पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

THE JUDGMENT 125 none can say that they were inferior to any in India of those days With all their internal quarrels, no other state in India could muster so many troops for war under a unitary command. No other nation was less bigoted or more tolerant in religious and social matters, as is proved by their behaviour towards their Muslim neighbours or their rule over Muslim subjects. There is no in- stance of their having fabricated a document like Clive, none where they tried to gain a point by assassination or intimidation. They did not hire mercenaries for slaughtering their opponent in an unguarded moment. They would not murder persons by calling them for an interview. They would not kill foreign emissaries at their Court. No other war-like nation is known to be milder in their peace-time actions. There are no instances where the Marathas entered into the slaughter of civilians after a victory, or during conquest to have created terror. It is nowhere noted that they slaughtered disarmed prisoners, like the Durranis after Panipat, or uselessly cut off the head of a fallen soldier as in the case of Dattaji Shinde at Buradi. They did not apply torture to ex- tract hidden wealth like the Afghans at Delhi in 1757. In fact, one feels many a time that their comparative mildness their humane behaviour, their civil man- ners, their unwillingness to gain their ends by back-door machinations or solve their problems, internal or external, by swift unscrupulous actions such as mur- dering an opponent, or doing away with their unwanted brethren like the Mughals, has had the effect of their not succeeding in history. Be that as it may, none can charge them as being morally condemnable in comparison with many other military nations in the world. When a responsible historian of India like Sir Jadunath SARKAR charges the Marathas with being "lesser breeds beyond the law,"³ one does not know how to characterize such a statement and what standard of conduct and morality he wants to apply. He seems to belong to that category of historians-cum moralists "who justify Providence by the event and hold nothing so deserving as success. To them there can be no vic- tory in a bad cause, prescription and duration legitimate, and whatever exists is right and reasonable, and God manifests His will by that which He tolerates. Men must confirm to the divine decree by living to shape the future after the ratified image of the past."⁴ These writers should learn to know that there are many Marathas—perhaps the majority—who think it better to have lost the Empire than to have followed a line of conduct after the manner of a Clive or Najib or Abdali. GENERAL THOUGHTS ON WAR Mankind since it began to think and take a retrospective view of human affairs, has been sharply divided on the moral basis of war, and it will prob- ably remain so divided for all time. Indian civilisation, at least after the Aryan imposition, has not only sanctioned war but has consecrated a particular class for that work and given it the second rank in society. This is in sharp contrast with the neighbouring Chinese civilisation which had relegated the soldier to the last place in society and only tolerated him as an unavoidable ³ Fall II.291 ⁴ Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History (1907) (Inaugural Lecture) p 25 ,