History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c58.s2: § 2. Marathas in Deccan History.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v4.c58.s2
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§ 2. Marathas in Deccan History.
v4.c58.s2.1
These were the Marathas. A small body, no doubt; but they leavened the entire mass of the Deccani population. They dominated Deccan history for the century and a half that followed the accession of Aurangzib and North Indian history for the last fifty years of the 18th century. The Maratha people had been there from time out of mind, but since the 13th century they had lived dispersed through many States, as the subjects of aliens in the land of their birth, without any political organization or status of their own. A genius was needed to unite these scattered units into a *nation* and drive them like a solid wedge into the Mughal empire, shivering it to bits. That genius was Shivaji, the contemporary and antagonist of Aurangzib.
v4.c58.s2.2
European historians like Elphinstone have charged Aurangzib with political blindness because he destroyed Bijapur and Golkonda first, instead of crushing the Maratha power with the help of these two States. (*Hist. of India*, 6th ed., p. 649.) But this criticism misses the cardinal fact of Deccan politics in the 17th century. From the day when the Emperor Akbar launched forth into a policy of conquest south of the Vindhyas to the day 94 years later, when Aurangzib rode in triumph into the fallen capital of the last of the Qutb-Shahis, the Sultans of Bijapur and Golkonda could never for a moment forget that the sleepless aim of the Mughal Emperor was their final extinction and the annexation of all their territories. They had at all times had Maratha auxiliaries,—Shahji Bhonslé was only the most eminent among many such,—and now they found in the genius of Shivaji and the reckless audacity of Shambhuji their only shield in the hour of supreme danger. A union of hearts between Bijapur or Golkonda and the Mughal empire was a psychological impossibility.
v4.c58.s2.3
These European historians further maintain that it would have been wiser for Aurangzib to have left Bijapur and Golkonda in independence to serve as the police of the Deccan against the growing Maratha lawlessness which finally proved too strong for the Mughals. This view also attaches too much importance to mere appearances and names and is based on ignorance of the true political condition of the Deccan during the period in question. By the time Shivaji had succeeded in forming a national State as a nucleus round which the Maratha chiefs hitherto in Muslim pay might cluster, the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golkonda had arrived at the last stage of decline. Their kings were mere puppets sunk in pleasure, their capitals ran blood during the frequent faction-fights for the office of wazir, the administration had utterly broken down, law and order had disappeared, the provincial governors had become independent, the generals were selling themselves to the highest bidder. In the touching words of the last historian of Bijapur, "No man from *sardar* down to *ryot* ate his bread for a single day in peace; none from the Sultan down to the pauper slept for a single night in happiness." (B. S. 523.) And such Governments were expected by Elphinstone to tame Shambhuji and chastise Shanta Ghorpare more effectually than Aurangzib himself could do!