Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s4: 2. The Peshwa
Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s4
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2. The Peshwa
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Here again theory and practice did not agree. Originally the Peshwa was only a member of the Ashta Pradhan Council of Shivaji; he was one of the eight pradhans or ministers of state. The post was not even hereditary, as in Shivaji's time officers were frequently transferred from one post to another. Balaji Vishwanath Bhat was the seventh Peshwa; a glance at the list of his predecessors in that post will at once show that only in one case a father (Moro Trimbak Pingle) was succeeded by his son²² (Nilkanth Moreshwar). In theory, therefore, the other pradhans had every reason to regard the Peshwa as their equal. Nay, as Justice Ranade points out, he was even inferior in rank to at least one of them. "In the official order of precedence," says Ranade, "the Peshwa was a smaller functionary than the Pant Pratinidhi, whose office was created by Rajaram at Jinji, and Pralhad Niraji was made vicegerent of the Raja. The fixed salary of the Pratinidhi was 15,000 Hons, while for the Peshwa the salary was fixed at 13,000 Hons."²³ Balaji Vishwanath by his ability and statesmanship not only succeeded in making the Peshwaship hereditary in his family, but he and his more famous son Baji Rao I made the Peshwa's position superior to the other seven, and actually became what the Pratinidhi ought to have been, the vicegerent of the king. Baji Rao's position was further strengthened when his policy of expansion towards the north was accepted by Chhatrapati Shahu in preference to the opposite policy of southern conquest championed by the Pratinidhi. The Peshwa became the head of the Maratha Empire in name as well as in reality when Shahu appointed Balaji Baji Rao and Govinda Rao Chitnis, joint guardians of his successor, a minor. Tarabai helped to put the finishing touch to the Peshwa's work by imprisoning Ram Raja in the fort of Satara and thus preparing a perpetual prison for her own dynasty. This transfer of authority from the master to the servant was so gradually, silently, carefully accomplished, that the successive steps, important as they were in relation to the whole move, escaped all contemporary notice. Scott-Waring very pertinently remarks that "the usurpation of the Peshwas neither attracted observation, nor excited surprise. Indeed the transition was easy, natural, and progressive."[24]
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²² The first six Peshwas were (1) Shamraj Nilkanth Rozekar, (2) Moro Trimbak Pingle, (3) Nilkanth Moreshwar Pingle, (4) Parashram Trimbak Pratinidhi, (5) Bahiru Moreshwar Pingle, and (6) Balkrishna Vasudev.
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²³ Ranade, The Miscellaneous Writings, p. 345.
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The Marathas had long been familiar with delegated authority. During Shivaji's absence in Northern India, the Government was carried on by a small council of regency of which Jijabai was the acknowledged head. It was notorious that Sambhaji did not care to look after the affairs of the state and although the royal authority was never formally delegated to anybody during his short reign, Kalusha, his favourite, did in fact rule the kingdom with his master's consent and tacit approval. After Sambhaji's death and Shahu's capture, Rajaram became the ostensible head of the Maratha people, but he also permitted two of his officers to conduct the government as they liked. Ramchandra Pant Hukamatpanha, placed as he was, far from Jinji, where his master then resided, had no other alternative but to carry on the civil and military affairs of the country without waiting for his master's opinion. But even at Jinji, Rajaram resigned his authority to the able hands of Pralhad Niraji. Thus the Bhat Peshwas had in their favour a series of important and well known precedents. At Kolhapur during the minority of Sambhaji II, Ramchandra Pant continued to be the real head of the state. And things were not much different at Satara during the closing years of Shahu. The King lost his reason more than once. The empire had expanded far and wide and the weak old man, never used to exertion and industry, found it necessary to leave the reins of the state entirely in the hands of the young, energetic, and ambitious Peshwa. The Marquis of Alorna, Viceroy and Governor-General of the Portuguese Estate in India, regarded him as a mere phantom, an idol, worshipped but not always obeyed by his subjects.
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²⁴ Scott-Waring, p. 169.
