भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

(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.

1028. 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.
1029. 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
1030. 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!

1031. 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.
1032. 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
1033. 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

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

1049. 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.
1050. 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.”

1051. 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:
1052. 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!
1053. 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

your Excellency have the ability to dilate upon this topic? The Vazir was extremely pleased to hear these tidings (and said) “His Excellency is truly an incarnation of God. How can a human being praise Him sufficiently’? Your humble servant (i.e. I) has no other safe shelter anywhere except at your feet. If your Honour is likely to encamp at Lahore, I will come there with the Emperor and his Vazir. The Vazir and all others, great and small, fear that in case your Excellency were not to encamp, the Pathans are likely to return to Lahore in the rainy season. I have just set down here what the people say. Your Honour’s is the right to decide upon the course of action to be followed. May your Excellency be kind enough to let this humble servant know whether the proposal of bringing the Vazir and the Emperor there is fair or otherwise, and your Excellency’s orders in this respect are awaited. Vithal Shivdev would escort them there if Your Honour so pleases. Krishnarao (Kale), too, might come, and put before Your Honour everything.”—5.5.1758. The report on the conquest of Punjab sent by Raghunathrao Peshwa Himself 1071. Now letters-after-letters followed in quick succession from Shreemant Nanasahib at Poona asking Raghunathrao to return along with his army to the South before the monsoons set in. But as Punjab had been very recently conquered, it was absolutely essential that proper system had to be urgently laid down for the governance and administration of the vast territory. As such, it was desirable that Raghunathrao should entrench himself there with all his army for another four months. All the ablest Maratha leaders and army commanders thought and urged that Raghunathrao had better not to go to the Daccan along with Malharrao Holkar. But Raghunathrao Dada and Malharrao Holkar, too, were in their heart of hearts inclined to go to the South. Now that Nanasahib had ‘called’ him back, Raghunathrao himself sent an authentic report, penned by himself, to Shreemant Nanasahib about the unprecedented success in Punjab, and began his return march towards Poona. Many other Maratha Sardars, including the one of the status of Malharrao Holkar, returned to the Deccan along with Raghunathrao. Of course, in order to maintain the Maratha rule unhampered in Punjab the requisite Maratha forces were stationed at different places by Raghunathrao under some Sardars. 1072. Although it was quite possible to describe the valour of the Marathas in this campaign in Punjab in the grand style of an epic or heroic