Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s4.1

c18.s4.1

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]