पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

126 PANIPAT 1761 evil Turks who conquered India and held their sway over it for half a mil lennium were a moving nation in arms In addition, the Islamic teachings which they followed had charged them with waging an incessant war upon the infidels till they were converted to Islam When the Marathas rose upon the horizon of history they had perforce to take to the military profession for solving the Indian riddle It was a necessity imposed on them by the Epoch and they had no choice of refusing it How mild and inoffensive the Marathas otherwise are has been proved after the extinction of their sovereign power, for by the end of the 19th century they were relegated to the rank of non martial races in India in the Indo British political phraseology It means that the Marathas as a race take to arms only when they are insulted or forced to as the Chinese monk Yu an Chwang remarked long ago in his itinerary Spilling of blood never became a pastime with them as with the Afghans On the whole, the battles fought by the Marathas were the least bloody, the casualties on both sides being as few as possible Their so called guerilla mode of warfare was nothing more than seeking to gain their ends by manoeuvring and strategy more than by actual crossing of swords face to face Having acted throughout their career in this spirit, they naturally felt intensely such a disaster as Panipat on account of the heavy massacres following it When estimating the effects of Panipat on the Marathas, this fact should not be lost sight of The best of political thinkers have allowed war as a human necessity in solving uncompromising questions Some go so far as to call it a moral neces sity Taking the historic view, certainly the recorded history of mankind is mostly a history of wars waged by the various races of mankind between and amongst themselves as Sir John FORTESCUE says, but all would not agree with him in thinking the military force of a nation as a manifestation of its moral force At the same time it is certain that in history the military force has stood as the test of material civilisation if not of moral The best soldier has always manifested the highest human virtues personally, but collectively it is difficult to characterise war as a school for virtues If sometimes the best qualities of a nation are called forth and mobilised by war, it is also true and much more often true that the worst side of human nature is exhibited and given a licence as a result of war Whether a state lapses into degeneracy as a result of long peace is also a debatable point, because for counteracting such a possibility some- one else has to suffer The cruelty and the futility of war for final settlement of human world problems has become more and more manifest with the progress of modern civilisation and coming together of mankind Be that as it may, speaking about Panipat, it is very correct to say that the inferiority of the Marathas, in the material sense, became very manifest But on the moral side their record is very clean They had not fought for the three primary (and also primitive) aims of war as given by HOBBES, viz (1) material gain, (2) fear, or (3) glory It means they fought for a fourth cause unknown to that political philosopher, viz principle, the sanctity of the contract they had entered into with the Delhi Emperor for the guarding of his Empire On the other hand Ahmad Shah Abdali individually was also fighting for a cause he thought right, viz the cause of Islam in India He triumphed by his superior power, won glory, freed himself from the fear of the Marathas once for all,