The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c21.154

v4.c21.154

The chief objection to be urged against the Marāthā system of government is that, outside its own territory, it was almost purely predatory. The Marāthā was never a colonist. While away on his expeditions, his thoughts were always with his little holding in the Deccan hills, and he seldom intermarried with the people of the country.³ Other Hindu states took a pride in improving the condition of the territory they conquered. They constructed temples, wells, canals, roads and other public works. The Marāthās did nothing of this kind. Their *mulukgiri* raids, by destroying the industries and wealth of the countries overrun, merely “killed the goose which laid the golden eggs”. The Marāthā state was a *Krieg Staat*, pure and simple: and it is the fate of the *Krieg Staat*, as Sarkar justly observes, to defeat its own ends.¹ The severity of the Marāthā raids, for the collection of *chauth* and other arrears, varied of course in intensity. In Gujarāt, and in the Carnatic in 1754–56, the plundering was as thorough as it was merciless: in Mālwa, on the other hand, war was waged against the government rather than the people, and though the bulk of the revenue was appropriated at each incursion, the sources from which it was drawn were crippled but not entirely ruined. But the principle was the same.²