No More Learning

The most serious reverse suffered by the
English was Lake's failure to capture Bharatpur early in 1805. He
was eventually obliged to make peace with the raja in April of that
year, leaving him in possession of the fortress, which had repulsed
four violent assaults by the Company's troops.
Monson's disaster and Lake's failure before Bharatpur caused
grave apprehension to the authorities in England, who had watched
the Company's debt increase rapidly under the strain of Wellesley's
forward policy, and were disposed to think that England's conquests
were becoming too large for profitable management. As a necessary
preliminary to a change of policy, they determined to recall the
governor-general and to entrust the task of making peace with the
arid Indian powers to Lord Cornwallis, now in his sixty-seventh
year and physically infirm. They failed to realise that, despite the
misfortune of Monson, Wellesley's operations had actually broken
Holkar's power and had left no single Maratha chief strong enough
to withstand the English. Moreover, as the resentment felt by every
Maratha chief towards the English at this juncture was too deep to
be assuaged by a policy of concession and forbearance, the abandon-
ment of Wellesley's programme merely amcunted to a postponement
of the final hour of reckoning. The peace concluded with the Marathas
in 1805 was unfortunately marked by a spirit of weak conciliation,
which caused future embarrassment to the Company's government
in India, handed over weak states like Jaipur, which relied on British
support, to the mercy of their rapacious neighbours, and ultimately
forced the Marquess of Hastings thirteen years later to consummate
the task which Wellesley was forbidden by the timidity of the ruling
party at the India House to bring to a successful conclusion. The
arrangements made by Lord Cornwallis and his successor, Sir George
Barlow, amounted practically to a renunciation of most of the Com-
pany's gains for the sake of a hollow peace and to the abandonment
of the Rajput states to the cruelty of the Maratha hordes and their
Pindari allies. Sindhia recovered Gohad, Gwalior, and other territory,
while to Holkar were restored the districts of Rajputana, which had
been taken from him by the Treaty of Rajpurghat. In two instances
only did Sir G. Barlow refuse to traverse Wellesley's policy. He
declined to allow the Nizam freedom to indulge in anti-English
intrigue, and he rejected a suggestion from England to modify the
position of the Peshwa under the Treaty of Bassein.
The Gaekwad of Baroda had taken no part in the struggle outlined
above. On the death of Govind Rao in 1800, the inevitable feud
about the succession broke out between Anand Rao, his legal suc-
cessor, who was of weak mind, and his illegitimate brother Kanhoji,
1 Fortescue, op. cit. V, 70-137.


## p. 376 (#404) ############################################

376
FINAL STRUGGLE WITH THE MARATHAS
who was supported by the restless Malhar Rao. In 1802 the Company
sent a force from Cambay to support. Anand Rao, and in return
secured the cession of a good deal of territory and an acknowledgment
of their right to supervise the political affairs of the state. A little
later they frustrated an attempt by Sindhia and Holkar to meddle
with the Gaekwad's rights in Gujarat, and in April, 1805, concluded
a treaty whereby the Gaekwad undertook to maintain a subsidiary
force and to submit to British control his foreign policy and his
differences with the Peshwa. In 1804 the Peshwa renewed the lease
of Ahmadabad territory to Baroda for four and a half years at a rent
of ten lakhs per annum.
The decade following the hollow peace of 1805 was marked by
increasing disorder and anarchy throughout Central India and
Rajputana. Internal maladministration and constant internecine
warfare had produced the inevitable result, and the leading Maratha
states were forced to try and avert their impending bankruptcy by
means of contributions extorted from reluctant tributaries. In Holkar's
territories the peaceful progress, which had marked Ahalya Bai's wise
rule, had vanished beyond recall. In 1806 Jasvant Rao poisoned his
nephew Khande Rao and his brother Kashi Rao, who were suspected
of intriguing with his disaffected soldiery, and died a raving lunatic
at Bhanpura in 1811. His favourite concubine, Tulsi Bai, contrived
to place his illegitimate son, Malhar Rao, on the throne, with Amir
Khan, the leader of the Pathan banditti, as regent. Acute friction
between this Pathan element and the Maratha faction under Tulsi
Bai involved the state in chaos; revenue was collected at the sword's
point from the territory of Sindhia, the Ponwars, and Holkar himself
indiscriminately; the machinery of administration fell to pieces; and
a semblance of authority only remained with a vagrant and predatory
court, dominated by the profligate ex-concubine. The country had
no respite from disorder, until the murder of Tulsi Bai by a Pathan,
20 December, 1817, and the failure of British overtures for peace
obliged Sir Thomas Hislop to ford the Sipra river and extinguish at
Mahidpur the last embers of anarchy and hostility.
Sindhia's dominions were in no better plight. His troops, in default
of pay, were forced to subsist on the peasantry, who were already
impoverished by the mutual hostilities of their own ruler and Holkar.
The intermingled possessions of these two chiefs in Malwa became
the common hunting-ground of every band of marauders; Amir Khan
and his Pathan followers overran the raja of Berar's territory; the
Rajput states were swept by Sindhia, Holkar, the Pathans and the
Pindaris.
“Never”, in the words of a modern writer, "had there been such intense
and general suffering in India; the native states were disorganised, and society
on the verge of dissolution; the people crushed by despots and ruined by
1 Malcolm, Central India, I, 260-324.


