regions between Sindh, Thattha and Punjab, in defiance of the Moghal-
Maratha treaty just as furiously as would a cobra, whose tail has been
trodden down wilfully. But they were at this time preoccupied with the
South-Indian Muslims, the westerners like the Portuguese and also with the
domestic political troubles at Satara. As such, Nanasahib Peshwa ordered
Malharrao Holkar and Jayajirao Shinde, and the two Maratha leaders
crossed the Jamuna and fell upon the fifty-to sixty-thousand-strong army of
the Rohillas encamped at Kadargunj on the 20th March, 1751. The Pathans
fought tenaciously, but in the end, the Marathas completely routed and
destroyed the joint army of the ‘original and legitimate’ Pathans and
Rohillas. Quickly following this signal success, the Marathas fought the
Pathan, Ahmadkhan Bangash, who had come on a hot scent to Farukhabad
with his army. Ahmadkhan took shelter in Farukhabad and was timely
joined by the second mighty army of the Rohillas. But again, the Marathas
besieged the conjoint army of these ‘true born’ Rohilla-Pathans in the
month of April, 1751, and fetching them in open field, inflicted a crushing
defeat on that huge army on the 28ᵗʰ of April, 1751. About twenty to
twenty-five thousand Pathans and Rohillas were cut off in the battle.
Everything belonging to them including their camp was plundered.
Thousands of horses, elephants, camels and the battery of guns were all
captured. Jayappa Shinde writes in his letter, “The devotees of Hari
appropriated that booty to themselves.”
- When the Peshwa received the news of these battles, Shreemant
Nanasahib himself felt elated at the exceptional valour of the Marathas. In
his congratulatory reply to the Sardars and soldiers, he himself wrote: - शाबास तुमच्या हिमतीची नि दिलेरी रुस्तुमीची
दक्षिणच्या फौजांनीं गंगा यमुना पार होऊना पठाणांशीं
युद्ध करून फते पावावें ठे कर्म लहान सहान नव्हे
तुन्ही कनिष्ट कृत कर्में दौलतीचे स्तंभ आहात
इराण तुराण पावे तो लौकिक झाला वझीर पळाला असता
फिरोन फतेच्या मसनदीवर बसविला
(Bravo, well done! All praise to your intrepidity and valour! That the
Southern armies should cross the Ganges and Jamuna and win a glorious
victory over the Pathans in the open battlefield, is neither a small nor a
commonplace thing! You are single- minded loyal men of action, the pillars
of the (Maratha) Empire! Your fame has spread far beyond Iran and Turan.
While the Queen (on the chessboard) had run astray, (you) have installed
her at the vantage position once again!
The Marathas humbled time and again the Hauteur and pride of the
true-born and the greatest Muslims too! - A common misleading statement is very often to be seen in the
histories written not only by the Muslim, the English, the Portuguese and
such other writers who are naturally inimical (hostile) towards the
Marathas, and have always tried to disparage them and to detract from their
glorious deeds, but also by some of the Hindu writers who evince a slavish
mentality and only 'look' and 'write' (without using any independent
judgment of their own) — a statement that purports to say:
'One important cause why later on the Muslims were often defeated in
India and why the Maratha could set in the process of disintegration of the
Muslim empire under their crushing blows, was that the Muslims of the
latter days had lost much of the 'original' and 'real' blood and spirit of the
early Arab, Mongol, Turkish, Irani, Durani, Afghan, Moghal invaders.
Because of the racy climate beyond the Himalayas, big, rushing rivers, hilly
and snowy territory and their hardy and robust constitution, which was the
result of their spending whole lives in constant warfare, and such other
reasons, the comparatively more civilized and 'hence' milder and 'feebler'
Hindus could not withstand their earlier invasions. But as those wild and
valorous Muslims from beyond the Himalayas began to settle down here for
centuries together, generation-after-generation, and as many of their
dynasties ruled here, they, too, were victims of laziness, mildness, and
proclivity towards luxurious living. They could not retain their former
sturdiness, endurance and savage strength, which could stand them in good
stead on the battlefield. The ‘unhealthy’ climate of India did not fail to tell
upon their originally strong wild bodies! On the whole, the descendants of
those very Muslims came to be weaker and ‘not true to their mettle’. That is
why the Hindu, especially the Marathas could vanquish only those
Muslims!
