Shivaji and His Times c4.s7: §7. Maratha soldiers and peasants of to-day
Shivaji and His Times c4.s7
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§7. Maratha soldiers and peasants of to-day
c4.s7.1
The backbone of Shivaji's army was composed of the peasantry, who belonged to two low castes, named Maratha and Kunbi. The Maratha caste,—a name which should not be applied to all Marathi-speaking people in general,—numbered five millions and the Kunbis (of the Bombay Presidency alone), two and a half millions, in 1911, and they bear the following character in our times:
c4.s7.2
"As a class, Marathas (i.e., the caste so called) are simple, frank, independent and liberal, courteous, and, when kindly treated, trusting. They are a manly and intelligent race, proud of their former greatness, fond of show, and careful to hide poverty...Stronger, more active, and better made than the Kunbis, many of the Marathas, even among the poorer classes, have an air of refinement. (They take animal food, including fowls, and drink toddy and other liquors, like the Kunbis.) No caste supplies the Bombay army with so many recruits as the Ratnagiri Marathas. Others go into the police or find employment as messengers. Like the Kunbis, orderly, well-behaved, and good-tempered, the Marathas surpass them in courage and generosity. Very frugal, unassuming, respectable and temperate...they are a very religious class."
c4.s7.3
∗ "The Marathas are a nation, and from the Brahman to the ryot they glory in the fact." (Acworth and Shaligram's *Powadas*, iii.)
c4.s7.4
"The Deccan Kunbis are [now] all cultivators, steady and hard-working...A very quiet, easy-tempered and orderly class, singularly free from crime, they have much respect for the gods. In the Deccan they are strong, hardy, enduring and muscular, [but in Konkan, smaller, darker and more slightly made.] The Kunbi women, like their husbands, are strong and hardy, but the veiled Maratha women are generally weak...Widows are generally allowed to marry." (Bom. Gaz., xxiv. 70; x. 123, 121; xviii. pt. i, 285, 307.)
c4.s7.5
§ 8. Defects of the Maratha character.
c4.s7.6
We shall now turn to the other traits of the Maratha character. When a Government lives on plunder as a regular source of supply, its officers naturally see no immorality in taking bribes for themselves. The ethics of the servant easily slide into the ethics of the master. These Indian Spartans with their simplicity, hardiness and sense of equality, were no more proof against corruption than the Spartans of ancient Greece. Contemporary travellers have noticed how greedy of bribes the Brahman officers of the Maratha State were, even under the great Shivaji.
c4.s7.7
The chief defect of the Marathas, which has disastrously reacted on their political history, is their lack of business capacity. This race has produced no great banker, trader, captain of industry, or even commissariat organizer or contractor. Hence, on the economic side, in the broadest sense of the term, the Maratha administration was very weak. The Peshwas, in spite of the dazzling brilliancy of their political success, were bankrupts from the days of the great Baji Rao I. onwards. Even Shivaji had repeated money difficulties during his short reign,—though in his case it was due not so much to real insolvency, as to his aversion to touch his hoarded treasure for the normal expenses of his army.
c4.s7.8
But the Marathas have a historic advantage of unique importance in the India of to-day. Their near ancestors had faced death in a hundred battle-fields, had led armies and debated in the chamber of diplomacy, had managed the finances of kingdoms and grappled with the problems of empire; they had helped to make Indian history in the immediate and not yet forgotten past. The memory of these things is a priceless asset to their race. In the combination of intellectual keenness, patient industry, simplicity of life, devotion to the nobler ideals of man, in the courage necessary for translating thought into deed, in the spirit of sacrifice, grit of character, and a diffused sense of democratic equality, the vast middle class of modern Maharashtra have no superior and hardly any equal among the other races of India. Would that they also possessed the organizing skill, the power of co-operation, the tact in the management of instruments and colleagues, the foresight, and the saving common sense of the Anglo-Saxon race!