Shivaji

• 1. Introduction

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  Shivaji, the Maratha ruler of the Deccan, was known to Aurangzeb and his generals as a "Mountain Rat." They meant it as contempt. The target was a man who struck their armies and then slipped away into the hills. He ended his life as a crowned king, and that outcome is the puzzle at the center of this documentary. How did a man the Mughal court saw as little more than a rebel landholder come to rule a kingdom of his own? What does it take to beat forces far larger than your own? And why, centuries after his death, does his name still set off fierce arguments?

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• 2. Hill Fort Beginnings

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  Shivaji was born in the hill-fort of Shivneri, near Junnar, in what is now Pune district. Scholars disagree about his exact birth date. The government of Maharashtra lists the 19th of February as a holiday, Shivaji Jayanti, to mark his birth. He took his name from a local deity, the goddess Shivai Devi.

  His grandfather Maloji, who lived from 1552 to 1597, was an influential general of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate and earned the epithet Raja. To cover military costs, Maloji received deshmukhi rights over Pune, Supe, Chakan and Indapur. Around 1590 he was also given Shivneri fort as a home for his family.

  Shivaji's father, Shahaji Bhonsle, carried that service forward as a Maratha general under the Deccan Sultanates. His mother, Jijabai, was the daughter of Lakhuji Jadhavrao of Sindhkhed. Lakhuji was a sardar allied with the Mughals who claimed descent from a Yadava royal family of Devagiri. The scholar James Laine states that Jijabai was aware of that heritage and filled her son with the dream of re-establishing a Hindu kingdom. She considered her husband "a collaborator of low birth."

  Three Islamic sultanates, Bijapur, Ahmednagar and Golkonda, shared power in the Deccan with the Mughal Empire when Shivaji was born. Shahaji kept changing sides among the Nizamshahi of Ahmadnagar, the Adilshahi of Bijapur and the Mughals. Through every switch he held on to his jagir at Pune, a type of fiefdom, and to his small army.

  In 1636, Bijapur invaded the kingdoms to its south, helped by Shahaji. Bijapur had recently become a tributary state of the Mughal Empire. Shahaji hoped to win jagir land in the conquered territories and collect its taxes as an annuity. He had briefly served the Mughals before rebelling against them. His campaigns against the Mughals, supported by Bijapur, were generally unsuccessful. The Mughal army kept pursuing him, and Shivaji and Jijabai had to move from fort to fort.

  After Shahaji joined Bijapur's service in 1636, he obtained Poona as a grant. The ruler Adilshah deployed him to Bangalore, so Shahaji appointed Dadoji Kondadeo to administer Poona. Shivaji and Jijabai settled there. When Kondadeo died in 1647, Shivaji took over the administration.

  That same year, the 16-year-old Shivaji captured Torna Fort, either by stratagem or by bribery. The Bijapur court was in confusion because Sultan Mohammed Adil Shah was ill. Shivaji seized the large treasure he found inside. Over the next two years he took Purandar, Kondhana and Chakan, along with other important forts near Pune. He also brought the areas around Supa, Baramati and Indapur under his direct control. The Torna treasure paid for a new fort, Rajgad, which served as the seat of his government for over a decade. Turning west to the Konkan, he took the important town of Kalyan.

  Bijapur noticed. On the 25th of July 1648, a fellow Maratha sardar named Baji Ghorpade imprisoned Shahaji on the orders of the Bijapur government, hoping to contain the son. Shahaji was released in 1649, after the capture of Jinji secured Adilshah's position in Karnataka. From 1649 to 1655, Shivaji paused his conquests and quietly consolidated what he held.

  In 1656, under controversial circumstances, Shivaji killed Chandrarao More, a fellow Maratha feudatory of Bijapur. He then seized the valley of Javali, near the present-day hill station of Mahabaleshwar. Javali let him extend his raids into south and southwest Maharashtra. Many powerful families served Bijapur, among them the Sawant of Sawantwadi, the Ghorpade of Mudhol and the Nimbalkar of Phaltan. Shivaji used several methods to subdue them. He formed marital alliances, dealt directly with village Patils to bypass the Deshmukhs, or used force.