1054. How very imperfect and unrealistic is this statement! Only one
instance of the Maratha offensive against the Rohillas and the Pathans in the
Doab and the fact that the Marathas killed as many as twenty thousand of
the enemy in the action is quite sufficient to prove the falsity and platitude
of the above estimate of the Muslim failure! The Pathan-Rohillas ruling
from the Doab to Rohilkhand at that time considered themselves to be
‘high-born’ Afghans of the finest mettle. Even the Moghal imperial power
and the Turkish Nawabs and chieftains dreaded them most. These Afghans
had even at that time close and uninterrupted blood relation and family ties
with the ‘original’ stalk of the Afghans beyond the Himalayas. Every year,
hundreds of those ‘true-bred’ and ‘real’ Afghans came to reside in this
Pathanistan in the Doab, while the Afghans here went over to their original
homes. It clearly means, therefore, that the thousands of the Pathan-Rohillas
in the long tract between the Doab and the Rohilkhand were till that time, at
least, ‘real’ and ‘original’, ‘true-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Pathans and
Afghans! And the Marathas? They belonged, after all originally and
traditionally, to that country—India—which her enemies called sterile-born
and brought up there for
generations together!
Even then, did they not often prove these so-called ‘true-born’ and
‘thorough-bred’ Pathans and Afghans to be of baser mettle in the final test
on the field of battle? Even when Nadirshah fell upon Delhi with an army of
the thousands of his ‘true-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Pathans, crowned
himself ‘Emperor of Delhi’ and threatend to march to the South like
Mahmud of Ghazni, is it not because he realized in his heart of hearts that
the times had then changed—that it was not the India of Ghazni’s times—
that now it was the Marathas, whom he had to face, that he retreated so
hastily and went clean out of India! Simply because of the dread of the
Marathas? In his wake, followed Abdali invading India thrice or four times,
every time with an army of not less than fifty thousand strong, made up of
the pick of Turkish, Iranian, Durani, Pathan soldiery. But how every time he
had to go back crestfallen, because of the armed counter-offensive of the
Marathas, how even in the turning of the scale of fortune and even after the
terrible losses for the Marathas at Panipat, he had to sign a treaty that the
direction of the Moghal imperial affairs at Delhi be left into the hands of the
Marathas, how he agreed not to interfere with it, in the least, and how,
relinquishing his high ambition to be the absolute and unlimited Emperor of
Delhi, he had to submit to the Marathas and go back, never to return, can
best be read by every Hindu from our book, Hindu Padpadshahi. It is going
to be referred to again in the following pages.
1055. Physical build, height and breadth and weight do count as important
and decisive factors in matters of personal combats. Even then, it cannot be
made a rule without exception! The grave of the monstrous Afzalkhan at
the foot of Pratapgad is evidence enough! But in the struggles of nations,
the chances of success or failure can never be assesed on the strength of
physical build, enduring capacity and the stubborness of constitution.
Didn’t the dwarfish Japanese lay the gigantic Russians low on the battlefield
in the first Russo-Japanese war—the towering and sturdy Russians in
comparison with whom the ‘true-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Pathans seem
absolute midgets? Our Hindu Gorkhas are veritable Marathas in respect of
stature. But haven’t these very Gorkhas vanquished the Italian, the Austrian
and the colossal Hitlerian German armies on various occasions and on
various battlefields in the last World War? The whole world still resounds
with the fame of the Gorkhas—‘A Hindu Gorkha means a gallant fighter’ is
a common place adage nowadays who once ruled as the invincible Emperor
of all the European nations like Germany, Russia and others, renowned for
their tall and sturdy soldiers, if not the ‘short’ Napoleon and his small
French army?