## p. 377 (#405) ############################################

THE PINDARIS
377
Exactions; the country overrun by bandits and its resources wasted by enemies;
armed forces existed only to plunder, torture and mutiny; government had
ceased to exist; there remained only oppression and misery. "
The one sentiment uniting the warring units was hatred of the
English. All the Marathas, from the Peshwa downwards, realised
that if they were to regain their independence and make their preda-
tory power supreme in India, they must exterminate the foreign
government. It was to Baji Rao they all looked for support in this
desperate and ill-omened enterprise; and had the Peshwa shown any
spark of courage and statesmanship, the final struggle of the Company
for complete supremacy might conceivably have been more protracted.
But, while from 1803 the Peshwa never ceased to court disaster by
intriguing against his foreign supporters, he alienated the Maratha
feudal nobility by his tyrannous behaviour, as illustrated by the over-
throw and degradation of the Pant Pratinidhi. He also failed com-
pletely to protect his own territory from Pindari inroads and to check
the hostilities of the raja of Kolhapur and the Savant of Wadi. In the
case of the former, peace was not assured until 1811, when the English
forced the raja to sign the Treaty of Karvir.
The hesitation of the Company's government to assert its authority
as paramount power resulted between 1805 and 1814 in the rapid
growth of the destructive spirit of the Maratha hordes and Pathan
freebooters and a dangerous increase of the power of the Pindaris,
who were closely related to the two former organisations. The
Pindaris, consisting of lawless persons of all castes and classes,
originally attached loosely to the Maratha armies, developed, “like
masses of putrefaction in animal matter out of the corruption of weak
and expiring states", into a formidable menace to the whole of India.
Under their leaders, Chitu, Wasil Muhammad, and Karim Khan,
they made rapid raids across India, inflicting appalling devastation
upon the countryside and cominitting most atrocious outrages upon
all classes of the inhabitants. In 1812 they commenced to raid the
Company's territory by harrying Mirzapur and the southern districts
of Bihar; but it was not until 1816, when they attacked the Northern
Sarkars, plundering, torturing and killing the peaceful inhabitants,
that the directors in England, who still cherished an exaggerated
dread of Maratha power, became alive to the need for action and
authorised Lord Hastings in September of that year to extirpate the
cvil.
The Pindaris would have met their doom much earlier but that
the governor-general had been obliged to postpone his measures for a
while. A new power had been founded in the Himalayan regions by
the Gurkhas, a warlike race of hardy hillmen. The only serious effort
to check their progress had been made by the nawab of Bengal in
1762, but his army was severely defeated under the walls of Mak-
1 Prinsep, A Narrative of the Political and Military Transactions of British
India, pp. 21-32.