  Shahaji died around 1664-65 in a hunting accident. In his later years he had taken an ambivalent view of his son and disavowed his rebellious activities. He even told the Bijapuris to do whatever they wanted with Shivaji.

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• 3. Bijapur's Generals

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  In 1657, Bijapur sent a veteran general named Afzal Khan to arrest Shivaji. The order came from the sultan, or more likely from his mother, who acted as regent. Bijapur had grown more stable after a peace treaty with the Mughals and general acceptance of the young Ali Adil Shah II as sultan. Its government was no longer willing to ignore its losses to Shivaji, especially with his own father disavowing him.

  Before engaging Shivaji, the Bijapuri forces desecrated the Tulja Bhavani Temple, a holy site for Shivaji's family. They also desecrated the Vithoba temple at Pandharpur, a major pilgrimage site for Hindus. Pursued by this army, Shivaji retreated to Pratapgad fort. Many of his colleagues pressed him to surrender.

  The siege became a stalemate. Shivaji could not break it, while Afzal Khan had a powerful cavalry but no siege equipment to take the fort. After two months, Afzal Khan sent an envoy proposing that the two leaders meet in private, outside the fort.

  They met in a hut in the foothills of Pratapgad on the 10th of November 1659. The arrangements called for each man to carry only a sword and bring one follower. Shivaji suspected an arrest or an attack. He wore armour beneath his clothes, hid a bagh nakh, a metal "tiger claw," on his left arm, and held a dagger in his right hand.

  What happened next is not known with historical certainty, and the story comes mainly from Maratha legends. Everyone agrees the two men ended up in a physical struggle that killed Afzal Khan. In the telling, Khan's dagger failed to pierce Shivaji's armour, and Shivaji disembowelled him. Shivaji then fired a cannon to signal his hidden troops to attack the Bijapuri army.

  In the Battle of Pratapgarh that followed, Shivaji's forces decisively defeated Bijapur's. More than 3,000 Bijapuri soldiers were killed. One high-ranking sardar, two sons of Afzal Khan and two Maratha chiefs were taken prisoner. Shivaji then held a grand review below the fort and freed the captured officers and men. He sent them home with money, food and other gifts, and he rewarded his own Marathas accordingly.

  Shivaji and his army next marched toward the Konkan coast and Kolhapur and seized Panhala fort. In 1659 they also defeated Bijapuri forces sent against them under Rustam Zaman and Fazl Khan. In 1660, Adilshah sent his general Siddi Jauhar against Shivaji's southern border. Siddi Jauhar besieged Panhala in mid-1660, cutting off its supply routes.

  During the bombardment, Siddi Jauhar bought grenades from the English East India Company factory at Rajapur. He also hired English artillerymen and conspicuously flew the Company's flag. Shivaji saw this as a betrayal. In December he plundered the Rajapur factory and detained four of its employees, imprisoning them until mid-1663.

  After months of siege, Shivaji negotiated with Siddi Jauhar and handed over Panhala on the 22nd of September 1660. He withdrew to Vishalgad. He would not retake Panhala until 1673.

  The escape itself cost lives. Shivaji slipped out of Panhala by night, but enemy cavalry pursued him. Baji Prabhu Deshpande, a Maratha sardar of Bandal Deshmukh, volunteered to fight to the death with 300 soldiers at Ghod Khind, the "horse ravine." Khind means a narrow mountain pass. In the battle of Pavan Khind the smaller force held back the larger one. Baji Prabhu was wounded but kept fighting until he heard cannon fire from Vishalgad on the evening of the 22nd of September 1660. That sound told him Shivaji had reached the fort. The pass was later renamed Paavan Khind, meaning "sacred pass," in honour of Bajiprabhu Deshpande, Shibosingh Jadhav, Fuloji and all the soldiers who fought there.

  Siddi Jauhar's plan had counted on a Mughal army pressing from the north. That army was led by Shaista Khan.