Abdali’s third invasion of India
1056. The Moghal Emperor had made Gazi-ud-din his chief minister
(Vizier), who went all the way along to Sarhind in Punjab in February,
1756, to appoint Adina Beg as the chief imperial officer there. Gazi-ud-din
acted in this case depending solely on the Maratha support, and this act of
his clearly meant that the whole of the province of Punjab, which was
reduced by Abdali, was once agian seized by the Moghal Emperor. Even in
Delhi, the Afghan influence was ineffectual and Gazi-ud-din, strongly
supported by the Marathas, spoke for the Moghal Emperor. Under these
circumstances, Malika Zamani, the old and crafty chief stewardess in the
Moghal imperial household, who was frightened out of her wits (at this all-
enveloping Maratha hold on the Moghal Empire) and Nizibkhan Rohilla,
who was then a prominent leader of all the Rohillas and Pathans in India
and who was the bitterest enemy of the Marathas, secretly wrote letters to
Ahmadshah Abdali to the effect that if at all Muslim power in India was to
be saved, it was Abdali alone who could save it, and that, as such he should
forthwith march on India with a well-equipped army. They had also
mentioned the fact that the Maratha armies were occupied in the south and
that Delhi was practically defenceless. But the Moghal Emperor, they
wrote, had already sent word to the Marathas to come to Delhi in all haste.
So, if Abdali was late, they argued, the Marathas were very likely to
establish their authority right up to Punjab, Thattha and Multan (Sindh) as
per their treaty with the Moghal Emperor and that they were to march with
mighty armies on Delhi and Punjab.
1057. At this news, Abdali was enraged beyond measure. It was to nullify
the imperial charter (Sanad) which entrusted the government of Punjab and
the neighbouring region to the Marathas, that he had recently invaded India
and annexed that region to his kingdom. He, therefore, took it highly amiss
that Gazi-ud-din should reincorporate that part into the Moghal empire,
without any sort of appeal or reference made to him. Naturally, once again,
he came to Peshawar in November, 1756, with a view to invading India
sending his son, Taimurshah and his General Jahankhan to take Lahore. The
Moghal general Adinabeg fought with Taimurshah, but was defeated, and
there was nobody to beat down the orgy of sword and fire which the Afghan
force indulged in, while they rushed headlong from Lahore to Sutlej.
Emboldened by this Moghal infirmity, Shah Abdali advanced straight to
Delhi without stopping anywhere for rest, with an army of eighty thousand
strong in January 1757 A.D. Delhi fell into his hands practically without
any resistance. Immediately, he took over the imperial authority and began
to run the government in his own name.
1058. And he precipitately performed what the Pathans and the Muslims
of the time thought to be their first and foremost duty, according to the
religious code of every Muslim Emperor. In order to make it suit his
dignity, he even fumed and fretted at the slightest pretext and ordered a
horrible general massacre of the citizens of Delhi, so that they might submit
meekly to his rule over Delhi. Within a few hours, ‘true and high-born’ and
‘thorough-bred’ Afghans beyond the Himalayas slaughtered more than
eighteen thousand people, and according to the second universally
acknowledged notion of the time, regarding the regal function in
accordance with the Muslim religious code, he proclaimed forthwith that as
an humble and royal adherent of Islam, he would completely destroy all the
Kafirs and their temples and all religious institutions throughout India!
1059. Without any loss of time, he brought his horrible announcement into
action. Under his orders, the Hindu temples, shrines, idols and their houses
began to be pulled down and set ablaze. Emperor Abdali was particularly
infuriated against the several Hindu holy places like Mathura and Prayag,
which the Marathas had rescued from the Muslim hands. So he began to
defile them all, one after another. On such occasions, Mathura, which is
very close to Delhi, was the first to fall a prey after Delhi, to all sorts of
vandalism of the monstrous aggressors and stoically enough, did that holy
city offer itself, time and again, as sacrificial oblation, as any brave lady in
the famous immolation (Johar) of Chitod or the very city of Chitod itself.
But this time, it did not merely submit itself to the Muslim religious
persecution, without fighting, as it had been doing till this time. Although
detailed description is not possible here for want of space, it must be told
here that nearly five thousand Hindu Jat citizens fought to the last drop of
blood left in them that innumerable and well-organized Muslim army.
