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Shivaji and His Times c11.s3: §12. Marathas in Kanara uplands

Shivaji and His Times c11.s3

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§12. Marathas in Kanara uplands

c11.s3.1

On 26th April, 1675, one of Shiva's generals had visited Karwar and "burnt the town effectually, leaving not a house standing," in punishment of the fort of Karwar still holding out. The English factory was not molested. This general, however, went back in a few days. But next month, after the fall of Phonda, the fort of Karwar surrendered to the Marathas.

c11.s3.2

The rainy season now put an end to the campaign. Bahlol Khan went back to Bijapur, leaving his army at Miraj. Shiva at first thought of cantoning for the rains in a fort on the frontier of Sunda, but soon changed his mind and returned to Raigarh, passing by Rajapur on 12th June.

c11.s3.3

A Maratha force was detached into the Sunda Rajah's country at the end of May. "They finding no great opposition seized upon Supa and Ulavi belonging to the Rajah." But Khizr Khan Pani (Bahlol's lieutenant) and the desais in concert attacked the Maratha garrisons there, killed 300 of the men and recovered both the places. A party of Marathas that was posted at Varhulli, 7 miles south of Ankola, to take custom duty on all goods passing that way, was now forced to withdraw (August 1675.) (F. R. Surat 88, Rajapur to Surat, 27th August 1675.)

c11.s3.4

The dowager Rani of Bednur had quarrelled with her colleague Timmaya, but had been compelled to make peace with him (August), she being a mere cypher, while he held the real power of the State. [Ibid.] The Rani then appealed to Shivaji for protection, agreed to pay him an annual tribute, and admitted a Maratha resident at her Court. [Chit. 70, but Malkare 64 puts it earlier and calls the money blackmail.]

c11.s3.5

The dalvi, or general of the desai who had been the local Bijapuri governor of North Kanara, had aided Shivaji in the conquest of that district. But now (1675), disgusted with him, the dalvi was moving about the country with a force, saying that he would restore his former master. He attacked Shivaji's guards in Karwar town and forced them to retire to the castle. The people were in extreme misery in Shivaji's new conquests: he squeezed the desais, who in their turn squeezed the ryots. (Bom. Gaz. xv. pt. i. 128.) But Bijapur was now in the grip of a civil war, the Adil-Shahi State was hastening to a dissolution, and Shivaji's possession of South Konkan and the North Kanara district remained unchallenged till after his death.

c11.s3.6

But Bednur did not really become a Maratha protectorate. We learn from an English letter of 29th July, 1679, that the Rajah of Sunda and the Rani of Bednur had sharp wars, "but the former by the assistance of Jamshid Khan has had the advantage of compelling the Rani, on conclusion of the peace, to deliver up to him his castles of Sirsy and Sera, formerly possessed by them, as likewise the port and castle of Mirgy [=Mirjan], a little to the southward of Karwar." (Orme MSS. 116.)

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