[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [Shivaji and His Times](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sarkar-1919) › c19.s2.3 # Shivaji and His Times c19.s2.3 Shivaji and His Times c19.s2.3 - **Language:** English ### [c19.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sarkar-1919.c19.s2.3) In the security, power and wealth engendered by their independence, the Marathas of the 18th century forgot the past record of Muslim persecution; the social grades turned against each other. The Brahmans living east of the Sahyadri range despised those living west, the men of the hills despised their brethren of the plains, because they could now do so with impunity. The head of the State, though a Brahman, was despised by his Brahman servants belonging to other branches of the caste,—because the first Peshwa's great-grandfather's great-grandfather had once been lower in society than the Desh Brahmans' great-grandfathers' great-grandfathers! While the Chitpavan Brahmans were waging social war with the Deshastha Brahmans, a bitter jealousy raged between the Brahman ministers and governors and the Kayastha secretaries. We have unmistakable traces of it as early as the reign of Shivaji. "Caste grows by fission." It is antagonistic to national union. In proportion as Shivaji's ideal of a Hindu swaraj was based on orthodoxy, it contained within itself the seed of its own death. As Rabindranath Tagore remarks: - [Previous: c19.s2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sarkar-1919.c19.s2.2) - [Next: c19.s2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sarkar-1919.c19.s2.4) - [Up: c19.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sarkar-1919.c19.s2) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sarkar-1919.c19.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sarkar-1919.c19.s2.3) · Pramāṇa