Every brave Hindu, who died, did so only after killing as many of his
Muslim foes as was possible for him to kill. After bathing Mathura in blood
and burying it under heaps of the rubble of its demolished temples and
shrines and idols, Abdali attacked another neighbouring holy place of the
Hindus, Gokul Vrindavan. This also had been the object of Abdali’s fury for
the simple reason that the Marathas had recently snatched it away from the
Muslims. In order to halt this monstrous attack, more than two thousand
valiant ‘Gosavees’ (Monks), from the famous gymnasium of ‘Nanga
Gosavee’, suddenly fell upon the Muslim army with a grim determination
to fight unto death. This assault of the Gosavees was so sudden, so well
organized and so ferocious that Abdali’s forces reeled back all of a sudden
at the first knock. Thousands of Muslim soliders were killed outright, and
the brave gosavees, too! After the fierce fighting that continued throughout
the day, the Muslims left the town and retreated while the wounded and
bleeding city resounded joyously and thankfully with praises for those
Nanga Bairagees (naked ascetics), who had defended its Gokulnath. If at
all, one wishes to be a naked ascetic (Nanga Bairagee), he should be one
such!
1060. Abdali then marched against Agra and invested that strong fort. In
this very fort was fighting the direst enemy of the Pathan party in imperial
court, and one who sincerely tried to save the Moghal imperial power,
namely Gazi-ud-din, and he was every moment expecting reinforcement
from his protectors, the Marathas!
1061. But what were the Hindu kings and princes of Jaipur, Jodhpur and
Udaypur and other neighbouring states, the sardars and noblemen of courts
and the million of their warriors and subjects doing at this critical time for
the Hindu religion? While Abdali was indulging in reckless and ruthless
bloodshed of thousands of Hindu warriors, who sacrificed their lives in the
defence of their religion, and while all the Hindu places of pilgrimage were
being turned red with the blood of these innumerable Hindu martyrs, it was
the common people in north India, and not their rulers, who anxiously
waited every moment for the arrival of the Marathas and the relief at their
hands from all these atrocities! But the rest of Hindu kings and princes and
landlords (jagirdars), who had in their pay large fighting forces, wasted their
time cherishing malice towards the Marathas. All the Rajput princes were
secretly longing for the destruction of the Marathas at Abdalis’s hands.
Many of the Hindu rulers there—significant as well as insignificant—had
been carrying on secret negotiations with Abdali’s. But what, if Abdali had
wiped out the Maratha influence from Sindh-Multan to the end of
Rohilkhand and Nepal in the north, according to the wishes of the Hindu
and Muslim rulers in the north! The appalling answer to this question
doesn’t seem to have disturbed them a bit. Except for the Marathas, who
else were there of these Hindu princes and kings, who could have proved to
be the destroyer and conqueror of the Muslim domination? None at all!
What, then, could these incompetent Hindu Rajputs and others have gained,
if the Marathas had been destroyed by Abdali and the latter had once more
established Muslim imperial power throughout the North of India? All that
would have happened was perhaps that, a new wave of bloodshed of
millions of Hindus and atrocities at the orders of another imperial power of
a new Allauddin or a new Aurangzeb would have swept the Hindu world.
1062. But perhaps it was because of the earnest desire and heartfelt
longing of the above-mentioned millions of the Hindu commonality, who
themselves being disorganized, were utterly powerless to do anything in the
matter, except secretly wishing for the speedy arrival of the Marathas, who,
in their opinion, were the only ones to smash the Muslim power completely
or perhaps because of the original sustaining power of the Hindu nation in
general, that nothing of the kind happened.
1063. For, on receiving letters from the Maratha Sardars and Gazi-ud-din
and others, Peshwa Nanasahib immediately sent Malharrao Holkar under
the chief command of Raghunathrau Dada, with a large army. Urgent letters
were also sent to the Maratha Sardars such as Govindpant Bundeley, Barve
and others, who were already in the North to render every sort of assistance
to Raghunathrao. Before Raghunathrao left Indore and marched ahead,
news arrived that hearing the reports of the Maratha advance, Abdali had
left Mathura, Vrindaban and other Hindu places of worship and pilgrimage,
and gone to Delhi and thence to Kabul, taking away all the booty he had
acquired. But he had vested, before his departure to Kabul, the supreme
command of that region in the hands of his son, Taimurshah, stationing ten
thousand soldiers under him at Sirhind and installing his officers at various
important places in Punjab.
