Administrative System of the Marathas c16.s2.2

c16.s2.2

It has often been asked why did so many of Shivaji's institutions fail to survive him. Prof. Jadunath Sarkar attributes his failure to build up an enduring state mainly to caste rivalry. The caste system is not new to India and whatever may be its effects on the Maratha state, it cannot be said that the fate of Shivaji's civil and military institutions was much affected by it. The great bane of the country had been feudalism or the jagir system and this flourished in spite of caste rivalry. Shivaji had tried his best to abolish feudalism, but the great defect of his government was its autocratic character. Its success depended on the man at the helm. Sambhaji was an incompetent ruler and it did not take him long to undo his father's work. Rajaram was unable to effect or attempt any reform. Driven from his paternal home and besieged in the fort of Jinji, he had to conciliate his friends in all possible ways. His officers offered to conquer principalities in enemy possession on the sole condition that they should be allowed to hold their conquest in jagir. Thus Rajaram helped to revive feudalism and once it was revived, Shivaji's institutions were doomed to extinction. In the turmoil of war every law was held in abeyance and when a new order dawned after the struggle for existence was over, Shivaji's institutions had become a memory. Further concessions to the feudal chiefs had to be made during the civil war between Shahu and his Kolhapur cousin. And although feudalism was in theory condemned in a work on polity attributed to Ramchandra Pant Amatya, in practice every thing was done to foster its growth. After the death of Shahu the monarchy suffered still more in power and prestige and the Peshwas became the real heads of the state. But they did not or could not suppress the ever-growing feudal tendencies and created, either from policy or from need, new fiefs for their friends and followers. The result was that the central government grew weaker as the feudal chiefs waxed stronger and ultimately the whole fabric collapsed with a tremendous crash at the slightest collision with a western power. Both the Brahman and the Non-Brahman Barons equally contributed to that collapse and caste prejudices had very little to do with the decline and fall of the Maratha empire. Shivaji's civil institutions disappeared with the rejection of his ideal.