History of India 1 HISTORY Subject : History (For under graduate student) Paper No. : Paper - IV History of Modern India Topic No. & Title : Topic - 2 Expansion & Consolidation of British Rule Lecture No. & Title : Lecture - 5 The British Expansion in Maharashtra Script British Expansion in Maharashtra The Maratha Power in the Eighteenth century The events at the turn of the eighteenth century exposed a series of long-standing structural problems that the Maratha polity had begun to face from the middle of the eighteenth century, precisely the period when the Maratha Swarajya reached the pinnacle of its glory by asserting their military power over wide areas of northern India.
History of India 2 Such assertions of Maratha power continued even after the disastrous defeat at Panipat in early January 1761. For some time later in the century, Mahadji Scindia became the protector of the Mughal emperor seizing authority in Delhi from Afghan upstarts like Najib-ud-daullah. Yet to assert periodically one s military power through occasional armed raids and to create a stable system of governance were two different things. The Maratha confederacy consistently faulted on the second count. As the Maratha dominion expanded, the control exercised by the imperial centre at Pune slackened to a point where the generals became rulers themselves. Locally they were strong; but if they were pitted individually against a powerful enemy like the British, their weaknesses were frequently revealed. The expansion of the Maratha domain in the sense of an expansion beyond the natural frontier was an important source of their undoing. The real factor was the failure on the part of the Peshwa ruling from Pune to hold the extended domain together. The inevitable consequence was a certain kind of factionalism, bitter and destructive, that eventually made it easy for the British to knock them down one after another.
History of India 3 The Maratha polity and the Expansion in North India The recent historiography on the Maratha polity under Shivaji has moved away from the older and partly communal representation of Shivaji as an ideal Hindu ruler who came to resist the oppressive Muslim rule, especially the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb s bigoted policies, to his characterization as the founder of a regional state who promoted the non-brahmin peasant castes into positions of power. The regional consciousness that apparently fed the strength of Shivaji s rule however remains only one aspect of the Maratha state. In the course of the eighteenth century the Marathas came to rule wide areas of northern and central India, often acting as inherited regimes that by and large followed Mughal administrative practices. The northward expansion of the Maratha state, however, created a series of other problems which are usual in states based on mere conquests without the willingness to raise stable administrative structures. Such problems became more pronounced as the Maratha leaders pushed into Rajasthan, the area around Delhi and gone into the Punjab to attack Bundelkhand and the borders of the Mughal province of Awadh. Further east, they reached up
History of India 4 to the south-western borders of Bengal and established control over Orissa. Such extensions of territory were results of expeditions by Maratha military leaders like Raghuji Bhonsle or Dattaji Scindia who over time owed only nominal allegiance to the central government located at Pune. The Structural Weaknesses of the Maratha State The Pune government on its part came to be usurped almost wholly by a Chitpavan Brahmin family which held the hereditary position of the Peshwa through the gradual marginalization of the descendents of the house of Shivaji. The growing consolidation of the power of the Peshwa occurred after the death of Sahu in 1749. Threatened with an impending civil war Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao, also known as the Nanasaheb Peshwa, came to a settlement with the major Maratha leaders, Raghuji Bhonsle, Malhar Rao Holkar and Jayappa Sindhia. It was agreed that Pune would be the main centre of the Maratha confederacy controlled by the Peshwa while the nominal ruler belonging to the House of Shivaji was to reside at the fort of Satara. The Maratha leaders who had their independent spheres of
History of India 5 influence at Malwa, Gujarat and Berar would remain autonomous without being controlled directly by the Peshwa. Such was the character of the Maratha confederacy which came into conflict with the British in the last quarter of the eighteenth century in the wake of the disastrous defeat at Panipat in 1761 against Ahmad Shah Abdali. One important reason why the Maratha confederate army failed at Panipat was their failure to blend their usual swift moving cavalry with the slow moving artillery. But a more important reason was that the army did not have a clearly defined command structure. It was a reflection of the centrifugal character of the Maratha polity itself. Even if they were great warriors, each one of them pursued his own tactics resulting in the tremendous loss of money, manpower and prestige. The Weaknesses of the Maratha Confederacy The defeat at Panipat did not put an end to the confederacy as such. Yet it inspired rebellions in regions from where they extracted annual tributes. In addition, the death of Nanasaheb Peshwa within weeks of the defeat at Panipat preceded by the deaths of some of the leading