1064. While on this side, the Maratha forces under different military
leaders in the North, which had gathered together under the one command
of Raghunathrao, began to punish severely all those who had begun anti-
Maratha activities, relying on Abdali for support. Sakharam Bhagwant,
Gangadhar Yeshwant and other Maratha Sardars entered the Doab and once
again beat down the Pathan-Rohilla malfactors, released and brought into
their fold Vazir Gazi-ud-din, who had been made a captive by the Abdali
party. Vithal Shivadev himself marched on Delhi, and after about a
fortnight's fierce fighting, entered the city triumphantly, crushing down the
Abdali faction completely. The greatest of the triumphs was that the direst
enemy of the Maratha and Abdali's right-hand man, Najibkhan Rohilla,
was caught alive. Eventually, Abdali's settlement of the region under his
suzerainty was toppled down completely. The Pathan army of ten thousand
strong, which Abdali had stationed at Sirhind under the command of Abdul
Samad in order to maintain his hold on the region, itself lost courage.
Consequently, when the Marathas themselves advanced menacingly
towards Sirhind, there was a great commotion caused in the Muslim ranks
even before a regular battle was joined, and they were completely routed in
the initial skirmishes and their commander was caught alive. This news
made Taimurshah, the son of Abdali and his governor of Punjab, and his
commander-in-chief, Jahankhan, leave off their original plan of defending
Lahore and in the face of this forceful and precipitate Maratha counter-
offensive, both of them struck an honourable retreat to Kabul along with all
their army, hardly daring to face the Marathas on the battlefield. Abdali had
strictly urged upon them that they were under no circumstances to let the
vast treasures of millions (crores) of rupees, which was still in their
possession, to fall in the enemy hands. As such, they tried utmost to carry it
safely, retreating in as orderly a manner as was possible. But the Marathas
not only pursued them even beyond Lahore but they played such a havoc in
the Muslim ranks that Traimurshab crossed Attock and fled to his own
province, leaving behind at various places all his elephants, horses, camels,
and all the treasure in cash and jewellery, gold and silver. He had nothing
to carry home of the vast plunder from India, except his own life!
Whatever else belonged to him, was either sacked or destroyed by the
Marathas. Whatever little of his Afghan army escaped only with their lives
to Kabul like their governor, were the only ones that remained alive! All of
the veteran Pathan army of fifteen to twenty thousand strong, which was
kept behind in Delhi and Punjab by Abdali to annihilate the Hindus and the
Hindu religion throughout India, was attacked group by group and
massacred by the Marathas in the battles and skirmishes fought with them.
1065. Thus, by inflicting crushing and humiliating defeats on Emperor
Ahmadshah Abdali and by reconquering from the Afghan empire the
whole vast region from Sindh to Multan and Multan to Sirhind, the
Marathas once again gained the de facto control over the governance and
administration of this extensive province which they had earlier gained by
a paper treaty with the Moghal emperor! But the then Moghal emperor and
his Vazir, Gazi-ud-din, themselves knew very well that in their own
interest, too, it was essential that the Marathas should do this. Hence, the
Emperor himself gave order that Raghunathrao’s formal triumphant entry
into Lahore for the settlement of the affairs there, was to be celebrated
publicly with all pomp and festivities. All the Hindu chieftains of Kashmir,
Dogra nobles, Missals of the Sikhs and the so-called Muslim Empire,
Umraos, ‘Nizams and Nawabs’, who had been so far engaged in riotous
actions and ravaging the country to their own sweet will, were so much
overawed and struck dumb by this extraordinary heroism of the Marathas
in recapturing the whole of Punjab and the adjoining territories, that they
began to join the Maratha General Raghunathrao as subordinate allies. The
Sikhs had been recently gaining control over things in Punjab and they
were infuriated by Abdali’s wanton act of demolishing their at Amritsar
and filling up their holy lake round it with filth, mud, stones and bricks
during his retreat to Kabul for fear of the Marathas. They had, therefore,
become inveterate enemies of Abdali, and mighty leader of one of their
powerful ‘Missals’, namely Alasingh Jat (whom the Maratha
correspondence of the times referes to as ‘Ala Jat’) had joined the Marathas
openly in the battle of Sirhind. Hence, as almost all these leaders and
parties who had been then active in the political movements in Punjab were
favourable to such a grand ovation to be given to Raghunathrao, it was
agreed on all hands that the imperial ceremony felicitating the triumphal
entry into Lahore of Raghunathrao at the head of his army should be
celebrated after the Maratha general’s successful campaign towards Sindh.
