History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c41.367

v2.c41.367

It was the fashion of early British writers and is, to some extent, that of modern writers also, to revile the Marathas and their administration. Stirling in 1825, O'Malley in 1908 and even the sedate Wills in 1926 could not refrain from abusing Maratha administration in Orissa. O'Malley quotes Stirling: "The administration of the Marathas in this, as in every other part of their foreign conquests, was fatal to the welfare of the people and prosperity of the country; and exhibits a picture of misrule, anarchy, weakness, rapacity, and violence combined, which makes one wonder how society can have kept together under so calamitous a tyranny. An underling of the governor entered a village, called the people together, and ordered one man to give him so many *pans* or *Kāhans* of couris, and another so many. If the people did not at once pay they were first beaten with sticks, and if that would not do, they were afterwards tortured."¹ Stirling forgot the terrible oppression of the zamindars and tenants of Bengal in the time of Nawāb Nāẓim Murshid Qūli Khān Nāṣiri who created a special *Vaikuṇṭha* for torturing zamindars for the purpose of extortion. Many respectable zamindars and Rajas of Bengal died in this *Vaikuṇṭha* and the remainder were released by Shuja'-ud-din Muḥammad Khān in 1725-26.