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Administrative System of the Marathas c24: Chapter VI. Army

Administrative System of the Marathas c24

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Chapter VI. Army

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The army of the Peshwa was organised on the model of the Mughal army, the famous Maratha tactics of harassing the rear of the enemy, plundering the convoy and cutting off the foragers, had also been tried with eminent success by the famous Abyssinian statesman and general Malik Ambar in pre-Maratha days. The famous Hindu rulers of Maharashtra boasted in their inscriptions of their huge elephants and strength in elephantry, their descendants in the 17th and 18th centuries, on the other hand, relied more on their horse than on those huge monsters whose courage could not be always counted on, specially when rockets and artillery were freely used. It is therefore certain that a wide departure had been made in the military organisation from the conventional rules of the old Hindu tacticians and theorists. But at the same time some of their practices and principles had survived in the Maratha army.

1. Bargir and Shiledar

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The distinction between Shiledar and Bargir force was quite well-known when the Sukranitisara was compiled. Thus we find the author discriminating between two kinds of army "untrained or trained, officered by the state or not officered by the state; equipped by the state with arms, or supplying their own arms and ammunitions, bringing their own vehicles or supplied with vehicles by the State."[¹] These apply equally well to the Shiledar and the Bargir; the Shiledar, it is true, had been placed by Shivaji under the orders of the Sarnobat, but properly speaking they were not officered by the State. Similarly the distinction between three kinds of strongholds or gad, kot and janjira, was known to Kautilya.[²] The Mauryan sage recommends the appointment of many officers with each military unit to prevent treachery. "Elephants, cavalry, chariots, and infantry shall each be officered with many chiefs inasmuch as chiefs, when many, are under the fear of betrayal from each other and scarcely liable to the insinuations and intrigues of an enemy. The same rule shall hold good with the appointment of boundary-guards and repairers of fortifications."[³] We learn from Sabhasad that exactly for the same reason Shivaji never entrusted the sole charge of any of his strongholds to a single commander, but appointed no less than three officers of equal rank but of different caste to exercise conjoint authority over each fort.⁴

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¹ Shukraniti, S. B H., p. 217.

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² Artha Shastra, pp. 56 and 57.

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³ Kautilya, Artha Shastra, p. 62.

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⁴ Sen, Sivachhatrapati, p. 30.

2. Pension to minor Children and Widows

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After the Afzal Khan incident Shivaji had directed that the widows of those who had fallen in the affray and had no sons should be maintained by (a pension) half (their husbands') pay. The wounded were given rewards of two hundred, one hundred, twenty-five or fifty Hons per man according to the nature of their wound.⁵ The practice of granting suitable pensions to the widows and children of fallen soldiers was continued under the Peshwas, under the style of *Bala parveshi* and *Nan parveshi*.⁶ This system had a long past as will be evident from the following passages from Kautilya's Arthashastra. "The sons and wives of those who die while on duty shall get subsistence and wages. Infants, aged persons, or diseased persons related to the deceased servants shall also be shown favour."⁷ The practice prevailed under the Chola kings of Southern India as Rice informs us on the testimony of their inscriptions. "A grant of land was made for the family of the fallen man which in some early cases is styled *bal-galchu* but is mostly called a *kalnad*, though the term *sivane* is used in the west. Similar grants of rent-free land, called *kodaji*, were made to men who fell in battle.⁸ It may be noted that the practice survived till the fall of the Maratha empire.

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⁵ Sen, Sivachhatrapati, p. 25.

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⁶ Peshwanchi Bakhar, p. 34.

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⁷ Arthashastra, p. 309.

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⁸ Rice, *Mysore and Coorg*, p. 171.

3. The Pendharis and Chortas

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The Pendharis formed, as we all know, an integral part of the Maratha force. Plunderers by profession they accompanied every Maratha expedition and shared their ill-gotten spoils with the state. For they had to pay a duty called *Palpatti* or tent duty which amounted to 25 p.c., of their entire booty for the license granted to them. Occasionally professional thieves or *chortas*, as they were called in Peshwa times, were also sent both by the Maratha generals and the Habshi rulers of Janjira to harass the enemy subjects. It is noteworthy that Kautilya recommends the use of "brave thieves and wild tribes who make no distinction between friend and foe," in order to weaken the enemy. But whether their duty corresponded exactly with those of the Maratha *chortas* is not clear. The thieves mentioned by Shukracharya, however, must have been the progenitors of the Pendharis, for they shared their spoil with the king. But it seems that they had to carry on their thieving operations at the king's order but independently of any military assistance from the state, and thus acted in the same manner as the chortas. "If thieves steal something from other's kingdom by the king's order they should first give one-sixth to the king and then divide the rest among themselves."⁹ Brihaspati also refers to licensed free-booters in unmistakable terms. "When anything has been brought from a hostile country by free-booters, with the permission of their lord, they shall give a sixth part to the king and share (the remainder) in due proportion." The proportion as recommended by Brihaspati is also worth noting, as individual exertion and enterprise are taken into consideration. "Four shares shall be awarded to their chief, he who is (specially) valiant shall receive three shares; one (particularly able) shall take two; and the remaining associates shall share alike."¹⁰ It is therefore clear, that the Maratha Pendharis could boast of a very long lineage, if that counts for anything, and they had the bluest blood among thieves and marauders. Perhaps they were not sufficiently well grounded in Sanskrit to know that they had in their favour the incontestable authority of no less than two great political philosophers and one great law-giver, or they might have pleaded prescriptive right and vested interest when Lord Hastings waged a war of extermination against them. As it is, they had more faith in the good old law of might, and when a mighty government refused to let them ply their old trade, they had perforce to beat their swords into ploughshares. Some of them, the strongest no doubt, became Chiefs and Nawabs, but there again the old law held good.

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⁹ Shukraniti, S. B. H., p. 211.

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¹⁰ S. B. E., Vol. XXXIII, p. 241.

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Maratha Cavalry

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