## p. 378 (#406) ############################################

378
FINAL STRUGGLE WITH THE MARATHAS
wanpur. In the 1768 they conquered the Nepal valley and established
themselves at Kathmandu. The hill chiefs were subdued one after
another and the Gurkha kingdom expanded rapidly until it extended
from Sikkim on the east to the Satlej on the west. In 1814 the Gurkha
frontier was conterininous with that of the British over a distance of
seven hundred miles and the border districts suffered terribly from
their incessant inroads. The concessions of Barlow and the expostula-
lions of Minto proved equally futile and Lord Hastings found it
necessary to take strong measures. In April, 1814, he sent a small
force to occupy the disputed districts but the Gurkhas suddenly fell
upon the outlying stations and killed or captured the small garrisons.
War was therefore declared in November of that year.
The campaign was planned by the governor-general himself. The
main Gurkha army under Amar Singh Thapa was at that time
engaged in an expedition on the Satlej. It was decided that Major-
Generals Marley and Wood should advance upon the Gurkha capital
from Patna and Gorakhpur respectively, while Major-General
-
Gillespie from Saharanpur and Colonel Ochterlony from Ludhiana
were to close upon Amar Singh Thapa's main body. A speedy and
easy victory was expected. But the Gurkha country was yet unknown
to the British generals; there was no good road and the difficulties
of transport were exceptionally great. Most of the older generals,
moreover, were unfamiliar with hill fighting. .
In none of the Indian wars had British arms met with so many
reverses. Marley and Wood fell back after some feeble demonstra-
tions. Gillespie died in an assault on Kalanga, and his successor
suffered a defeat before the stronghold of Jaitak. The news of these
defeats spread widely in the country and offered no small encourage-
ment to the Peshwa and his partisans in their anti-British designs,
and the Gurkhas talked of invading the neighbouring provinces.
Fortunately the genius of Colonel Ochterlony soon restored the lost
prestige of his nation. By a series of masterly maneuvres he com-
pelled the Gurkha general to give up two strong positions and to
withdraw his army to his last retreat, the fort of Malaon. Here he
was closely besieged and the conquest of Kumaon in April, 1815, so
demoralised the Gurkhas that they deserted in large numbers. The
fall of Malaon on 15 May compelled the Gurkha Government to sue
for peace. Lord Hastings at first demanded the permanent cession
of the whole of the Tarai but afterwards reduced his demands and a
treaty was signed. The Nepal Government, however, refused to
ratify the treaty and prepared to renew the war. All the main passes
were secured and strongly defended by stockades but their plans were
again upset by Ochterlony who penetrated into the heart of Nepal
and inflicted a severe defeat upon the Gurkhas at Makwanpur on 28
February, 1816. - The English army was within easy reach of the
Gurkha capital and there was no more time for hesitation. The
Treaty of Sagauli was promptly ratified and a lasting peace was con-


## p. 379 (#407) ############################################

THE GURKHA WAR
379
cluded. The Gurkhas ceded Garhwal and Kumaon with the greater
portion of the Tarai. They withdrew permanently from Sikkim and
received a British resident at Kathmandu. The Gurkha country, it
is true, has not yet been thrown open to the English, but the Nepal
Government have faithfully adhered to their treaty obligations, and
the British districts have never since been disturbed by the dreaded
hillmen of the north. 1
Meanwhile British relations with the Peshwa were moving
towards the inevitable dénouement. When the old question of the
Peshwa's claims upon the Gaekwad was again raised in 1814, the
British Government, anxious to secure a final and peaceful settlement
of the dispute, arranged for the dispatch to Poona, under a safe con-
duct, of the Gaekwad's minister, Gangadhar Sastri. The Peshwa, who
had refused to renew the lease of Ahmadabad to the Gaekwad and
granted it to a vicious favourite, Trimbakji Danglia, connived at
the murder of the Baroda envoy by Trimbakji during the course of the
negotiations at Nasik. 2 After much prevarication, he was forced by
Mountstuart Elphinstone, the Resident, to deliver the murderer to
the British authorities in September, 1815. Trimbakji, however,
effected a romantic escape from custody a year later, probably with
the knowledge of Baji Rao, who was now engrossed in plans for a
Maratha combination against British supremacy. The governor-
general, confronted by the Pindari menace, the hostile intrigues of
the Peshwa, and dangerous unrest among other Maratha chiefs, was
glad to arrange a subsidiary alliance in May, 1816, with Appa Sahib
of Nagpur, who on the death of Raghuji Bhonsle became regent for
his imbecile successor, Parsaji. ? This agreement by which the Company
obtained security for three hundred miles of frontier, disconcerted for
the moment the secret plans of the Peshwa and Sindhia, and secured
a military position near the Narbada, whence it could, if need arose,
attack Sindhia and intercept Pindari raids. That done, Lord Hastings
turned his attention to the Peshwa, who with his usual perfidy openly
disowned Trimbakji, concluded an agreement with the Gaekwad,
and generally adopted conciliatory attitude. Proof of his treachery,
however, was shortly afterwards furnished to Elphinstone, who
forced him by a hostile military demonstration in June, 1817, to sign
a compact supplementary to the Treaty of Bassein. He thereby
explicitly renounced his headship of the Maratha confederacy and
ceded the Konkan and certain other lands and strongholds to the
British. He also recognised the independence of the Gaekwad, waived
all claims for arrears, and granted him a perpetual lease of Ahmada-
bad for an annual payment of four lakhs. To the British he ceded
the tribute of Kathiawad.
1 Fortescue, op. cit. XI, 118-62.
2 Forrest, Official Writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone, pp. 119-78.
3 Prinsep, op. cit. pp. 125-34.
4 Idem, pp. 186-203.


