
The purpose of this library is to assist the students and the lifelong learners of India in their pursuit of an education so that they may better their status and their opportunities and to secure for themselves and for others justice, social, economic and political. This item is part of a library of books, audio, video, and other materials from and about India is curated and maintained by Public Resource. But without the support of the Rajputs and Jats, the political advantage is lost and the Marathas go under decisively to Abdali’s Afghan army at Panipat in 1761.Īs Nehru comments, the Panipat defeat of the Marathas weakened them no end, just when the British East India Company was emerging as an important territorial power of India. In the wake of Ahmed Shah Abdali’s plunder of Delhi in 1756 and subsequent withdrawal, Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao pushes into the Punjab. In the early decades of the 18th century, the Marathas act collectively, but by 1740, the big Maratha families begin to peel away, although they recognise the authority of the Peshwa of Pune. In 1674, Shivaji appoints himself as Chhatrapati (king) and remains an independent sovereign till his death in 1680, leaving a Maratha kingdom of great but ill-defined extent. True to form, the mortified Shivaji escapes buried in a basket of confectionary and reaches Maharashtra unharmed. After an angry encounter with the emperor, he is detained in a virtual house arrest. Shivaji feels slighted at Aurangzeb’s court where his presence is barely acknowledged as a 5000- Mansabdar. jai Singh also advises him to travel to Agra to attend the emperor in person, and sends his son Ram Singh as a surety for Shivaji’s safety. A sincere jai Sigh counsels Shivaji to combine Shakti (might) with Yukti (logic).

By 1665, Shivaji, cornered near Purandhar, sues again for terms. Aurangzeb now sends another large Mughal army, under the valorous Jai Singh who secures fort after fort. Shaista escapes, and the raiders withdraw without plunder but the affair is a blow to Mughal pride.īreaking out of the hills in 1664, Shivaji leads his forces north into Gujarat and ransacks the great port of Surat for forty days, sparing only the well- defended English ‘factory’ (fortified warehouse). As the ballad describes the events, Shivaji enters the heavily fortified city in disguise, crawls into Shaista’s bedroom, and injures him. The Mughal army relentlessly harries every fort and captures Pune, Shivaji’s capital, where Shaista takes residence. When they embrace, Shivaji lethally sinks a hidden weapon into Afzal’s abdomen killing him, and leads the Marathas to victory. In making Shivaji’s personal submission, the two men meet at the foot of the Pratapgarh hill after supposedly dispensing with their individual attendants and weapons. Shivaji would make a token recognition of Bijapur’s suzerainty and Afzal would leave Shivaji in undisturbed possession of his forts. Since the Marathas stood no chance of driving them off, there is negotiation conducted by Afzal’s trusted envoy Krishnaji Shastry.

Nehru noted that Shivaji, having openly raised the standard of revolt, sacked the city of Surat, sparing the English and their factory, and enforced the Chowth (one-fourth) tax payment, as he did in other distant parts of the Mughal dominions in western India. Playback by Ravindra Sathe, Chandrakant Kale, and Madhuri Purandhare. With Naseeruddin Shah as Shivaji, Om Puri as Aurangzeb, Achyut Potdar as Shahfi, Sunila Pradhan as Jiiabai, Ahmed Kahn as Afzal Khan, Sudhir Kulkarni as Gopinath Pant, Chandrakant Kale as Shridhar Pant, Ravindra Sathe as Sampat Rao, Vishwajit Pradhan as Rustam Khan, and Ayub Khan as Yaqub Khan. A Production of Doordarshan, the Government of India’s Public Service Broadcaster