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• 4. The Mughal Wars

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  In March 1657, two of Shivaji's officers raided Mughal territory near Ahmednagar, and the long quarrel with the Mughals began. Until then he had kept the peace. He had offered Aurangzeb, then the emperor's son and viceroy of the Deccan, his help in conquering Bijapur. In return he wanted formal recognition of his right to the Bijapuri forts and villages he held. The Mughal response disappointed him, and Bijapur made a better offer, so he turned on the Mughals.

  Raids around Junnar followed, with Shivaji carrying off 300,000 hun in cash and 200 horses. Aurangzeb sent Nasiri Khan, who defeated Shivaji's forces at Ahmednagar. But the rainy season interrupted Aurangzeb's countermeasures. So did his battles with his brothers over the succession to the Mughal throne, after the emperor Shah Jahan fell ill.

  In January 1660, Aurangzeb, by then emperor, sent his maternal uncle Shaista Khan against Shivaji. Badi Begum of Bijapur had requested it. Shaista Khan brought a vast army and a powerful artillery division, and he seized Pune. He also took the nearby fort of Chakan, besieging it for a month and a half before the walls gave way. Then he made his home in Shivaji's own palace, the Lal Mahal.

  On the night of the 5th of April 1663, Shivaji led 400 men in a daring attack on Shaista Khan's camp. They broke into the mansion and then into Khan's bedroom, and wounded him. He lost three fingers. In the scuffle, Khan's son and several wives, servants and soldiers were killed. Khan took refuge with Mughal forces outside Pune. Aurangzeb punished him for the embarrassment by transferring him to Bengal.

  In 1664, Shivaji sacked Surat, a wealthy Mughal trading port, partly to replenish his depleted treasury. He left with plunder exceeding Rs 10 million. On the 13th of February 1665, he also carried out a naval raid on Portuguese-held Basrur, in present-day Karnataka, and again took large plunder.

  These attacks enraged Aurangzeb, who sent the Rajput general Jai Singh I with an army of around 15,000. Throughout 1665 Jai Singh's cavalry razed the countryside and his forces besieged Shivaji's forts. The Mughal commander also lured away several of Shivaji's key commanders and many of his cavalrymen. By mid-1665, with Purandar besieged and near capture, Shivaji had to come to terms. When he received Jai Singh, he is reported to have said: "I have come as a guilty slave to seek forgiveness."

  The Treaty of Purandar was signed on the 11th of June 1665. Shivaji agreed to give up 23 of his forts and keep 12. He also agreed to pay compensation of 400,000 gold hun and to become a Mughal vassal. His son Sambhaji, with 5,000 horsemen, would fight for the Mughals in the Deccan as a mansabdar. Sambhaji was effectively held as a political prisoner to ensure compliance. In January 1666, Shivaji was sent against Bijapur's forts of Panhala and Phonda, but his sieges of Ponda and Panhala failed.

  Shivaji did not want to attend the Mughal court himself, and he wrote letters to Aurangzeb asking forgiveness and a robe of honour. He described himself as "the meanest of life-devoting slaves." He also asked Jai Singh for support, writing "Now you are protector and a father to me." Aurangzeb granted the request and sent a letter, a firman and a robe of honour. Shivaji replied with a letter of thanks. In March 1666 he went to the Mughal court.

  On the 12th of May 1666, at Agra, Shivaji was made to stand among relatively low-ranking nobles, men he had already defeated in battle. Some sources instead place the scene in Delhi. He had come with his nine-year-old son Sambhaji, and Aurangzeb planned to send him to Kandahar to secure the empire's northwestern frontier. Shivaji took offence and stormed out. He was promptly placed under house arrest, with Ram Singh, the son of Jai Singh, guaranteeing custody of father and son. The emperor also withheld the honors he had earlier bestowed, including the robe, an elephant and jewels.

  His position was perilous. Aurangzeb's court debated whether to kill him or keep employing him, and a rumor spread that he would be killed on the way to his posting in Kabul. The order was canceled when Shivaji refused to go. In the negotiations that followed, he demanded the transfer of his forts before becoming a mansabdar, and the emperor rejected this. Jai Singh's intervention alone prevented orders to kill him. His request to leave for Banaras as a sannyasi was also rejected.

