Maratha Empire
The Maratha Empire was, at its peak, a realm spanning roughly a third of the Indian subcontinent, stretching from Punjab in the north to Hyderabad in the south, from Kutch in the west to Oudh in the east. It began as a warrior movement on the western Deccan Plateau and grew into the most formidable power in South Asia, one that even a future British Prime Minister would remember with deep respect. How did a Marathi-speaking group from present-day Maharashtra come to dominate so much of the subcontinent? What made their infantry so feared that Arthur Wellesley warned his own officers never to let them attack head-on? And how did a confederacy that once controlled Delhi end up dismantled by a private trading company? Those are the threads this documentary follows.
Shivaji was born in 1630 into the Bhonsle clan of Maratha aristocracy. In 1645, he led a resistance against the Sultanate of Bijapur by capturing the fort Torna, the first of many forts that he placed under his control. His stated purpose was Hindavi Swarajya, which translates as the self-rule of Hindu people. He made Raigad the capital of his independent Maratha state and was crowned Chhatrapati, meaning sovereign, in 1674.
At the time of his death, Shivaji's dominion comprised roughly 4.1 percent of the subcontinent, but the territory was reinforced with about 300 forts and defended by approximately 40,000 cavalry, 50,000 soldiers, and naval establishments along the western coast. That naval dimension mattered. The Marathas carried out raids on Mughal naval ships and European trading vessels; European traders called this piracy, but the Marathas viewed it as legitimate action against those who were financing their enemies. Once European powers signed agreements with Shivaji or his successors, such raids decreased.
A Portuguese contemporary named Cosme da Guarda left a rare character sketch of Shivaji, writing that Shivaji accorded good treatment to people and observed agreements with such honesty that none looked upon him without a feeling of love and confidence. He reportedly charged his governors to report in writing on the conduct of soldiers, and he would order promotions in rank or pay based on merit alone. That administrative precision extended into the structure of government itself: Shivaji created a council of eight ministers called the Ashtapradhan, drawing ministerial titles from Sanskrit. It included a Prime Minister, a Finance Minister, a Commander-in-Chief, a Foreign Minister, a Chief Justice, a High Priest, and others. With the notable exception of the priestly and judicial roles, the other ministers held full military commands alongside their civil duties.
Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb headed south in 1681, bringing with him his entire imperial court, his administration, and an army estimated at about 500,000 troops. His immediate aim was to neutralize a potential alliance between the Marathas and his own rebel son, Akbar. Along the way, Aurangzeb's forces absorbed the sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda. For eight years after that, Shivaji's son Sambhaji led the Marathas in successful resistance.
In early 1689, Sambhaji called his commanders to Sangameshwar for a strategic conference. A Mughal commander named Mukarrab Khan, working with an insider named Ganoji, launched a meticulously planned ambush on Sangameshwar while Sambhaji was accompanied by only a few men. Sambhaji was captured on the 1st of February 1689, taken to Bahadurgad, and executed on the 21st of March 1689 alongside his advisor, Kavi Kalash.
His half-brother Rajaram took the throne and was forced to flee first to Vishalgad and then to Gingee. Maratha commanders including Santaji Ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav recaptured forts from the Mughals during this period. Rajaram offered a truce in 1697 that Aurangzeb rejected. Rajaram died in 1700 at Sinhagad, and his widow Tarabai assumed power in the name of their son.
When Aurangzeb died in 1707, Sambhaji's son Shahu was released by the new Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah I, though his mother was held hostage to ensure he respected the release conditions. Shahu immediately challenged Tarabai's authority. The result was two rival seats of Maratha government established in 1707, one at Satara under Shahu and one at Kolhapur under Tarabai. Shahu appointed Balaji Vishwanath as his Peshwa, or prime minister, a title Shivaji himself had created to more effectively delegate administrative duties. The Peshwa proved pivotal: Balaji secured Mughal recognition of Shahu's legitimacy as Chhatrapati and, in 1719, gained the release of Shahu's mother Yesubai from Mughal captivity.
Balaji Vishwanath was appointed Peshwa in 1713. His first notable achievement came the following year with the Treaty of Lonavala, which brought the powerful naval chief Kanhoji Angre into alliance with Shahu. In 1719, Balaji marched to Delhi with the Mughal governor of the Deccan, deposed the Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar, and extracted from the new teenage emperor rights to collect taxation from six Mughal provinces.
After Balaji's death in April 1720, Shahu appointed his son Baji Rao I. Bajirao is credited with expanding the Maratha Kingdom from roughly 3 percent to 30 percent of the modern Indian landscape between 1720 and 1740. On the 28th of February 1728, he defeated the Nizam of Hyderabad at the village of Palkhed near Nashik in a battle remembered for its brilliant military strategy. In 1737, his forces raided the suburbs of Delhi itself, then crushed the Nizam again at the Battle of Bhopal. The resulting treaty ceded Malwa to the Marathas. His brother Chimaji Appa led the Maratha victory against the Portuguese at Vasai, described as a major achievement of Baji Rao's tenure.
Baji Rao's son Balaji Bajirao, known as Nanasaheb, took over as Peshwa and under his watch, the general Raghoji Bhonsle conducted six expeditions into Bengal between 1741 and 1748. In June 1756, the Portuguese Viceroy, Luís Mascarenhas, Count of Alva, was killed in action by the Maratha Army in Goa. By 1757, the Maratha army under Raghunath Rao had captured Delhi after defeating the Afghan garrison in the Battle of Delhi. The following year, the 8th of May 1758, they captured Peshawar after defeating Afghan troops at the Battle of Attock. Maratha power at that moment stretched to the borders of Afghanistan.
