The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c5.54

c5.54

The abolition of the jahgir system was not the only reform at which Shivaji aimed. He wanted to introduce strict discipline in his army. His success in this direction was far from complete for he had to fight against tradition and environment. None the less he deserves credit for his attempt. His army was employed in mulukgiri or foreign expedition for eight months in the year. They returned to cantonment when the monsoon broke and the four months of the rainy season they had to spend in barracks in enforced idleness. Shivaji laid down that provision and medecine for men and fodder for their horses should be carefully stored in the cantonments. During the active season, if we may call it so, the Maratha army subsisted on the spoils of war but here again it was clearly laid down that the prize belonged to the state and not to the army. Women, Brahmans and cows were not to be molested on any account. It was a capital offence to bring a female slave or a dancing girl into the camp. It was probably military discipline and not moral reform that he strove to achieve.² Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad tells us that Shivaji inflicted exemplary punishment on some of his soldiers for breach of discipline during the Karnatak expedition. But it was impossible to effect such a moral revolution all at once. From the preamble of a Portuguese treaty it appears that Shivaji’s men had carried away men, women, children and cattle from Portuguese territories.³ In 1672 some soldiers had been guilty of disorderly conduct at Chaphal.⁴ In 1676 Shivaji had to address a letter of admonition to the regiment encamped at Chiplun;¹ from the text of the letter it appears that they had taken away from the civil population by force what could be and should have been obtained by peaceful purchase. But when we remember how the Mughal soldiery destroyed the standing crops on their marches, drew out the straw from the thatch to feed their horses, and compelled the unoffending villagers to carry their baggage, we feel inclined to judge Maratha delinquencies more leniently.² War does not bring out the best side of human nature. But in some of his disciplinary reforms Shivaji was notably successful, and his camp was entirely free from the undesirable presence of women of easy virtue, as we are informed by two European travellers. John Fryer, the East India Company’s physician, tells us that ‘whores and dancing wenches’ were not allowed in Shivaji’s camp.³ Bishop Navarette went to Surat and spent a few days there in 1671. ‘I was told at Surat,’ he writes, ‘that Sabagi Mogal was extraordinarily careful that no woman should be in his army; and, if he happened to find one, he immediately turned her out, first cutting her hair and ears. This to prevent the effect of sensuality on the alertness and activity of his troops, for the same reason as the Tartars.¹ The good Bishop did not know that Shivaji was not a Mughal but his evidence shows what reputation the Maratha leader enjoyed as a strict disciplinarian.² There is good reason to believe that women were very seldom molested by Shivaji’s soldiers; for a brave Mughal governor once deemed it safest to leave in a woman’s garb when the Marathas appeared at the gates of his city.³ This was accomplished in an age when a Mughal general had in his camp 400 dancing girls from Kabul and Lahore to enliven his leisure.⁴