पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

84 PANIPAT: 1761 paid soldiers and camp-followers or irregulars. The figures given by Shamlu and others are inflated because they include all the camp-followers also. An average of four camp-followers for each professional soldier would make a fair estimate⁷ of persons gathered in the two camps, and on that basis it looks as if each camp had two and a half lakhs of people in it. The Maratha camp had many pilgrims also in its entourage. Some sardars had brought their fam- ilies for this very purpose with them, so as to facilitate their travel in comfort and safety. Many priests had gathered in the camp from Benares and Prayag with the hope of getting good fees and alms by plying their trade. Many can- didate clerks had joined with the hope of getting some temporary work or civil appointment in the newly conquered territories. This was almost a normal and permanent camp-following class in the Maratha armies ever since the days of Shivaji, as is attested by Martin, the French Governor of Pondicherry. In- cidentally it shows the nature of the Maratha camp. The chartered bazar accompanying the army supplied all the needs of the people in it. People felt “so little danger in following their camp that life in camp is spent as happily there as in towns.” (MALET’S Memoranda Relative to the Maratha Army at Kharda, Maratha-Nizam Relations, No. 202, p. 272.) Major DIROM writes that the Maratha army on march “resembles more the emigration of a nation guarded by its troops than the march of an army only to subdue an enemy.”⁸ The women camp-followers in the Maratha army were a necessary element for doing certain duties which men thought it derogatory to perform in those days. Cooking their food and cleaning the vessels could be done by males, but grind- ing the corn was thought to be an exclusive duty of the female sex, for per- forming which a number of them accompanied the army. It is difficult to estimate the number of females in the Maratha army, but we think there were some 20,000 all told. Most of these were slaves of their masters, who served in various capacities and also as concubines. Very few married women had accompanied their husbands in this long-drawn-out campaign. Because Bhau, Balvantrao Mehendale, Nana Fadnis and possibly a few others had taken their wives with them, a wrong impression is formed about the total number of such women accompanying the army. Mirat-i-Ahmadi states that 12,000 women in good position among whom 700 travelled in palkis, were taken prison- ers.⁹ We think this statement a gross exaggeration. There could not be more than 100 women carried in litters, nor could the 12,000 women belong to the married class. A few other sardars had also taken their women-folk with them, no doubt, for pilgrimage along the route, but their number was not more than a few hundred at the most.¹⁰ The rest of the women belonged to the slave- concubine class. Nuruddin Hasan’s mention of “handsome Brahman women” being sold after the defeat can only be treated as a figment of the brain, and as to the “rose-limbed slave girls” mentioned by Sir Jadunath,¹¹ their number could be infinitesimally small, if such were to be found there at all. Had the 7 Dirom p. 242. 8 Dirom p. 243. 9 Sardesai Commemoration Volume (English) p. 260 10 Purandare 3.209. 11 Fall 2.348.