Balaji Bajirao encouraged agriculture and protected villagers within Maratha-held territory, while his generals pushed the geographic boundaries of the confederacy to their widest extent. By 1760, the Maratha territory covered over 2,500,000 square kilometers. The zenith had been reached.
On the 14th of January 1761, enormous armies met at Panipat for the third time in Indian history. Ahmad Shah Durrani had assembled the Rohillas and the Nawab of Oudh against the Marathas. The Jats and Rajputs, who had been alienated by heavy Maratha taxation and interference in their internal affairs, did not come to the Maratha side. Raja Suraj Mal of Bharatpur had already quit the Maratha alliance at Agra, and with him went the supply chains the Marathas depended on.
The battle itself was fierce. The grand wazir of the Durrani Empire, Sardar Shah Wali Khan, was reportedly shocked when Maratha commander-in-chief Sadashivrao Bhau launched a fierce assault on the center of the Durrani Army, killing over 10,000 Durrani soldiers including Haji Atai Khan, a nephew of the wazir himself. The Afghan forces began to flee. The wazir reportedly shouted, "Comrades whither do you fly, our country is far off." The Marathas ultimately lost, and Ahmad Shah Abdali later claimed in a letter to an Indian ruler that the Afghans succeeded only through divine blessing, acknowledging the Maratha Army had been numerically inferior to the Durrani forces and their Indian allies.
Historian Kaushik Roy later argued that the Maratha treatment of the Jats and Rajputs as co-religionists had been unfair and that the price was paid at Panipat, where Muslim forces had united in the name of religion while the Hindus remained divided.
Recovery came through Peshwa Madhavrao I, the fourth Peshwa. He defeated Hyder Ali at the battles of Sira and Madgiri after crossing the Krishna River in 1767, and he sent generals Bhonsle, Scindia, and Holkar to the north to re-establish Maratha authority. In early 1771, just ten years after Panipat, Mahadaji Shinde recaptured Delhi and installed Shah Alam II as a controlled ruler on the Mughal throne. Madhav Rao I died in 1772, at the age of 27. His death is described as a fatal blow to the Maratha Confederacy.
In 1775, the British East India Company, operating from Bombay, intervened in a Peshwa succession dispute on behalf of Raghunathrao, who wanted to become Peshwa. Maratha forces under Tukoji Rao Holkar and Mahadaji Shinde defeated a British expeditionary force at the Battle of Wadgaon. The British governor-general in Bengal disavowed the surrender terms and fighting continued until 1782, when the First Anglo-Maratha War ended with a restoration of the pre-war status quo.
The decisive break came after the Peshwa Baji Rao II was defeated by Yashwantrao Holkar at the Battle of Poona in May 1802 and then fled to seek British protection. He signed the Treaty of Bassein, allowing British troops to be stationed in his territory and accepting British arbitration in disputes with other regional powers. Charles Metcalfe, one of the most capable British officials in India and later acting Governor-General, wrote in 1806 that India contained no more than two great powers, British and Maratha, and that every other state acknowledged the influence of one or the other.
The Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803-1805 has been described as the military high-water mark of the Marathas, who posed the last serious organized opposition to the British Raj. Arthur Wellesley, who defeated the Marathas in this conflict and would later become Prime Minister of Britain, said even then that their infantry matched the level of European forces. He cautioned a British general directly: "You must never allow Maratha infantry to attack head on or in close hand-to-hand combat as in that your army will cover itself with utter disgrace."
The Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817-1818 ended the confederacy. British historian Percival Spear described 1818 as a watershed year in Indian history, writing that by that year the British dominion in India became the British dominion of India. The Treaty of Gwalior was signed on the 5th of November 1817. The Peshwa Baji Rao II was exiled to Bithoor near Kanpur and offered a pension of about 80,000 pounds, terms that Major-General John Malcolm's superiors found controversially generous. Among the spoils of war, the British East India Company took possession of the Nassak Diamond.
Updated
Common questions
Who founded the Maratha Empire and when was it established?
Shivaji, a Maratha aristocrat of the Bhonsle clan born in 1630, founded the Maratha state. He was crowned Chhatrapati (sovereign) of the Maratha Kingdom in 1674 after establishing control over many forts in the western Deccan and successfully resisting Mughal expansion.
How large did the Maratha Empire become at its peak?
At its zenith in 1760, Maratha territory covered over 2,500,000 square kilometers, roughly a third of the Indian subcontinent. The confederacy extended from Punjab in the north to Hyderabad in the south, and from Kutch in the west to Oudh in the east.
What was the role of the Peshwa in the Maratha Confederacy?
The Peshwa was the Prime Minister of the Maratha Empire, a position originally created by Shivaji to delegate administrative duties. Prior to 1749 they served terms of 8-9 years; afterward, the Bhat family became hereditary Peshwas and the de facto rulers until the empire ended in 1818.
What caused the Maratha defeat at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761?
The Marathas were defeated by Ahmad Shah Durrani's forces on the 14th of January 1761, after the Jats and Rajputs refused to support them. The Marathas had alienated these groups through heavy taxation and interference in their affairs, and Raja Suraj Mal withdrew before battle, cutting off Maratha supply chains.
How did the British East India Company end the Maratha Empire?
The British destroyed the confederacy through the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-1805) and the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817-1818). After Peshwa Baji Rao II signed the Treaty of Bassein in 1802 accepting British protection, war became unavoidable. By 1818, the Peshwa was exiled to Bithoor near Kanpur and the British controlled most of the Indian subcontinent south of the Sutlej River.
How did Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, assess the Maratha military?
Wellesley, after defeating the Marathas, warned British officers never to let Maratha infantry attack head-on in close combat, saying any army that did would cover itself in utter disgrace. He described their artillery as so powerful it would be impossible to maintain a camp against it, and he held their infantry in utmost respect even after becoming Prime Minister of Britain.
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