History of India 6 members of the family, including his brother Sadashiv Rao Bhao in the battle field of Panipat, created a power vacuum that started fomenting intense factional rivalries at Pune on the one hand and the increasing defiance of the Peshwa s authority by the regional satraps. If Scindia and Holkar had divided Malwa between themselves, and Bhonsle was firmly anchored at Berar, Gaikwad s main sphere of influence was the Mughal province of Gujarat. It was indeed difficult for the young Madhav Rao Peshwa to contain such dissidence, especially at a time when his uncle Raghunath Rao, popularly known as Raghoba, was anxious to usurp his authority. This family quarrel vertically divided the Maratha leaders with one group lining against the other. Once Madhav Rao in an attempt to assert his authority started creating a loyal, bureaucratic clique around him, Raghunath Rao with the assistance of the Nizam of Hyderabad marched on Pune, forcing the young Peshwa to arrive at a settlement. The result was that the Peshwa became a ruler without a right to rule while the entire administrative authority at the Peshwa daftar became concentrated in the hands of Raghunath Rao. The rivalry between these two claimants of power was to some
History of India 7 extent resolved in 1763 during a military engagement with the Nizam of Hyderabad. The Nizam s army was defeated at Rakhshas Bhuvan in August 1763. A part of Nizam s territory was surrendered to the Peshwa but the additional tracts were ceded to Jankoji Bhonsle signifying a settlement where the so called Maratha nobility was accorded almost an equal status vis-à-vis the Peshwa. Factionalism among the Maratha Leaders In the history of the factional conflict in the Maratha kingdom this was only a temporary resolution. Each one of the Maratha leaders, following Jankoji s example, was mindful about his own sphere of interest. Each one of them created his own centre of power far away from Pune. The Holkars ruled from Indore. The Scindias had moved to Gwalior from Ujjain partly because of his growing interest in the politics of northern India. The Gaikwad was in Baroda. Against this backdrop the death of Madhav Rao Peshwa in 1773 acted as a trigger for a fresh round of conflicts which embroiled the Nizam and the East India Company as allies of Raghunath Rao in his last attempt to become the Peshwa by depriving the legitimate claim of
History of India 8 Narayan Rao (Madhav Rao s brother). Within nine months of his accession Narayan Rao was murdered at the instigation of Raghunath Rao. Raghunath Rao after becoming Peshwa created a new loyal bureaucracy around him, became entangled with a useless military conflict with the Nizam and finally had to leave Pune, thrown out of Peshwaship by a rival faction. The faction which was opposed to Raghunath Rao eventually chose the posthumous son of Narayan Rao as their nominee. The Maratha leaders even after pledging support to him did not ultimately stand by his side forcing him to seek an alliance with the English in Bombay. The Company in Maratha Politics For the English this was an important opportunity. Despite their interest in the coastal trade the English as yet had never taken any direct interest in the affairs of Maharashtra. The strength of the Maratha confederacy deterred them from any adventure in the main land of Maharashtra. During the 1770s however, the English success in north India created an interest in territorial conquest in other regions as well. As it had happened in
History of India 9 many other instances where the Company had intervened in local politics, a succession dispute was perhaps the most appropriate occasion for working out the strategy of extracting territorial gains. Not unnaturally, in return for the military support of the Company s establishment at Bombay, Ragunath Rao agreed to cede a large tract in Gujarat besides one hundred and fifty thousand rupees of monthly subsidy for the maintenance of a regular military force. By March 1775 Raghunath Rao s forces were defeated in Gujarat. He found refuge in Surat expecting military support from the British in Bombay and Madras to place him at Pune. This was however a unilateral decision of the Bombay establishment which the Company s superior office in Bengal did not favour. Restraining Bombay from this prospective military involvement, the authorities in Calcutta started negotiations once again with the Maratha leaders in Pune which produced the famous treaty of Purandar in March 1776. The British withdrew all support for Raghunath Rao. He virtually became a pensioner who had to spend the remaining part of his life at Bombay. The earlier agreement with Raghunath Rao that had ceded Gujarat to the British was abrogated.