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This does not signify that Shahu Chhatrapati was a mere puppet in the hands of his powerful ministers and unconsciously left his successor a victim to the ambitious intrigues of a Konkanastha Brahman. Shahu was not altogether a weakling. His ability like that of Charles II of England has been considerably underestimated by posterity. A state prisoner while still an infant, brought up as he was in the midst of the luxury and corruption of a Mughal court, we cannot expect from Shahu, the hardihood and untiring activity of his famous grandfather, or the careless bravery which characterised his licentious father even to the last moment. But he had inherited to a considerable extent the administrative qualities of the great Shivaji and he *ruled* as well as reigned. Here again we may profitably quote that great Maratha savant, Mahadev Govind Ranade: "In the forty years of rule enjoyed by Shahu, he was not merely a titular head of the Maratha Government; but he directed all operations, ordered and recalled Commanders, and he exercised a great controlling power on the chiefs, though he led no armies in the field. It was due to his efforts that Gujarath was divided between the Peshwa and the Dabhades or Gaikwads in equal halves after the battle of Dabhoi. When Balaji Baji Rao wanted to invade Bengal, Raghoji Bhosale protested at Satara, and Shahu was strong enough to enforce moderation even over the towering ambition of Balaji, and forced him to leave the Eastern provinces of India free for the development of the Bhosale's power. Baji Rao was only a general under Shahu, and the Pratinidhis, Bhosales, Nimbalkars, Dabhades, Gaikwads, Kadambandes, Angres, Ghorpades all respected his orders.²³
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²³ Ranade, The Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 348-49.
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Why Shahu made the Peshwa his heir's guardian it is not very difficult to guess. He had no issue of his own. Sambhaji of Kolhapur was the probable successor. Shahu had no reason to be favourably disposed towards his Kolhapur rival. Eventually a young prince of the Kolhapur branch was discovered, whose boyhood, to say the least, was obscure and who was rightly or wrongly regarded as an impostor by the enemies of the Peshwa. It is quite natural that Shahu did not feel the same zeal for transmitting the royal prerogatives undiminished to an unknown boy about whose identity sinister whispers were made, as he would have felt for keeping untarnished all the divine rights of royalty for an heir of his body. On the other hand he knew the ability of his ministers. He had known them long. The family had served him for three generations, and constant association must have produced a natural attachment, and Shahu had probably nominated Balaji Baji Rao a guardian of the young Raja as a reward for good service, knowing fully well that the reward was well-deserved and the power was vested in able hands. Govinda Rao's incompetence or indifference, Tarabai's ambition, and Ram Raja's weakness gradually led to the promotion of the Peshwa to the real headship of the empire. In any case it secured the continuity of the royal line. Shahu's successors were all weaklings, and but for this transfer of authority: a revolution was bound to follow sooner or later, resulting in the deposition of the family in name as well as in reality. It is to be noted that the dynasty of the Mikados was also preserved from the possible consequences of weakness and incompetence, by the rise of the Shogunate, an institution quite analogous to the Peshwaship.
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3. The Religious Head of the State :
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Here it should be noted that the Chhatrapati Maharaj was not only the political but also the ecclesiastical head (if we are allowed to use that term) of the state. This has to be remembered as we shall afterwards find the Peshwas frequently regulating social and religious affairs. Because the Peshwas happened to be Brahmans it may be wrongly supposed that they derived this authority from their Brahman birth. This was not the case. The rise of Shivaji was preceded by a revival of Hinduism in the south; and according to Hindu notions, the king is not only the chief magistrate of the state, but the principal regulator of social custom and the protector of religion as well. Cases regarding social custom and religion were generally referred to the Pandit Rao for direction by the Chhatrapatis, but it seems that the Brahman officers had for the sake of legal completion to procure the Non-Brahman Raja's sanction for the order passed in his name. A document dated March 16th, 1686, relates how when one Gangadhar Raghunath Kulkarni, a Brahman, who had been converted into Muhammadanism, and who had, though involuntarily and for a very short time to dine with the Muhammadans, applied for readmission into his caste after the performance of a prayashchitta, the Chhandogyamatya had to acquaint Sambhaji with the circumstances of the case and take the royal permission for the formal penance.²⁸ So the Peshwas exercised this authority as the authorised deputies of the Chhatrapati, and had inherited it with other royal prerogatives from Shahu. Within the territories under their direct rule the Peshwas were like the Chhatrapatis before them, the sole depository of the sovereign authority of the state in all its modern significance.