  Shivaji then hatched a plan to free himself. He sent most of his men home and asked Ram Singh to withdraw his guarantees for safe custody. Then he pretended to be ill and began sending large baskets of sweets to Brahmins and the poor, as penance. On the 17th of August 1666, according to the familiar story, he left Agra hidden in one basket, with Sambhaji in another. The historian Stewart Gordon observes that no contemporary evidence supports this story. Nothing was proven about Ram Singh's involvement, and Shivaji likely bribed the guards.

  After the escape, hostilities ebbed, and the Mughal sardar Jaswant Singh carried new peace proposals between Shivaji and Aurangzeb. Between 1666 and 1668, Aurangzeb conferred the title of Raja on Shivaji, though he did not restore the forts. Sambhaji was again made a mansabdar with 5,000 horses. Father and son sent Sambhaji and General Prataprao Gujar to serve with Prince Mu'azzam, the Mughal viceroy in Aurangabad, and Sambhaji received territory in Berar for revenue collection. Aurangzeb also permitted Shivaji to attack Bijapur. The weakened Sultan Ali Adil Shah II sued for peace and granted Shivaji the rights of sardeshmukhi and chauthai.

  The peace lasted until 1670. Then Aurangzeb grew suspicious of the close ties between Shivaji and Mu'azzam, fearing the prince might usurp his throne or even be taking bribes. Busy fighting the Afghans, Aurangzeb sharply reduced his army in the Deccan, and many disbanded soldiers promptly joined Maratha service. The Mughals also took back the Berar jagir from Sambhaji to recover money lent for his father's trip to Agra. Shivaji answered with an offensive. In four months he recovered a major portion of the territories he had surrendered.

  In 1670, Shivaji sacked Surat a second time. The English and Dutch factories repelled his attack, but the city itself fell, and he plundered the goods of a Muslim prince from Mawara-un-Nahr who was returning from Mecca. The Mughals sent Daud Khan to intercept him on the way home. They clashed in the Battle of Vani-Dindori near present-day Nashik, and Shivaji's force won.

  In October 1670, Shivaji sent forces to harass the English at Bombay, who had refused to sell him war materiel. His men blocked English woodcutting parties from leaving the island. In September 1671 he sent an ambassador seeking materiel again, this time for the fight against Danda-Rajpuri. The English sent Lieutenant Stephen Ustick to meet him, but talks failed over the Rajapur indemnity for the looted factory. Envoys kept traveling for years, with some agreement on arms in 1674. Shivaji never paid the Rajapur indemnity before his death, and the factory there dissolved at the end of 1682.

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• 5. Coronation Year

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  In 1674, Prataprao Gujar, commander-in-chief of the Maratha forces, and Anandrao were sent to push back a Bijapuri invasion led by General Bahlol Khan. Prataprao encircled a strategic lake and cut off the enemy's water. Bahlol Khan was defeated and captured, then sued for peace. Prataprao released him, despite Shivaji's specific warnings against it, and Bahlol Khan began preparing a fresh invasion.

  Shivaji wrote a letter of displeasure and refused Prataprao an audience until Bahlol Khan was recaptured. Stung, Prataprao found Bahlol Khan and charged his position with only six other horsemen, leaving his main force behind. He was killed in the fight. Shivaji grieved deeply and arranged the marriage of his second son, Rajaram, to Prataprao's daughter. Hambirrao Mohite succeeded Prataprao as sarnaubat. Around this time Hiroji Indulkar newly built Raigad Fort as the capital of the nascent Maratha kingdom.

  By then Shivaji had acquired extensive lands and wealth but still lacked a formal title. Technically he was a Mughal zamindar, or the son of a Bijapuri jagirdar, with no legal basis to rule his de facto domain. A kingly title could settle that. It would also stop other Maratha leaders, who were his equals, from challenging him. And it would give the Hindu Marathis a Hindu sovereign in a region otherwise ruled by Muslims.