History of India 10 Among the tangible territorial gains the British received were Salsette and Bassein, the two islands close to Bombay plus the revenue rights of Broach in Gujarat. The events following the treaty of Purandar suggest an extremely murky situation where each party was committed to violate the treaty at the first opportunity. If the British were expecting an additional expeditionary force from Bengal, the authorities in Pune, controlled by a Brahmin coterie headed by Nana Fadnavis, were strengthened by a ten thousand strong army of the Holkars. Against this backdrop, the British force moving slowly towards Pune, became surrounded at Wadgaon. In a new treaty the Maratha leadership managed to dictate their terms, but in another region the army that was on the move from Bengal towards Bombay took a number of Maratha forts at Bundlekhand on their way to Malwa and Nagpur. Once this expeditionary force joined the Bombay army at Surat, the English Company forced Fateh Singh Gaikwad of Baroda to cede to them the revenues of southern Gujarat which had usually been paid to Peshwa s treasury at Pune.
History of India 11 The Causes of British Success The story of the British intervention and the success, however limited, that the Company might have achieved from the factional conflicts in Maharashtra, reveals a few salient points about British expansion in the region, accompanied by the collapse of the central authority of Pune. The centre of power in Maharashtra, by then, had shifted to the peripheral regions. To a large extent Raghunath Rao s failure was due to interventions against him by Scindia and Holkar. All of these regional satraps, despite constant frictions among them, formed their own territorial nucleus with stable dynastic ambitions. Secondly, the government at Pune became subjected to the authority of the clerkdom. Nana Fadnavis who acquired prominence as a key actor in Maratha politics for example, was a clerk in Madhav Rao s government. Thirdly as elsewhere, it was important for the British to find a protégé. From 1803 onwards once the Marathas became further divided, the Peshwa became a British protectorate. The Marathas till then had enough military power, at least collectively to contain British offensive. But none of these leaders succeeded in creating large territorial empires which
History of India 12 eventually proved to be such an important weakness that their collective strength was not adequate to prevent the British onslaught. Maratha Polity: Separation between North & South An important outcome of the changing structure of the Maratha polity was the separation between the north and the south. In the south the Maratha generals, including the Peshwa himself had to contend with the British in addition to the sultans of Mysore and Hyderabad s Nizam-ul-Mulk. To some extent the arrangement with the British also became compromised due to the presence of two other powerful indigenous rulers. Around 1779-80 largely under the leadership of Haidar Ali a grand alliance of Indian rulers was formed to expel the British. The combination did not last. The Marathas retreated once the treaty of Salbai was signed in 1782 under Scindia s initiative committing themselves to a friendly relation with the British directed against Mysore. While Mahadji Sindhia wanted to neutralize the British in order to expand his territories in the north, Nana Fadnavis had his eyes set on Mysore. The British between them were to play the role of the honest broker.
History of India 13 In the history of the Maratha confederacy this was Mahadji Scindia s greatest moment. The advantage that he received by negotiating the treaty of Salbai, he put to profitable use by moving northwards, establishing his strong presence in north Indian politics. Fadnavis however was a loser. The treaty of Mangalore between Tipu and the British made Fadnavis a lonely figure in the politics of Deccan. During 1786-87 the Maratha campaign against Tipu in an inconclusive war witnessed complete British neutrality. The war was brought to a close by a treaty in March 1787 only to be resumed in 1790 when the British in alliance with the Nizam and the Marathas entered into new military engagements with Tipu. The Marathas knew well that the complete elimination of Tipu would make them totally vulnerable. This was precisely what happened in 1799. In between all the major players in the Deccan vied with each other for power at some one else s expense. 1795 was another such moment when a succession dispute in Maharashtra, besides weakening the Peshwa household and creating a condition of civil war, invited the British. The civil war in
History of India 14 Maharashtra in which Scindia and the Peshwa were fighting each other coincided with the arrival of Wellesley who brought about a new thrust in British imperial expansionism. Fadnavis death in 1800 preceded by that of Mahadji Scindia and Tukoji Holkar made the situation ripe for an intervention by the British. The British were presented with an opportunity once again in 1800 when the Peshwa Baji Rao II started negotiating with the English for support in an attempt to neutralize Mahadji s successor Daulat Rao s growing influence at Pune. Once Daulat Rao was drawn away from Pune to deal with the invasion of Holkar s army in his territories at Malwa, the young Peshwa worked out an agreement with the English. As the civil war continued and Holkar s army in response to Scindia s sack of Indore besieged the combined forces of the Peshwa and Sindhia at Pune, Peshwa Baji Rao II seeing the city of Pune plundered by Holkar s forces, fled to Bassein, a British territory and signed the Subsidiary Alliance. By this treaty the British acquired Surat and the Peshwa agreed to maintain a British force and consult with the British Resident. They chased Holkar out of Pune and installed the Peshwa in office again. This marked the end of the Maratha
