Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c48.s1: § 1. How the Sindhias surpassed the Holkars in the second generation
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c48.s1
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§ 1. How the Sindhias surpassed the Holkars in the second generation
v4.c48.s1.1
For the origins of the Sindhia-Holkar rivalry we have to go back sixty years to the days of the great Baji Rao, under whom the first Holkar and the first Sindhia made their names in Maratha history. Malhar Rao Holkar started earlier in the race for greatness and he gained a higher rank in the Peshwā’s army than Rānoji Sindhia could do before his death.
v4.c48.s1.2
The family chronicle of the Holkars claims that Malhar’s early patronage laid the foundations of the future greatness of the humble Ranoji Sindhia and that, in the second generation the same Malhar’s influence saved the life of the young Mahadji Sindhia when the latter’s death was ordered by Raghunath Dādā, the Peshwa’s regent. Whatever doubt there may be as to these claims, the fact is indisputable that during the first generation the Holkars stood much higher on the ladder of greatness than the Sindhias.
v4.c48.s1.3
Malhar Holkar outlived Ranoji Sindhia by 21 years, and he was the sole “Elder statesman” of the Maratha State left after the Panipat disaster. But after his death in 1766, the relative position of the two houses came to be reversed. Malhar left no worthy son or nephew behind him, while the Sindhia family gained parity with the house of Holkar by the blood and sweat of Ranoji’s sons. Ranoji had died early (in 1745) and left them young; but they were young lions: four of his sons (or five, if we add a grandson) died on active service, while the fifth son was wounded and crippled in combat. And now, in less than six years after Malhar’s death the house of Sindhia rose to the front rank in Maratha politics under a son of Ranoji. This regenerator of the fortunes of the Sindhias was Mahadji, the sole survivor after Panipat among the sons of Ranoji. He combined Malhar Holkar’s leadership in war with a shrewdness in diplomacy and a long vision in politics which no Maratha chief before or after him could surpass. At the outset of his career (about 1768) his resources in men, money and lands were poorer than those of the house of Holkar, whose wealth and influence were being immensely increased by the long peaceful and beneficent rule of a saintly widow, Ahalyā Bāī. But by the year 1782, when the Treaty of Salbai was signed, Mahadji had made himself clearly the foremost man in the Maratha State, and when a year later (December 1784) he secured for himself the regency of the Delhi Empire, there could be no doubt of his being the dominating figure of Indian politics. It was a position which excited the jealousy of Nānā Fadnis and the heart-burning of the Holkar party.
v4.c48.s1.4
The curse of drunkenness lay heavy on the house of Holkar. Khandé Rao (the son of Malhar and the husband of Ahalyā Bāī), Tukoji and Tukoji’s sons Malhar and Jaswant Rao were victims of this vice, and the affairs of these besotted masters were saved from ruin only by the prudent management of their Brahman ministers. Ahalyā Bāī was merely the banker of the family, a very successful banker no doubt, but she could not command in the field, nor control distant provinces; hence her virtues counted for nothing in the manly game of war. Here the powerless and mutually quarrelsome ministers of ever-tipsy braggarts had to match themselves against a born leader of men like Mahadji Sindhia and his band of able generals. Holkar’s ministers knew the essential weakness of their position and avoided an *open* conflict with Sindhia as long as they could. The inevitable clash was further delayed by the fact of Mahadji being under a cloud from the Lalsot campaign (1787) to Ghulām Qādir’s expulsion from Delhi. But when at the beginning of 1789, he recovered his position in the Delhi imperial Government, the jealousy of Holkar was kindled again.*