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²⁸ Rajwade, M.I.S., Vol. VIII, p. 36, D. 40.
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4. The Consequence of the Rise of the Peshwas :
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The rise of the Peshwa affected Maratha history in two ways. It destroyed the solidarity of the constitution which Shivaji's Ashta Pradhan Council was expected to maintain and it at once created two distinct classes of Sardars in the Maratha Empire. The Peshwas could, if they liked, suffer the Council to exist, and preside over its deliberations as the deputy of the Chhatrapati. But their ambition led them to establish an autocratic government removing at the same time the only bond of union, the only check to selfish individualism, and setting the ominous example of independence which henceforth became the only ambition of old Sardars like the Angrias, Bhonsles and the Gaikwads to imitate. The result was that the Maratha Empire ultimately became like the Holy Roman Empire, a loose confederacy of ambitious feudal chiefs, and the Peshwa, like the Emperor, gradually descended to the position of the head of a confederacy whose command was met with scant respect, and whose authority was confined within the territories under his direct personal rule.
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5. *The Old and the New Aristocracy* :
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Some distinction between the old and the new aristocracy in question of precedence was bound to arise after the promotion of the Peshwa. The old nobility regarded the Peshwa as their equal. They obeyed him only as the deputy of the king, while the new nobility, the Sindhia, the Holkar, the Rastias were the Peshwa's servants. They regarded the Peshwa as the master whose bread they ate and whom they were bound to serve. Their sentiment is voiced by Nana Fadnavis when he says in his autobiography: 'we have long eaten his bread and he has favoured us as his children' and again 'this body is grown on his bread.'¹ These Sardars, therefore, were at first more amenable to discipline and obeyed the Peshwa without reluctance. The old Sardars, however, expected the Peshwa to remember that any respect that might be shown to him was a matter of courtesy and not of right, and that he in his turn should in courtesy return it. The Angria, for example, expected the Peshwa to come two miles from Poona to receive him on his visit to that city. It was also expected that the Peshwa should dismount on his approach and receive him on a *gasha* (an embroidered cloth) and then accompany him to his (Peshwa's) residence, always keeping on the left side of the visitor and after he has taken the betel leaf at his place, send him to the residence appointed for his use and send a dinner also. And in the hall of public audience the Angria expected the Peshwa to rise to receive him and then sit on the same galicha.²⁸ The Jadhava Rao also claimed similar privileges²⁹ and the Peshwa found it convenient to gratify their vanity by celebrating the occasion of the Jadhava Rao's visit to the Peshwa's palace by releasing prisoners.³⁰ As a logical consequence of this idea the old Sardars claimed precedence over the new Sardars in the field of battle. If the Bhonsle of Nagpur and the Sindhia of Gwalior were both present in the battle field, the Bhonsle would demand the chief command as a matter of right.
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¹ Nana's Autobiography in Sane's Patre Yadi Bagaire, p. 88.
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²⁸ Kaifiyats Yadis, ed. Mawji and Parasnis, p. 24.
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²⁹ Kaifiyate Yadis, p. 54.
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³⁰ Kaifiyats Yadis, p. 56. Shrimant Nana Saheb Peshwa (i.e., Balaji Baji Rao) addressed Balaji Jadhava Rao as Kaka, the prisoners in the government prison were released in honour of his visit to the government house.
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6. The Structure of the Government:
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During the Peshwa period the feudal barons, both new and old, exercised sovereign authority within their fiefs, although the Peshwa had the prerogative of appointing their chief officers. The Dewans of the Gaikwad, the Holkar, and the Sindhia were always appointed by the Peshwa, but all of them claimed uncontrolled exercise of sovereign rights.³¹ Thus says the Jadhava Rao, "The management of Malegaon, where we live, has been always with us; the Sarkar has no authority over it."³²
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³¹ Some of the new Sardars were descendants of the relatives or friends of Balaji Vishwanath. Thus Vishwanath Bhat Mehendale was Balaji Vishwanath's sister's son and Ambaji Tryambak Purandare his friend.
