The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c7.62

c7.62

Balaji Baji Rao like his predecessors still professed to be a champion of Hinduism. He wrote respectful letters to Brahmans of known sanctity, granted them pensions and allowances, and sometimes remitted their rent, and in his letters he often expressed an ardent desire to recover from the Muhammadans the holy places of Benares and Muttra. But Brahmans and holy men were not the only Hindus; and while they might shower their blessings on the Peshwa and his family, the Hindu princes alone could assist him in his wars against the Muhammadans. Evidently Balaji Baji Rao cared more for their money than for their armed forces, for it is during his regime that the Maratha arms fell heavily on their Rajput co-religionists. Hitherto the Rajputs had welcomed this new power from the south as the avenger of Hindu wrongs in the north; but Balaji and his principal Sardars, Sindhia and Holkar, made the Rajput princes realise that Maratha supremacy meant for them nothing but a change of masters, and the change was by no means for the better. So when the Marathas stood in urgent need of men and money in 1760 and 1761 the Rajputs remained sternly aloof, while all the Muhammadan princes and nobles of Northern India, including the Nawab of Oudh whom the Marathas had done their utmost to conciliate and gratify, rallied to the Afghan banner. Nor were these the only evil effects of the selfish policy of plunder and raid. It caused disunion and dissension within the Maratha empire. The Peshwa, in want of money, did not hesitate to sell his assistance to the Nawab of Bengal against Raghuji Bhonsla of Nagpur. Raghuji, indeed, was not well-disposed towards Balaji; but the moral effect of fighting a Maratha Sardar, while employed in a Muhammadan province, was simply disastrous. Baji Rao did not seek foreign aid in his fight against the Senapati; but Balaji extended his protection to Bengal against a Sardar of the Empire; he joined the English in order to bring about the destruction of the Angria; and his son simply emulated his example when he coalesced with Nizam Ali against Janoji Bhonsla. Thus the unhappy Raghoba certainly committed no unprecedented offence when he sought foreign military aid to secure the musnad of Poona. Balaji lamented the differences between Sindhia and Holkar and earnestly urged them to pursue a common policy in Rajputana, but he conveniently forgot that with the example he had set in Bengal the only common policy they could be expected to adopt was one of self-aggrandisement.