The Triumphant March of Raghunathrao Peshwa in Punjab
1066. Taimurshah, who fled beyond the frontier, tried to carry with him
the immense treasure the Muslims had plundered in India, and it was to
seize that treasure that Raghunathrao entered Punjab in hot pursuit of the
Pathan army, which ran helter-skelter. Conquering more than half of Punjab
of Abdali, Raghunathrao drove them off to the frontier. Leaving the rest of
the work of regaining the frontier to the other Maratha companies and
brigades, he returned to Lahore, the Capital of Punjab, in order to
consolidate the Maratha gains and settle the affairs there and lay a firm
foundation of the Maratha power in the newly accquired territory. On the
11th of April, 1758, he made his triumphant entry into Lahore with all the
regalia and his victorious army.
1067. A magnificent ovation was given to him in order to glorify this
victorious entry of his, attended with feasting and dancing. Raghunathrao
sojourned in no less a place than the imperial palace itself. The other
prominent Maratha warlords had also put up in big palaces in Lahore or the
camps in the vicinity of the city. Everywhere, hundreds of well-adorned
elephants, horses, camels and fatted bulls paraded through the streets.
Various big Hindu-Muslim from different places, Emirs, Umraos, the so-
called Nawabs, Nizams, Raos, Kings and courtiers presented themselves in
the magnificent Darbar in the afternoon. Everyone of them, the political as
well as the civil administrators, nay, even the imperial army in Punjab,
vowed allegiance to the Peshwa at Poona and Raghunathrao was honoured
as the representative of that Peshwa. Every one of them tendered his
homage in the form of rich gifts to Raghunathrao. At night, the whole city
was gloriously illumined. Dazzling fireworks were displayed everywhere.
Even the neighbouring cities round about Lahore celebrated that feast of
light and fireworks display.
1068. What was the setting or the location of this triumphant assembly—
this feast of light? It was no other than the recreation grounds of the greatest
of the Moghal Emperors, like Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and others—the
extensive courtyard of the most famous Shalimar gardens of Lahore!! The
Marathas had thus reduced the Muslim imperial power to serfdom!
1069. At the news of this glorious Maratha victory, there was literally a
shower on Raghunathrao of the congratulatory letters written not only by
the numerous Kings and courtiers, Sardars of various ranks and the
learned Shastri-pandits, who were openly or secretly endeavouring beyond
all measure in the cause of Hindu-Padpadshahi throughout the length and
breadth of India, but by the self-less ascetics, also. As has been said in
Paragraph 991, the various writers of these multifarious congratulatory
letters were so much overcome by a sense of pride and jubilation over this
unconceivable Maratha victory, that they could not convey their feeling in
simple prose. These could only be conveyed through some mythological
imagery, a sample of which can be had in this one sent to Raghunathrao on
the 5th of May, 1758, by a Maratha General in Delhi, Antaji Mankeshwar,
who was in the habit of writing nothing but simple political reports and yet
who was one of the higher officers in the Maratha army.
1070. “Received your Excellency’s favour (of 13th April). How can I
express adequately the excessive joy I felt at the news in your
Excellency’s letter about the victory at Lahore, the destruction of the
enemy and the acquistion of the terrirories there? (Your Excellency’s)
fame has spread far and wide in Hindusthan (North India). The high-born
Emirs and Umraos and Governors, all are overawed! It is your Excellency
alone who avenged the wrong of the whole of Hindusthan (North India)!
As such, your Excellency’s success vies with the mountains! Your
Excellency is (destined to be) successful. How can this poor servant of