  Preparations began in 1673, but controversy delayed the coronation by almost a year. Brahmins at Shivaji's court refused to crown him, since kingship was reserved for the kshatriya varna, the warrior class. He descended from a line of headmen of farming villages, so they classed him as a Maratha, not a Kshatriya. They also noted that he had never had a sacred thread ceremony and did not wear the thread.

  Shivaji summoned Gaga Bhatt, a pandit of Varanasi, and bribed him. Gaga Bhatt stated that he had found a genealogy proving Shivaji descended from the Sisodias, making him a kshatriya who had simply missed the ceremonies. Shivaji was given a sacred thread ceremony and remarried his spouses under Vedic rites. Historical evidence suggests his claim to Sisodia, and Rajput, ancestry is tenuous at best and possibly purely invented.

  On the 28th of May, Shivaji did penance for his ancestors' long neglect of Kshatriya rites. Gaga Bhatt invested him with the sacred thread. Other Brahmins insisted that Gaga Bhatt omit the Vedic chant, so Shivaji was initiated into a modified form of the life of the twice-born, rather than being placed on a par with the Brahmins. The next day he atoned for sins committed in his lifetime. He was weighed against seven metals, including gold and silver, and against fine linen, camphor, salt, sugar and other articles. All of it, plus a lakh of hun, went to the Brahmins.

  According to the historian Sarkar, even this did not satisfy the Brahmins' greed. Two learned Brahmins pointed out that during his raids Shivaji had killed Brahmins, cows, women and children. They said he could be cleansed for Rs. 8,000, and he paid. Feeding the assembly, general almsgiving, the throne and the ornaments brought the total cost close to 1.5 million rupees.

  On the 6th of June 1674, Shivaji was crowned king of the Maratha Empire, Hindavi Swaraj, in a lavish ceremony at Raigad fort. In the Hindu calendar it was the 13th day of the first fortnight of Jyeshtha in the year 1596. Gaga Bhatt officiated and chanted the Vedic coronation mantras. He poured water over Shivaji's head from a gold vessel filled with the waters of seven sacred rivers: the Yamuna, Indus, Ganges, Godavari, Narmada, Krishna and Kaveri. Afterward Shivaji bowed before his mother, Jijabai, and touched her feet. Nearly fifty thousand people gathered at Raigad.

  He took the titles Shakakarta, "founder of an era," and Chhatrapati, "Lord of the Umbrella." He also became Haindava Dharmodhhaarak, protector of the Hindu faith, and Kshatriya Kulavantas, meaning head of the kshatriya clan.

  Jijabai died on the 18th of June 1674. The Marathas summoned a tantric priest, Nischal Puri Goswami, who declared that the original coronation had been held under inauspicious stars. A second was needed. It took place on the 24th of September 1674, and its less controversial ceremony placated those who still doubted Shivaji's eligibility for Vedic rites.

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• 6. Southern Campaign and Succession

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  Beginning in 1674, the Marathas launched an aggressive campaign, raiding Khandesh in October. In April 1675 they captured Bijapuri Ponda, followed by Karwar in mid-year and Kolhapur in July. In November the Maratha navy skirmished with the Siddis of Janjira but failed to dislodge them. Shivaji recovered from an illness, and a civil war broke out at Bijapur between the Deccanis and the Afghans. He used the opening to raid Athani in April 1676.

  Before heading south, Shivaji appealed to a sense of Deccani patriotism, arguing that southern India was a homeland to be protected from outsiders. The appeal was somewhat successful. In 1677 he visited Hyderabad for a month and made a treaty with the Qutubshah of Golkonda, who agreed to renounce his alliance with Bijapur and jointly oppose the Mughals.

  Later in 1677, Shivaji invaded Karnataka with 30,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry, backed by Golkonda artillery and funding. He seized the forts of Vellore and Gingee. Gingee would later serve as a Maratha capital under his son Rajaram I. The conquest gave him vast territory in the Mysore plateau and the Madras Carnatic, containing 100 forts.