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³² Kaifiyats Yadis, p. 54.
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The Supekar Pawars also claim the same right of managing their saranjam without any interference from the Peshwa.³³ Numerous other instances could be cited of similar claims. The villages over which these Sardars ruled, were self-contained units, and their democratic institutions remained unaffected and undisturbed till the lax supervision of the Peshwa's government was replaced by the more centralised and more efficient administration of the English. A detailed description of the village institutions, we should postpone for the present and try to understand the general structure of the Maratha government.
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³³ Kaifiyats Yadis, p. 78.
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At the head of the government was the Peshwa who had power to act as the deputy of the Satara Raja. He was therefore the head of the feudal nobles and one of them at the same time. The feudal nobles rendered military service in return for their fiefs or saranjams and were independent rulers in everything but name. The villages in Maharashtra proper, however, were managed by their own officers under the supervision of the Saranjami's agents. Thus the whole constitution was a curious combination of democracy and feudal autocracy. In fact no single term of political philosophy can be applied to it. Unable to call it a monarchy, aristocracy or democracy, Tone calls it a Military Republic. This is true only in one sense that the meanest soldier, if he had ability, could logically expect to be a Sardar of the empire. The empire itself, as Tone points out, was based, not upon confidence, but jealousy; and incapable of a comprehensive policy of national patriotism which had been the aim of Shivaji, fell to pieces when it came into conflict with a nation which combined individual self-sacrifice with national ambition.
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VILLAGE COMMUNITIES
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In the administration of his home provinces the Peshwa was a despot but not a tyrant. Like the benevolent despots of contemporary Europe, he was the head of a paternal government anxious to secure plenty, if not peace, for the governed. He was ready to do everything for them, and, unlike his fellow rulers in Europe, also allowed many things to be done by them. Yet in theory as well as in practice, his prerogatives were such as his European brethren might well have sighed for. Like them he was the head of the state, and unlike them he was the head of the 'church' as well (the word church cannot be strictly applied to the Indian institution, but for want of a better word it may be used here in a modified sense). With all these powers and prerogatives at their command the Peshwa might have aspired to a centralised despotism as Louis XIV had established in France; but their native good sense (with one unfortunate exception, that of Baji Rao II) always told them how far they would be tolerated by the independent spirit of the Maratha peasant and it told them also where to stop. The Maratha peasant, unlike his brother of Bengal, was not the timid creature ready to submit to all sorts of tyranny and even to kiss the foot that kicked. Elphinstone was struck by the independence of spirit and easy manner with which they met the English officers after the annexation of the Peshwa's territories to the British dominions. Although there could be no doubt about their loyalty to the established government of the country, they would not easily part with the rights and privileges enjoyed by their ancestors. A Maratha would go to any extreme to save his watan, and the Peshwas had to take this fact into consideration in regulating their policy of home administration. With an exhausted treasury and always in debt, the Peshwas had to remember that their ultimate chance of reaching a financial equilibrium lay in the material prosperity of their country and the policy of developing the commercial resources of the Maratha dominions inaugurated by Shivaji from patriotic motives was continued by the Peshwas from consideration of expediency. Consequently the Maratha plunderer is absent in the Maratha administrator; or to be more accurate, he appears in another character, different in form but not in reality. His motives in plundering his enemy was the same that led him to protect his own land. The Maratha warrior like all other warriors in all ages, wanted to weaken his enemy and strengthen his own resources. Consequently, whenever they annexed a new province they tried their utmost to improve its agriculture and industries and secure, so far as it was possible under the circumstances of the times, the material prosperity of the people. In this respect all the feudal states were similar with only some local variations that can be dismissed as of minor importance, and the Peshwa's government can be regarded as the type of them all.