(Re-published by Rupa Publications India, 2015)
Did you know that Aurangazeb, the Moghul Emperor, was vegetarian? Did you know he had a daughter who was capitvated by Shivaji to such an extent that she pleaded with her father in support of one of Shivaji's descendents?
Another tidbit, perhaps a controversial one. People on social media use a derogatory name for people who convert to Christianity for financial incentives - ‘Rice Christians’. Who coined the term? If you credit it to someone in the current era, you are wrong. The right answer is - an Englishman called Streynsham Master. He coined the term in 1664 in Surat, India!
These are a few of the unexpected nuggets found in the book. It has several interesting tidbits and stories about the Marathas, the Moghuls, the English, the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda and of course, Shivaji and his family.
This is not meant to be a history textbook. The author cites references and names his sources, but he labels this as an “impression” of Shivaji, one man’s authentic account of Shivaji, based on available references.
The book is significant because it was the first work that portrayed Shivaji from the Maratha point of view to the European audience. All the earlier works, presumably commissioned by the English, the Portuguese, or the Moghuls, had characterized Shivaji as a brigand. Before this book, an European observer would not have known how to reconcile these accounts with the Marathi ballads that sang their king’s praises.
The Marathas
The book starts with an introduction to Maratha people. It contains vivid accounts of Maratha life under the Muslim overlords. Marathas are described as dark with firm, bronze-coloured skin. They were known for their pride, and peaceful fatalism. Prior to Shivaji’s emergence as a ruler, the word Maratha did not refer to people of a state, but just a linguistic categorization of people living in a certain part of India. As Kincaid points out, thoughts of any Hindu ruler of significance, Maratha or otherwise, was pure fantasy. The Rajputs, for example, had yielded to the Moghul sword, and had settled into various roles under the Moghul rule.
Birth and Childhood
Shivaji’s forefathers, the Bhosles, were soldiers of fortune, who used to wield their swords in service of one Muslim ruler or another. His father and paternal grandfather had been mercenaries under the Muslim kingdom of Ahmednagar.
Kincaid starts with an account of grandfathers of Shivaji. He describes how Maloji (Shivaji’s paternal grandfather), an unscrupulous soldier, forces the hand of Lakhoji (maternal grandfather) to get their children betrothed. Lakhoji’s daughter Jijabai who is of a significantly higher social status, gets married to Maloji’s son, Shahaji Bhonsle.
Shahaji follows his father in serving the Ahmednagar kingdom. Upon the collapse of the kingdom, Shahaji moves south to Bijapur and enlists as a soldier under the Sultan. He also takes another wife in Bijapur. Jijabai, who was pregnant with Shivaji, is left behind in his estate. She takes refuge at the fort of Shivner.
Shivaji was born on 16th April 1627 (Wikipedia says 1630) and grew up in the fort of Shivner. Kincaid describes a prophecy of a Hindu revival circulating around the time of his birth.
As the Moghul forces capture Shahaji’s lands, their commander looks for the landowner and his family. While they are able to capture Jijabai as a hostage, a six-year-old Shivaji gets smuggled out of their reach. Faithful servants would carry Shivaji from one hiding place to another until he reaches the age of ten.
Jijabai somehow escapes her captors and reunites with Shivaji. She continues bringing her son up as a devout Hindu child. Once the Sultanates of Bijapur and Delhi enter a pact, Shahji sends for his wife and son from Bijapur.
Shivaji never fits into the social life in Bijapur. He gets into trouble on multiple occasions, including an occasion when he refuses to salute the sultan in the customary fashion; and another, where he organizes a protest against cow-slaughter. Shahaji, worried about his safety, orders Jijabai to take him back to their ancestral lands, which at that time was at the Moghul borders.
Shahaji appoints Dadaji Kondadev, the Brahmin administrator as the steward of the estate and Shivaji’s tutor. The main village in the estate was Poona, the current day Pune. Shivaji gets educated in Marathi and Sanskrit, and learns the great Indian scriptures. In his spare time, he roams the estate with the hillmen, learning the landscape.
Kincaid also describes the influence of Tukaram, the poet, and Ramdas, the ascetic on Shivaji in the formative years.
The Emerging Leader
At nineteen, Shivaji starts occupying the remote forts in the Maratha region, initially benefiting for the Bijapur kingdom’s neglect, then using a combination of some persuasion, shrewd maneuvering, and subterfuge.
Shivaji’s successes inspire the Marathas. The peasants discard their ploughs, and brahmans their books, to enlist under the emerging leader. I found the stories of Shivaji’s capture of Kalyan and his kindness the the captives fascinating.
The Bijapur Sultan is irked by loss of territory to the upstart, and decides to use Shahaji, Shivaji’s father, as a hostage. He orders Shahaji to be chained to a wall, and writes to Shivaji, threatening to kill Shahaji unless Shivaji surrenders to the court. Masons would build layers of brick around the chained Shahaji until he’d be entirely buried alive.
Shivaji writes to the Moghuls, who still control Bijapur, pleading for intervention. Prince Murad writes a gracious note to Shivaji. In addition, he also writes to Shahaji, who is still imprisoned in the wall, offering him a position in the Moghul court in Delhi. The Bijapur Sultan, aware that they had to respect the Imperial orders, sets Shahaji free.
Kincaid relates a Maratha folk-story about Shivaji’s capture of Sinhgad fort from a Moghul garrison. Shivaji is said to have been reluctant to attack the fort, as it was considered impregnable. The fort is on a hill. The walls of the fort and the face of the hill are smooth and without the crevices that might enable the soldiers to scale the height.