  In August 1677, aided by disgruntled local chieftains, Shivaji invaded the kingdom of Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar and plundered Srirangapatna. In the battle that followed, Chikkadevaraja subdued Shivaji and adopted the title Apratima Vira, "unparalleled hero."

  Shivaji also hoped to reconcile with his half-brother Venkoji, also called Ekoji I, the son of Shahaji by his second wife, Tukabai. Venkoji ruled Thanjavur after Shahaji. The early talks were promising but failed. On his way back to Raigad, Shivaji defeated his half-brother's army on the 26th of November 1677 and seized most of his possessions on the Mysore plateau. Venkoji's wife, Dipa Bai, whom Shivaji deeply respected, reopened negotiations and persuaded her husband to distance himself from his Muslim advisors. Shivaji agreed to return many of the seized properties to her and her female descendants. Venkoji accepted conditions for administering the territories and maintaining Shahaji's tomb, or samadhi.

  The question of an heir was complicated. In 1678, Shivaji confined his son Sambhaji to Panhala Fort. The reason was either an addiction to sensual pleasures or the violation of a Brahmin woman. The prince escaped with his wife and defected to the Mughals, fighting against his father in the Battle of Bhupalgarh. He returned unrepentant and was again confined to Panhala.

  In late March 1680, Shivaji fell ill with fever and dysentery. He died around the 3rd to the 5th of April 1680, at the age of 50, at Raigad Fort, on the eve of Hanuman Jayanti. The cause is disputed. British records say bloody flux after 12 days of illness. A contemporary Portuguese work in the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa records anthrax. Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad, who wrote the biography Sabhasad Bakhar, names fever.

  Putalabai, the childless eldest of his surviving wives, committed sati by jumping into his funeral pyre. Another surviving spouse, Sakwarbai, was not allowed to follow because she had a young daughter. There were also allegations that his second wife, Soyarabai, poisoned him to put her 10-year-old son Rajaram on the throne. Later scholars doubt them.

  Soyarabai did plan with various ministers to crown Rajaram instead of her stepson Sambhaji. On the 21st of April 1680, ten-year-old Rajaram was installed on the throne. Sambhaji killed the commander at Raigad Fort and took possession of it. On the 18th of June he gained control of Raigad, and on the 20th of July he formally ascended the throne. Rajaram, Soyarabai and Rajaram's wife Janki Bai were imprisoned, and Soyarabai was executed that October on charges of conspiracy.

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• 7. Statecraft and War

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  Eight ministers sat on the Ashta Pradhan Mandal, the council Shivaji set up to advise him on political and administrative matters. The Peshwa, or prime minister, handled general administration, and the Amatya kept the public accounts. The Mantri maintained court records, and the Sumant, or foreign secretary, managed relations with other states. The Sachiv handled the king's correspondence, and the Panditrao oversaw religious matters. The Nyayadhis was chief justice for civil and military cases, and the Senapati commanded the army. Except for the Panditrao and Nyayadhis, all held military commands, so deputies often performed their civil duties.

  Persian was the usual courtly language of the region, but at Shivaji's court Marathi replaced it. His reign also stimulated Marathi as a systematic tool of description and understanding. Hindu political and courtly traditions received new emphasis. His official Raghunath Pandit compiled a comprehensive lexicon to replace Persian and Arabic terms with Sanskrit ones. That work, the Rajavyavaharakosha, a thesaurus of state usage, appeared in 1677.

  Seals gave documents their authenticity, and Shahaji and Jijabai had used Persian seals. Shivaji used Sanskrit from the very beginning. His seal says it "shines forth for the welfare of the people" and compares its growing authority to the first phase of the moon.

  The poet Kavi Bhushan, a contemporary, credited Shivaji with stemming the spread of the neighbouring Muslim states, writing: "Had not there been Shivaji, Kashi would have lost its culture." Many modern commentators call Shivaji's religious policies tolerant. While encouraging Hinduism, he allowed Muslims to practice without harassment and supported their ministries with endowments. His administration and armed forces employed people of all castes and religions, including Muslims and Europeans.