History of India 15 polity as an independent power. The curtain was finally drawn in 1818 when Peshwa s territory became formally integrated into the British Empire. The Treaties of 1803 By December 1803 the British forced on the losers a series of crippling treaties. The British Resident virtually took over the administration at Pune. Treaties were simultaneously signed with the Rajput, Jat, Rohila and Bundella princes to the north of Malwa. They became tributaries of the British. By establishing control over Orissa they terminated Bhonsle warlordship in eastern India. The Scindia family apart from losing control over Delhi, ceded to the British its territories in Gujarat. For all practical purposes the role of the Peshwa as a mediator among the conflicting Maratha houses was taken over by the British. The emperor at Delhi became a British protectorate. Despite the great military success which was celebrated in Calcutta with great fanfare through illumination of the Fort William, the campaigns created serious financial problems for the Company. Wellesley who was reprimanded for
History of India 16 useless expenditure in warfare was replaced by Cornwallis who took over the Governor Generalship for the second term. Cornwallis became involved in further negotiations with the Maratha leaders which eventually made for a number of tangible advantages for the British. Some of the great Maratha houses lost considerable amount of territories. At one level they were reduced in size; at another level direct rule by the British over a larger territory in Maharashtra was established. In view of individual treaties between the Maratha houses and the British, the idea of a Maratha confederacy no longer had any relevance. Lastly the Peshwa became a non-entity. Without the consent of the British Resident he could not even collect taxes or punish his defiant officials. End of Maratha Independence For little more than a decade this settlement remained stable, except for the kind of lawlessness that was inflicted on the residents of Malwa and Rajasthan by Pindaris who were the demobilized soldiers of Scindia s and Holkar s armies. The arrival of Hastings of Moira as Governor- General who had, like Wellesley, grand imperial visions
History of India 17 changed the situation by the middle of 1817. A new treaty with the Peshwa stripped him of all his powers including his formal overlordship over the Maratha princes. This was the context of a series of pitched battles between the British army and the combined forces of the Peshwa and the Bhonsle rulers of Nagpur, who were joined by the Pindaris. The other Maratha leaders refused to join this last Maratha war. Holkar s forces however decided to rally behind the Peshwa only at a later stage by which time the far stronger British army had been able to crush the Maratha resistance. By early 1818 the last Maratha war was finally won. The end of the Maratha polity was proclaimed by the removal of the Peshwa. The Peshwa s territory was formally annexed to the British Empire to create an enlarged Bombay Presidency. The remaining Maratha houses began to function as subordinate princely states under the Subsidiary system. The final collapse of the Maratha polity strengthened British self-confidence and ushered in new phase of imperialism characterized by annexationism on the one hand and westernization on the other. It is not a mere accident that the end of Maratha polity synchronized with the publication of James Mill s
History of India 18 History of British India in which the spirit of a new imperialism was proudly proclaimed. Commercial Significance of the annexation of Maharashtra One of the major consequences of the establishment of British control over Maharashtra and Central India was the creation of a large hinterland for the British port of Bombay. Bombay despite the advantage of a natural harbour, failed to flourish until it could draw on the resources of this new hinterland. Throughout the eighteenth century it remained, despite the decline of Surat, a relatively unimportant port. Its failure to generate an adequate quantum of profit compelled Cornwallis in 1788 to wind up the large Bombay establishment of the Company by retaining only a small factory. The link with China trade that eventually facilitated the rise of Bombay became important only after the port began to export opium drawn from Malwa region as barter for tea. It is possible as Pamela Nightingale had suggested that the earlier practice of using raw cotton as barter for Chinese tea might have created some territorial interest of the
History of India 19 Company in the cotton growing areas of Maharashtra. Yet the easy access to the opium belt in Sindhia s territory in Malwa during the 1820s made possible what has been described as the opium miracle in the rise of Bombay during the 1820s. After 1818 the Company was in a position to take advantage of its political supremacy to ensure the supply of opium to the Bombay port. The victory in 1818 gave the Bombay port a large hinterland, the implications of which became visible later in the nineteenth century.