## p. 380 (#408) ############################################

380
FINAL STRUGGLE WITH THE MARATHAS
Sindhia, who had been invited to assist in suppressing the Pindaris,
was naturally disposed to side with the ruffianly hordes who were
partly under his protection. Lord Hastings, therefore, crossed the
Jumna, marched on Gwalior, and taking advantage of the internal
dissension and military disorganisation which had reduced Sindhia's
offensive capacity, secured his signature in November, 1817, to the
Treaty of Gwalior, which bound him to co-operate against the Pindaris
and rescinded the clause in the Treaty of Surji Arjungaon restricting
the British from negotiation with the Rajput and other chiefs. As a
result, treaties were concluded at Delhi with Udaipur (Mewar),
Jodhpur (Marwar), Bhopal, Kotah, Jaipur, Bundi and thirteen other
Rajput states. Negotiations were also opened with the Pathan leader,
Amir Khan, who was subsequently granted the principality of Tonk
as the price of his neutrality and the disarmament of his followers.
Such was the position towards the close of 1817 when the process
of exterminating the Pindaris commenced. Though outwardly friend-
ly, every Maratha leader, including even Appa Sahib of Nagpur was a
potential enemy, prepared to take advantage of any reverse sustained
by the British during the campaign. Thus it happened that "the
hunt of the Pindaris became merged in the third Maratha war" and
struck the final death-knell of the Maratha power. Lord Hastings's
plan of campaign was to surround the Pindaris in Malwa by a large
army of 113,000 men and 300 guns, divided into a northern force of
four divisions, commanded by himself, and a Deccan army of five
divisions under Sir Thomas Hislop, operating from a central position
at Handia in Allahabad district. In order to divide the Deccan states
from those of Hindustan and prevent the Marathas from assisting
the Pindaris, a portion of the army was interposed as a cordon between
Poona and Nagpur. The operations were completely successful. By
the close of 1817 the Pindaris had been driven across the Chambal;
by the end of January, 1818, their organised bands had been anni-
hilated. Of the leaders, one was given land at Gorakhpur, another
committed suicide in captivity, while the third and most dangerous
of them all, Chitu, fled into the jungles around Asirgarh and was there
devoured by a tiger.
The Maratha danger alone remained and was finally precipitated
by the folly of the Peshwa and Appa Sahib Bhonsle. On the day
(5 November, 1817) that Sindhia signed the supplementary Treaty of
Gwalior, the Peshwa rose in revolt, sacked and burnt the British
Residency at Poona, and then attacked with an army of about 26,000
a small British force of 2800, which was drawn up under Colonel
Burr at Kirkee (Khadki). He was heavily defeated and fled south-
wards from Poona, seizing as he went the titular raja of Satara. The
British followed in hot pursuit, intending to prevent his escape into
Berar, fought two brilliant and victorious engagements against heavy
1 Fortescue, op. cit. XI, 177-250.


