Time to give Shivaji his true place in history
French traveller Barthélemy Carré’s wonderful accounts of Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji compel us to rethink the king’s true place in Indian history. Carre, who visited India twice during Shivaji’s tenure, compared the Maratha king to one of the greatest mediaeval heroes of Europe, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.
Carré’s account of what the governor of the Chaul port on the Konkan coast said about Shivaji gives an insight into the Maratha ruler’s incomparable traits as a ruler and a conqueror. Carre wrote: “He [the viceroy] told me that his master Shivaji intended to push his conquests from the river Indus to Ganges, far beyond the provinces of Bengal. He said Shivaji’s vision was unbounded and his capacity superior to his vision and that he was a great warrior, a great politician capable of undertaking everything and achieving everything, inured to fatigue and more laborious than the bravest soldier. The governor told me that difficulties stirred up Shivaji’s courage and that he had undertaken conquests because they seemed to present insurmountable difficulties.” This was the extent of Shivaji’s vision when his kingdom was only restricted to a few districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka. However, in less than 10 years, Shivaji extended his kingdom to the South beyond present day Chennai.
There is little doubt that the freedom movement (swarajya or independent Hindu rule) of Shivaji influenced the country in the Mughal period, triggering similar movements for swarajya across India. It is not wrong to say that the revolts of the Sikhs, the Bundelas, and the Rajputs of central India were inspired by Shivaji’s movement.
The fanaticism of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and some of his predecessors also played a role in this. But what is less documented is that the idea of swarajya also impacted the revolutionary period of India’s freedom struggle against the British. Many revolutionaries, including Veer Savarkar, Rash Behari Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, and Chandra Shekhar Azad, and strong leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, were inspired by Shivaji’s guerrilla warfare technique based on stealth.
Most historians have also failed to evaluate the true extent of Shivaji’s kingdom when he died in 1680. At that time, Shivaji’s empire stretched from Valsad district on the west coast in south Gujarat and ended beyond Jinji fort, well beyond Chennai on the east coast (1,600 kms in length). The width of his kingdom was narrow, but it touched today’s Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. This was no mean achievement.
Many historians have praised the enterprising spirit of the Turkish and Pathan invaders from Central Asia. Unfortunately, they are unaware that the length of Shivaji’s kingdom was more than the road distance between Kabul-Ghur and Delhi. Ghur, from where Shahab-ud-din Ghori came and defeated Prithviraj to herald Islamic rule in India, is less than 1,600 kms from Delhi. Kabul is around 1,300 kms from Delhi.
Another measure to evaluate Shivaji’s greatness is his impact on the succeeding period. Within 40 years of his death, the Marathas reached Delhi. In another 30 years, aided by the dynamism of Peshwa Bajirao and his son, Balaji Bajirao, they became kingmakers in the Mughal court in Delhi. Finally, in 1758, the Marathas captured Peshawar. It remained with them for only six months, but it was a great achievement in Indian history because Peshawar, once ruled by the Hindu Shahi dynasty, returned to the Hindus after a gap of more than 700 years of Muslim rule.
Shivaji also revived Chanakya niti (policy) in the mediaeval period, which was lost due to a combination of factors, including the impact of foreign rule. This was in ample display when Shivaji killed the cruel Bijapuri general Afzal Khan at Pratapgarh in 1659 before that general could kill him; the way he fooled Aurangzeb and fled from his captivity in Agra in 1666; and the treaties he signed with the Mughals, only to break them when he thought these were coming in the way of realising his goal of swarajya.
The Maratha ruler also revived the naval tradition of India, which was lost after the Chola dynasty in the 13th century. Shivaji, the greatest builder of forts in the mediaeval period, built or repaired around 100 forts. He was also a social reformer; he co-opted members of all Hindu castes, including Dalits, into his army. Today, the Indian Army’s Mahar Regiment owes a lot to Shivaji’s reformist vision. He started the practice of reconversion of Hindus who had converted to Islam.
Shivaji’s just administrative model, including his revenue collection system, is admirable. It offered seed loans to cultivators and collected revenue from farmers after evaluating the impact of the rains. His robust justice system was focussed on the needy and was for people of all religions. Historian Jadunath Sarkar called Shivaji the great constructive genius of mediaeval India. There is a need to reevaluate such heroes and give them their true place in history.