  On the evidence of his alliances, Shivaji was not attempting to create a universal Hindu rule. He formed alliances with the surrounding Muslim states, even against Hindu powers, and he did not join other Hindu powers, such as the Rajputs, in fighting the Mughals. He urged Aurangzeb to act like Akbar in showing respect to Hindu beliefs and places. His army had Muslim leaders from early on. The first Pathan unit was formed in 1656, and his admiral, Darya Sarang, was a Muslim. Gijs Kruijtzer, in his book Xenophobia in Seventeenth-Century India, argues that modern Hindu-Muslim communalism has its foundation in the decade 1677-1687, in the interplay between Shivaji and Aurangzeb.

  Older Maratha histories portrayed Shivaji as a close follower of Samarth Ramdas, a Brahmin teacher who guided him down an orthodox Hindu path. Stewart Gordon concludes that recent research shows Shivaji did not meet or know Ramdas until late in life. In Gordon's words, Shivaji "followed his own judgement throughout his remarkable career."

  The core of Shivaji's small standing army was peasants of the Maratha and Kunbi castes. He understood that conventional methods could not confront the big, well-trained Mughal cavalry with its field artillery. So he mastered guerilla tactics, known in Marathi as Ganimi Kawa. He saw that the most vulnerable point of the huge, slow armies of the time was supply. Using his knowledge of the terrain and the speed of his light cavalry, he cut off an enemy's provisions. He refused pitched battles and instead lured enemies into difficult hills and jungles of his own choosing, where he could rout them. He used no single tactic, mixing sudden raids, sweeps, ambushes and psychological warfare as circumstances required.

  Maval infantry formed the core of the ground forces, reinforced by Telangi musketeers from Karnataka and supported by Maratha cavalry. His artillery was relatively underdeveloped and relied on European suppliers, which pushed him toward highly mobile warfare. Ramchandra Amatya, one of his ministers, said Shivaji's empire was created from forts. Shivaji rebuilt or repaired many forts in advantageous positions and built others. Some accounts give 111 built forts, though the actual number likely "did not exceed 18." The historian Jadunath Sarkar assessed that he held some 240-280 forts at his death. Each fort was placed under three officers of equal status, so that no single traitor could be bribed to deliver it. The officers acted jointly and checked one another.

  Shivaji began building a navy in 1657 or 1659, buying twenty galivats from the Portuguese shipyards of Bassein. Marathi chronicles say the fleet reached some 400 warships at its height. Contemporary English chronicles say it never exceeded 160. Because Marathas were used to land warfare, he widened his search for crews. He took on lower-caste Hindus of the coast, long familiar with naval operations and known as the "Malabar pirates," as well as Muslim mercenaries. Impressed by Portuguese naval power, he hired Portuguese sailors and Goan Christian converts and made Rui Leitao Viegas commander of the fleet. Viegas later defected back to the Portuguese, taking 300 sailors with him.

  Shivaji fortified the coast by seizing and refurbishing coastal forts. His first marine fort, at Sindhudurg, became the navy's headquarters. The fleet was a coastal navy, built for travel and combat in the littoral areas and not for the high seas.

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• 8. A Contested Hero

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  Writers from England, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy admired Shivaji's heroic exploits and clever stratagems in their accounts during his lifetime. The French traveller Francois Bernier recorded that during the plunder of Surat, Shivaji spared the home of Father Ambrose, a Capuchin missionary. Bernier quotes him saying, "The Frankish Padres are good men." Bernier added that Shivaji also spared the house of a deceased broker who had been charitable. Mughal portrayals were largely negative and called him simply "Shiva," without the honorific "-ji." Even so, Mughal authors such as Khafi Khan praised his chivalrous treatment of enemies and women. Jadunath Sarkar writes that his strict morality in camp was "a wonder in that age."

  The earliest portraits by authors outside the Maratha court are the bakhars. They depict him as an almost divine ideal Hindu king who overthrew Muslim dominion. Scholars say they show how he was viewed in his time but must be checked against other sources. The Sabhasad Bakhar and the 91 Kalami Bakhar are considered the most reliable.

