Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s4.28

c18.s4.28

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.