Jijabai invites Shivaji to Pratapgad and challenges him to a game of dice. She wins and asks for the Sinhgad fort as her reward. Shivaji reluctantly agrees, and summons his trusted captain, Tanaji. The story is that Tanaji uses a hill-iguana named Yashwant to secure a grip on the smooth walls on the fort. He pleads with the reptile, and uses its iron grip, strong enough to hold a man’s weight, to climb the wall. Tanaji thus facilitates the entry of his men but perishes in the battle. The fort is captured for Jijabai in the end.
Kincaid describes Shivaji’s encounter with Afzal Khan in detail. While I had read about the incident, this account captures the politics around it, and the planning that went into the encounter much more vividly than any other account that I’ve read.
Likewise, his victory over Shayista Khan and Shivaji’s imprisonment and escape are described in a very readable fashion.
Aurangzeb’s daughter Zinat-un-Nisa falls in love with Shivaji, without his knowledge. Many years later, after Sambhaji, Shivaji’s son gets tortured to death, his son, also named Shivaji, is handed to Zinat-un-Nisa to be brought up as a Moghul courtier. Zinat begs her father not to disturb the child’s religious beliefs. Aurangzeb reluctantly consents. In bringing up the young Shivaji, she would show how the extraordinary impression made by the older Shivaji lingered after all those years. For his part, the younger Shivaji would be one of the few people outside the Moghul circles to mourn Aurangzeb’s death by visiting his tomb.
The Butcher and the Englishmen
In one of the side-stories, Kincaid talks about the quantity of food consumed by the English.
After his coronation, Shivaji receives a group of Englishmen who seek compensation for Marathi attacks on the English territory. Shivaji is conciliatory and offers them satisfactory redress. After the friendly celebrations over several days, an old butcher from Rajgad petitions the court for permission to see the visitors. He explains that he was the butcher who supplied goat’s meat for the visitors. He had wanted to see “the few men who consumed more meat in a few days than all his customers put together in several years”!
The Final Years
The Golconda kingdom was wealthy, but militarily weak. On the march of his army to Tanjore, Shivaji sought free passage for his forces through the kingdom. Abu Hussein, the king, welcomed Shivaji’s forces into Hyderabad. Shivaji was given a rousing welcome by the Hindu population of Hyderabad. Hussein hosted lavish dinners for Shivaji.
Kincaid adds another story here. One day, Hussein was showcasing the war elephant of Golconda to Shivaji. After a few stories of how terrifying the opponents find his elephants, he asked, ‘Do you have no war elephants of your own?’. Shivaji turned and pointed to his guardsmen and said, ‘These are my war elephants’, and indicated that one of them, Yesaji, might be more than a match for Hussein’s elephant.
Hussein said, ‘Let’s see’ and instructed the mahout to prepare the elephant for combat. When the combat got under way, Yesaji stood with his sword out. The elephant, worked to a fury, trumpeted and advanced towards Yesaji. The soldier stepped aside, and with one swift stroke, severed the elephant’s trunk.
Hussain was suitably chastised, and gifted Shivaji with jewels. After some persuasion, he also agreed to lend the Maratha forces his artillery, and also provide a financial subsidy in assistance of the campaign.
In the final years, Shivaji led his army to Bijapur, once his home, to protect it from the advancing Moghul army. When the Marathas defeated Dilir Khan, the Moghul general, Shivaji was cheered by the Bijapur people, marking a triumphant return to a city where he had once been a misfit.
Shivaji, on his return to his capital after a successful campaign, was in a somber mood. He made his succession plans, fell ill, and died on 3rd April 1680.
Aurangzeb and Shivaji
As per Kincaid, there appear to be some similarities between Shivaji and Aurangzeb, his rival and the Moghul Emperor. Both men hate show of opulence. They dine and dress simply and demand a great deal from their followers. As we saw earlier, Aurangzeb was a vegetarian, and Shivaji is said to have had only one meal per day, made of rice and lentils.
The similarities end there. The author does not hide his admiration for Shivaji. This book describes how Shivaji won unquestioning love and loyalty from his men. He appears to have been charming and solicitous in his political approach. In Kincaid’s account, he treats women of the captured rivals kindly, and releases prisoners with parting gifts.
Aurangzeb, on the other hand, rules by fear. He is unable to trust his own generals, or even his son, Moazzam. There appears to be a good deal of conflict between Jaswant Singh, his advisor, Dilir Khan, his general, and Moazzam, his son. They all complain to him about each other, and consequently, none of them wins Aurangzeb’s trust. In later years, when Dilir Khan advises Aurangzeb to recognize Sambhaji as the rightful king of the Marathas to dilute Shivaji’s authority, Aurangzeb rejects the idea, suspecting Khan's motives.
The book also underscores Aurangzeb’s cruelty towards those who are at his mercy. Sambhaji, Shivaji's son, however flawed he might have been as an heir to the Maratha throne, ends up winning the sympathies of the Marathas when he resists Aurangzeb’s orders to convert to Islam, and gets tortured to death for such resistance.
Both men were unapologetic followers of their respective faiths. Shivaji prays before every major event, seeks advice of religious men, and governs with the help of brahmin and kshatriya advisors. He aspires to be a Hindu ruler at a time when “Rajputs, the only Hindu rulers in the region, had submitted to the sword of Islam”. Aurangzeb is, of course described as a devout Muslim. While he had Hindu generals such as Jaisingh and advisors such as Jaswant Singh on his side, it was clear that he did not regard them as equals.
There is an anecdote about Aurangzeb banning music of all kinds. A crowd had gathered around the palace to protest the decree. When he asked for the reason for the demonstration, he was told, ‘We’re mourning the death of poor Lady Music.” Unsmiling, he replied, “Let her be well and truly buried”.
The book is not without its flaws. T N Chaturvedi notes a few errors in Kincaid’s account in the preface. But they do not detract from the overall readability of the book. The book reads like a script for an elaborate movie, or tele-series. A highly recommended read.
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