Chhatrapathi Shivaji

[Bharatvarsh2]

I have been meaning to make this post for a while but kept putting off.



The greatest Hindu ruler of all time IMO is none other than Shivaji and I will give my reasons.



Of all the Hindu rulers he alone had a pan Indian vision that he acted upon. Let us remember that even Vijayanagara at its height under Krishnadeva Raya with its vast resources never had the vision of destroying Muslim rule in Delhi itself and planting the saffron flag at Attock.



Second he realised the Christian threat and the importance of raising a navy to counter them, the foundations he laid were to bear fruit under Kanhoji Angre.



Third he made great efforts to check forcible conversions of Hindus by Muslims and Christians, one may check the above posts for more info. Not only that he set a good precedent by personally overseeing the shuddhi of Netaji Palkar and Balaji Nimbalkar (to whose son he gave one of his daughters in marriage to show full acceptance back into Hindu society).



He rightly foresaw the evil's of jagirdari and abolished it, this wise policy was later abandoned and would later prove to be the ruin of the Marathas with the Shinde's, Holkar's etc engaged in intercine struggles while the British swallowed them up one by one.



He laid out a policy to be followed by the later Marathas, they were to liberate all of India from Muslim rule, rebuild the Kashi mandir, and Europeans were to be checked and only allowed to trade. This is found in the ajnapatra of Ramachandra Amatya who worked as Panta Amatya for Shivaji and saw the rule of Shivaji, Sambhaji, Rajaram, and Sambhaji II (second son of Rajaram and Rajasbai), this was composed at Sambhaji II's behest around 1715 and talks about Shivaji's policies. In it he says about the Europeans:

Their masters, every one of them, are ruling kings. By their orders and under their control these people come to trade in these provinces. How can it happen thatrulers have no greed for territories? These hat-wearers have full ambition to enterinto these provinces to increase their territories, and to establish their own opinions [religion]. Accordingly at various places they have already succeeded in their ambitious undertakings. Moreover this race of people is obstinate. Where a place has fallen into their hands they will not give it up even at the cost of their lives.



However, while great care was to be taken in allowing them to build something, they should be allowed to carry on their trade, considering the importance of commerce to the prosperity of the kingdom: "If they live inthis way by accepting the above conditions it is well; if not, there is no need of them. It is enough if they occasionally come and go, and do not trouble us; nor need we trouble them."



https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstre...l+file.pdf

It is thanks to his vision and the foundations he laid that the Marathas not only survived his sudden death and Sambhaji's death but triumphed at the end of the 27 year war during which Aurangzeb descended on them with the entire might of the Mughal army and tried to crush them.



He may never have built magnificent temples like the Pallavas or Cholas, nor written beautiful poetry or accomplished in the arts like Bhojadeva or Krishnadeva Raya but he accomplished much more than any of them. In fact he most likely was illiterate. For the first time in centuries an attempt was made by the Marathas to bring all of India under Hindu rule thanks to his vision.



Unlike the suicidal Kesariya Bana charges of Rajputs which may make for good heroic poetry but are militarily stupid, he was practical and knew his limitations. He surrendered when hemmed in by Mirza Jai Singh and knew that the fight could always be resumed in the future under more favorable circumstances.



He inspired Chhatrasal Bundela and told him to liberate his own lands which he set about doing. He tried to make the servile Hindu fools like Mirza Jai Singh see the light and the need for a united Hindu front, one may read his letter to Jai Singh regarding this.



The way he slew Afzal Khan, his commando raid on Shaista Khan and his escape from imprisonment at Agra were a stuff of legend in his own lifetime.



He forbade camp followers and women in the army, the penalty for the latter offense was death. This made his forces much more mobile than the cumbersome Mughal army with its thousands of camp followers and unnecessary burdens. One may contrast this with the later Maratha army that fought the disastrous Panipat war under Bhau, in this Maratha army camp followers and women on pilgrimage outnumbered the actual fighting men. Even the great Baji Rao seems not to have been as strict in this regard for he took Mastani with him on his campaigns.



He also forbade the slave trade in South India between Muslims and the Europeans (mainly Dutch), so much for the claim that he only went to South India for plunder.