  In the mid-19th century, the social reformer Jyotirao Phule wrote his own version of the Shivaji legend, casting him as a hero of the shudras and dalits. His 1869 ballad met great hostility from the Brahmin-dominated media. In 1895, the nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak organised what became an annual festival marking Shivaji's birthday. Tilak presented Shivaji as the "opponent of the oppressor," a phrase that carried possible implications for the colonial government. He denied that the festival was anti-Muslim or disloyal. Still, in 1906 a British commentator asked whether Hindu history could point to a hero whom not even slander would call "a chief of dacoits."

  M. G. Ranade was among the first to reappraise the harsh British view. In his Rise of the Maratha Power, published in 1900, he declared Shivaji's achievements the beginning of modern nation-building. He criticised the earlier British picture of a freebooting power built on plunder and adventure, a view held by readers who knew these events only through English historians. In 1919, Sarkar published the seminal Shivaji and His Times. He read primary sources in Persian, Marathi and Arabic, and he criticised the chauvinism of Marathi historians. Supporters cheered his defense of the killing of Afzal Khan, but decried his calling the killing of the Hindu raja Chandrao More and his clan "murder." In 1937, Dennis Kincaid, a British civil servant in India, published The Grand Rebel, portraying a heroic rebel and master strategist facing a much larger Mughal army.

  Today Shivaji is considered a national hero in India, especially in Maharashtra. Stories of his life are part of the upbringing and identity of the Marathi people. Hindutva activists appropriate him as a "Hindu king" who "fought against Muslim rulers." Historic accounts contradict this, since he belonged to a marginalised caste and held secular values. In 1966, the Shiv Sena party was formed to promote the interests of Marathi speakers, and his image adorns its literature, propaganda and icons. Regional parties, and the Maratha-dominated Indian National Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, also see him as a hero.

  Babasaheb Purandare, declared the Shiv-Shahir in 1964, became one of the most significant authors portraying Shivaji. Critics accused this Brahmin author of overstating Brahmin gurus' influence on Shivaji. Protesters objected to his 2015 Maharashtra Bhushan award ceremony, claiming he had defamed Shivaji. In 1993, the Illustrated Weekly published an article suggesting Shivaji was not opposed to Muslims per se and that his governance was influenced by the Mughal Empire. Congress Party members called for legal action, Marathi newspapers accused the writers of "imperial prejudice," and Shiv Sena called for the writer's public flogging. Maharashtra brought legal action, but a High Court found that the magazine had acted within the bounds of freedom of expression.

  In 2003, the American academic James W. Laine published Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. Ananya Vajpeyi describes the response as a regime of cultural policing by militant Marathas. The Sambhaji Brigade attacked the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, where Laine had done research. Laine himself was threatened with arrest, and the book was banned in Maharashtra in January 2004. The Bombay High Court lifted the ban in 2007, and in July 2010 the Supreme Court of India upheld that decision. Public demonstrations against the author and the ruling followed.

  Statues of Shivaji stand in every taluka in Maharashtra and in many places across India, including Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi, Surat and Yellur. Some have been erected illegally. Others stand abroad, in San Jose, California, and in Mauritius. In the 1990s, around the time Bombay became Mumbai, several landmarks were renamed for him. The Prince of Wales Museum became the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya. Victoria Terminus became Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and later Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. Sahar International Airport became Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, and later Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

  The Indian Navy's INS Shivaji station and numerous postage stamps also commemorate him. In 2022, the Indian prime minister unveiled a new Navy ensign inspired by Shivaji's seal. In Maharashtra, children traditionally build replica forts with toy soldiers and other figures during Diwali, in his memory.

  A giant memorial, the Shiv Smarak, was approved in 2016 for a small island in the Arabian Sea near Mumbai. At 210 m tall, it would be the world's tallest statue. As of August 2021 the project had been stalled since January 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only the bathymetry survey was complete. The state public works department proposed moving the completion date a year, from the 18th of October 2021 to the 18th of October 2022.

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