पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

THE JUDGMENT. 107 lieved in his professions at all. This was the real tragedy of the Panipat cam- paign. Actually, it was Malharrao who, in the company of Raghunathrao, had gone to the Panjab and stretched the Maratha sphere of influence upto Attock and even beyond. It was this expansion by driving Abdali's forces out of the Panjab that had caused Ahmad Shah Abdali to seek revenge. But Mal- harrao had stretched the line only when Ahmad Shah, after first looting Delhi and Mathura, had returned back to Afghanistan. Taking advantage of the absence of the main forces of the enemy in India, Raghunathrao and Malhar- rao had proceeded to Lahore. Even in the Panipat campaign, Malharrao's idea was similar. He had advised Bhau to remain behind the Chambal in the Maratha dominions and wait till the departure of Abdali. Afterwards he would have accompanied Sadashivrao Bhau even to the Panjab, had he so desired. Malharrao and most of the Marathas thought this as the real guerilla mode coming down from the days of Shivaji. Fighting open, face-to-face, pitched battles on the result of which the fate of the Marathas would depend, was against the fixed tenor of their minds. They would never run such risks. On the other hand, it was the intention first of the Mughals and later on of the Afghans under Abdali to bring the Marathas to a pitched battle so as to de- cide the issue in a single fight. As long as the defence of their home-land and the breaking up of the enemy's power were the primary aims of the Marathas, their old mode was all right; but now that the Marathas had spread over the length and breadth of India and aspired to take the reins of Government of the whole continent in their hands, the original mode was out of place and time. Sadashivrao Bhau had understood this point, especially after coming into contact with the French under Bussy in 1751, but Malharrao had not. Malharrao followed his life's conviction even after Panipat and succeeded when not confronted by the new type of infantry. He received his coup-de- grace finally at the hands of the English at Kora on 3rd May, 1765, and fled back to Kalpi to save his life! Thus it will be seen that a conflict of ideals and long cherished modes of warfare cut at the root of Panipat. The late Vishwanath K. Rajwade in his oft-repeated and uncritically accepted criticism of the Panipat campaign,¹ puts the whole blame for the failure on two persons in the main, Malharrao Holkar and Govindpant Bun- dele. We have seen above how a fundamental conflict of ideals and modes was at the root of the whole difference. Just as Bhau's mind was already prejudiced against Govindpant long before his starting for the Panipat cam- paign, similarly Bhau's opinion about Malharrao from the beginning was any- thing but favourable. Malharrao's way in politics was to keep on speaking terms with all and not to antagonise anyone completely.² He had kept a simi- lar attitude towards Najib Khan for the same reasons. Such an attitude was possible for a secondary potentate like Malharrao, but impossible for men of Bhau's position who had to take a decisive step one way or the other. In 1750- 51 the Peshwa had suspected Malharrao and even Jayapa Shinde of trying to free themselves from the Peshwa's service and accepting service under the

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¹ Raj. 1 Introduction. ² Purandare, 1.287, 293