A final example of the intimate connection of Shivaji’s ideologies

to his practices, or of the nigh impossibility to separate the two, is the

following passage from his qaul granted to VOC ambassador Herbert de

Jager in 1677. In it Shivaji puts his proscription of the slave trade discussed

above in the context of a radical (and ideological) break with the past:



In the days of the Moorish government it was allowed for you to buy male slaves

and female slaves here [the Karnatak], and to transport the same, without anyone

preventing that. But now you may not, as long as I am master of these lands, buy

male or female slaves, nor transport them. And in case you were to do the same,

and would want to bring [slaves] aboard, my men will oppose that and prevent it in

all ways and also not allow that they be brought back in your house; this you must

as such observe and comply with.92



Even if Shivaji’s measure was motivated, as Herbert de Jager suggests, by a

concern about revenues (which would be less if there were fewer

inhabitants) rather than a concern for the welfare of the potential slaves, it

is quite impossible to distinguish in this passage the practical measure from

the patriotic appeal conveyed by it, directed as it is against Muslim rulers

allowing the slave trade and Europeans carrying slaves off to foreign parts,unless one would want to argue that Shivaji was not planning to enforce the

measure despite his assurance that his men would do so “in all ways.”



https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstre...l+file.pdf

Having said that he had his limitations.



1) His artillery was always weak as was his navy, this prevented his numerous attempts to take Janjira from the Siddis. He relied on the English and the French for artillery, the English usually refused to supply him or sold him defective guns. The artillery of the Marathas continued to be their weak point even as late as Panipat, it was only under Mahadji's rule that some progress made but by then it was too little and too late.



2) While he realised the threat of Europeans he did not seem to have ordered his court intellectuals to study the Europeans in detail, the various groups and their histories which the Europeans had begun to do at that very time about the Hindus.



3) And this was his biggest limitation, he was mostly your typical nice Hindu ruler and did not understand the need for targeting Muslim civilians the way Muslims did with Hindus. One may contrast this with Banda Bahadur who massacred almost all Muslims in his sack of Sirhind and the terror he inspired among the Mughals as a result. The later Marathas too were a failure in this regard. The only one's who showed some initiative in this regard were the Sikhs, so no wonder they were much hated by the Jihadists and feared.



For example:

By the time of Sodhi Vadhbhag Singh there were complete relations between Akali Nihang Khalsa Panth and Dhirmalias. Around the early 1750s, Nasir Ali the military governor of Jullander, burnt the sacred Sikh shrine ‘Tham Sar’. Vadbhag Singh got together with the deposed Moghal governor of Punjab, Adina Beg, to capture and destroy the Afghans of Jullander.



Rattan Singh Bhangu writes how the Sodhi Guru summoned ‘Dal Khalsa’ (combined forces of Budha and Tarna Dals) to assist him take Jullander:



‘Vadbhag Singh writing said:

“I am Guru you are the true Singhs. Come to do deed of the Guru. Come all Khalsa prepared for war The Nawab [Adina Beg] has prepared. He has called upon the mountain people to help him”.’

‘Pracheen Panth Prakash’, Translated by Baba Santa Singh, Vol. 2, Pa. 3440



The Akali Nihangs drinking ‘Sukha’ writes Ratan Singh, took Jullander. Vadbhag Singh demanded complete the massacre and dishonor of Jullander. Adina Beg and his Moghals did not come to the rescue of their co-religionists. In the past, these Afghans had perpetuated atrocities on Adina Beg. The Jullander Afghans had also been indiscriminately kidnapping and raping Sikh and Hindu women. By order of Vadbhag Singh, those Afghans who had perpetuated these crimes had their women taken away by the Khalsa. The women were made to eat pork, and marry the Khalsa by simple ceremony of circumventing a small Sikh prayer book on top of a spear or given over to low caste Sikh Hindus.



Nasir Ali, who had died, writes Rattan Singh, had his grave desecrated and pig’s flesh put in his dead corpse’s mouth. Nasir Ali had beaten Vadbhag Singh to inch of his life and desecrated the Sikh shrines at Kartarpur by slaughtering cows in them and burning them. Sodhi Vadbhag Singh the extractor of this terrible revenge on Jullander died in 1819.



http://www.sarbloh.info/htmls/article_sa...dhis2.html

However, he was regarded with hatred by the Afghans and Muslims of what became the North West Frontier. It was claimed that the four years in which he was Governor of Peshawar were characterised by looting, vandalism and rapine. For decades after his death, Yusufzai women would say Raghe Hari Singh ("Hari Singh is coming") to frighten their children into obedience.[20]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Singh_Nalwa

Believe me had the Marathas implemented that along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition after the reconquista there would be no Pakistan or Beggardesh today. No talk of composite culture, no Imam Bukhari sitting in Delhi thundering "inshallah we Muslims will rule India again", none of that crap. The failure of Hindus always lay in their prediliction for "daya" and "kshama" (mercy and forgiveness) and still does, it is a weakness not something to celebrate as many Hindus think. When people say, look how noble Shivaji was he forbade his followers to destroy mosques etc, I think to myself "ya and look where that got us today, look at Pakistan and Bangladesh which would have never been born had it not been for such foolishness".