Administrative System of the Marathas c15: Chapter IV. Organisation of the Navy
Administrative System of the Marathas c15
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Chapter IV. Organisation of the Navy
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Soon after his conquest of the Konkan, Shivaji found it necessary to organise a navy strong enough to check the raids of the Siddi's fleet on his coast. His fleet consisted mainly of Gallivats and Ghurabs as well as many river crafts of various description. Sabhasad tells¹ us that no less than four hundred Ghurabs, Tarandes, Tarus, Gallivats, Shibads and Pagars were built and organised into two squadrons of 200 vessels. Each squadron was placed under the supreme command of an Admiral, Dariya Sarang, a Muhammadan officer, and Mai Naik, a Bhandari. Dariya Sarang was not the only Muhammadan officer in Shivaji's fleet. Another prominent Muhammadan Admiral, Daulat Khan by name, entered Shivaji's service a few years later. The fleet was in all probability manned mainly by the Kolis and other sea-faring tribes of the Malabar coast. What was their uniform, or whether they had any, we do not know. At Malwan, the principal port of Shivaji, there is a statue of the Maratha hero with the peculiar Koli hat on his head.³ It will not, therefore, be unfair to suppose that the sailors of Shivaji's fleet generally wore a similar headgear.
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¹ Sabhasad, p. 68, Sen, Siva Chhatrapati, pp. 93-94.
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Sabhasad tells us that Shivaji's fleet not only harassed the indigenous sea powers of the south, but also plundered the ships and possessions of such European powers as the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English. That Shivaji's navy was a menace to these traders is quite true, but he was not so fortunate in his naval as in his military organisation. He could hardly hold his own against the Siddis in the sea and the numerical strength of his fleet was perhaps highly exaggerated by his son's court historian. Robert Orme informs us that "The fleet of Sevagi had by this time (1675) been increased to fifty-seven sail, of which fifteen were grabs, the rest gallivats, all crowded with men."³ Fryer saw on his way to "Serapatan (Kharepatan), to the South of Dan de Rajpore, a Strong Castle of Seva Gi's defended a deep Bay, where rode his Navy, consisting of 30 Small Ships and Vessels, the Admiral wearing a White Flag aloft."⁴ Prof. Jadunath Sarkar⁵ points out "that the English reports never put their number above 160, and usually as 60 only.¹⁶ In all probability Shivaji's men-of-war did not exceed 200 in number, but he had a large mercantile navy. On land Shivaji depended more on the quality than on the number of his men, on the sea, however, his fleet was decidedly inferior to that of the English in efficiency, though not in number. The President of the Surat Factory was of opinion that "one good English ship would destroy a hundred of them without running herself into great danger."¹⁶ This weakness was mainly due to the lack of good artillery as well as the want of a naval tradition.
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³ See Itihas Sangraha, Sphuta Lekha, p. 1
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³ Orme, Historical Fragments, p. 53.
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⁴ Fryer, p. 145.
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⁵ Sarkar, Shivaji, p. 336.
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¹⁶ (F. R. Surat, 86, 26 No.) quoted in Sarkar's Shivaji, p. 339.
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The main strength of the Maratha fleet consisted in the gallivats and the ghurabs, vessels peculiar to the Malabar coast. The ghurabs and the gallivats of the Angria's fleet have been thus described by Robert Orme:† "The grabs have rarely more than two masts, although some have three; those of three are about 300 tons burthen; but the others are not more than 150: they are built to draw very little water, being very broad in proportion to their length, narrowing however from the middle to the end, where instead of bows they have a prow, projecting like that of a Mediterranean galley, and covered with a strong deck level with the main deck of the vessel, from which, however, it is separated by a bulkhead which terminates the fore-castle : as this construction subjects the grab to pitch violently when sailing against a head sea, the deck of the prow is not enclosed with sides as the rest of the vessel is, but remains bare, that the water which dashes upon it may pass off without interruption : on the main deck under the fore-castle are mounted two pieces of cannon of nine or twelve pounders, which point forwards through the port holes cut in the bulkhead, and fire over the prow ; the cannon of the broadside are from six to nine pounders. The gallivats are large row-boats built like the grab, but of smaller dimensions, the largest rarely exceeding 70 tons : they have two masts of which the mizen is very slight ; the main mast bears only one sail, which is triangular and very large, the peak of it when hoisted being much higher than the mast itself. In general the gallivats are covered with a spar deck, made for lightness of bamboos split, and these only carry petteraroes fixed on swivels in the gunnel of the vessel; but those of the largest size have a fixed deck on which they mount six or eight pieces of cannon, from two to four pounders : they have forty or fifty stout oars and may be rowed four miles an hour." It is not difficult to understand why such clumsy vessels manned by inexperienced sailors should not be able to contend with the English on their peculiar element on equal terms. But we should note that Shivaji's sailors had on more than one occasion attacked Portuguese men-of-war with success.
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† Military Transactions (2nd Ed.), Vol. I, pp. 408-409.
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Of the other vessels mentioned by Sabhasad the *tarande* was a sailing vessel of large dimension; the *shibad* was a flat-bottomed two-masted craft without any deck, and the *pagar* was only a well smoothed canoe. Most probably some of these crafts belonged to the mercantile navy. It may not be out of place to note here that Shivaji had a strong mercantile fleet that plied between his ports and the coast towns of Arabia. Unlike many of his contemporaries the great Maratha had realised that a strong naval power without a strong mercantile navy was an impossibility.
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Besides doing police work against the Siddi's pirate fleet Shivaji's navy was also employed in taking possession of foreign vessels wrecked on his coast and collecting duties from trading ships. In Shivaji's time it was considered the duty of the state to regulate prices of articles.⁸ This was done mainly by regulating export and import duties.
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⁸ Rajwade, M.I.S., Vol. VIII, pp. 21-23.
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The naval spirit roused by Shivaji did not die with him. The Angrias maintained the naval reputation of Maharashtra till the destruction of their fleet by the combined efforts of the Peshwa and the English. The Peshwas also had a strong fleet for defending the western coast. The mercantile spirit of the Maratha traders also found a greater scope with the expansion of the Maratha empire. In Shivaji's time merchant-men plied between Arabia and the Malabar coast; during the Peshwa period the Maratha traders actually settled in Arabian coast towns like Muscat⁹ and their trading vessels visited China. The naval policy of Shivaji therefore bore ample fruit, though long after the Maratha Alfred had passed away.
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⁹ See Book, II.