## p. 381 (#409) ############################################

THE MARATHA WAR
381
odds at Koregaon and Ashti, in the latter of which the Peshwa's
general, Bapu Gokhale, was slain, and finally forced the hunted fugi-
tive to surrender himself to Sir John Malcolm, 18 June, 1818. TO
the annoyance of the governor-general, Malcolm, whose political
judgment was temporarily obscured by feelings of compassion for
fallen greatness, pledged the Company to grant-Baji Rao an excessive
annuity of eight lakhs of rupees; and, the office of Peshwa having
been declared extinct, Baji Rao was permitted to reside at Bithur on
the Ganges, where he doubtless instilled into the mind of his adopted
son, known later as Nana Sahib, that hatred of the English which
bore such evil fruit in 1857,1
Meanwhile, Appa Sahib, emulating the example of the Peshwa,
attacked the British Resident at Nagpur, who had at his command a
small force of native infantry and cavalry and four guns. Taking up
its position on the ridge of Sitabaldi, the British force won a brilliant
victory on 27 November, and with the aid of reinforcements which
arrived a few days later, it forced the Bhonsle to surrender and finally
defeated a few days later, it forced the Bhonsle to surrender and
finally defeated his troops at Nagpur on 16 December, 1818. Appa
Sahib, who fled to the Panjab and eventually died in Rajputana, was
formally deposed in favour of a minor grandson of Raghuji Bhonsle;
his army was disbanded; and the portion of his dominions which lay
to the north of the Narbada was annexed to British territory under
the style of the Sagar (Saugor) and Narbada Territories. 2
The tactical arrangements of Lord Hastings, which prevented the
Maratha states from combining at the moment when mutual assistance
was vital to their plans, ensured the defeat of Holkar. The Indore
Darbar openly sympathised with the Peshwa's bid for freedom and
rejected all offers of negotiation; but deprived of external aid and
handicapped by internal dissension, the state forces could not with-
stand Sir Thomas Hislop's advance. Holkar's defeat at Mahidpur
was followed by the Treaty of Mandasor, signed on 6 January, 1818,
under the terms of which the chief relinquished his possessions south
of the Narbada, abandoned his claims upon the Rajput chiefs, recog-
nised the independence of Amir Khan, reduced the state army and
agreed to maintain a contingent to co-operate with the British, and
acquiesced in the appointment of a British Resident to his court.
Sindhia, who failed to fulfil his promise of active help in the
Pindari campaign and, in contravention of the Treaty of Gwalior, had
connived at the retention of the great fortress of Asirgarh by his
killadar, Jasvant Rao Lad, now saw that further opposition would be
fruitless, and, therefore, agreed in 1818 to a fresh treaty with the
Company. This agreement provided, inter alia, for the cession to the
English of Ajmir, the strategical key to Rajputana, and for a readjust-
ment of boundaries. The Gaekwad, Fateh Singh, who acted as:regent
1 Fortesque, op. cit. XI, 180-247.
? Idem, pp. 189-97:246-9.
.


## p. 382 (#410) ############################################

382
FINAL STRUGGLE WITH THE MARATHAS
for Anand Rao, signed a supplementary treaty in November, 1817,
whereby he agreed to augment his subsidiary force, ceded his share
of Ahmadabad for a cash payment representing its estimated value,
and received in exchange the district of Okhamandal, the island of
Bet, and other territory. Fateh Singh, who died in 1818 a few months
before the titular ruler Anand Rao, adhered scrupulously to his
alliance with the British during the operations against the Pindaris
and the Maratha states. In return he was granted full remission of
the tribute annually payable to the Peshwa for the revenues of
Ahmadabad. 1
In accordance with the precedent set by Wellesley in the case of
Mysore, the raja of Satara, who had been delivered from the clutches
of Baji Rao by Colonel Smith's victory at Ashti, was provided with
a small semi-independent principality around Satara, and was en-
throned on 11 April, 1818. With a view to a pacific settlement of the
Peshwa's conquered dominions, arrangements satisfactory to both
parties were made by the Company with the Pant Pratinidhi, the Pant
Sachiv, the raja of Akalkot, the Patvardhans, and the other Maratha
nobles and jagirdars; while the piratical chiefs of the western littoral,
who had been incompletely chastised in 1812, were completely
reduced in 1820 and forced to cede the remainder of the coast
between Kolhapur and Goa.
“The struggle which has thus ended”, wrote Prinsep in his Political Review,
published in 1825, “in the universal establishment of the British influence is
particularly important and worthy of attention, as it promises to be the last
we shall ever have to maintain with the native powers of India. Hencefor-
ward this epoch will be referred to as that whence each of the existing states
will date the commencement of its peaceable settlement and the consolidation
of its relations with the controlling power. The dark age of trouble and
violence, which so long spread its malign influence over the fertile regions of
Central India, has thus ceased from this time; and a new era has commenced,
we trust, with brighter prospects,-an era of peace, prosperity and wealth at
least, if not of political liberty and high moral improvement. ”
There can be no doubt that the English and Maratha Governments
could not co-exist in India; for the practical working of the Maratha
system, which was inspired more deeply than has hitherto been
recognised by the doctrines of the ancient Hindu text-books of auto-
cracy, was oppressive to the general mass of the people, destitute of
moral ideas, and directly antagonistic to the fundamental principles
of the Company's rule. Lord Hastings fully realised that, if India
was ever to prosper, orderly government must be substituted for the
lawless and predatory rule of his chief antagonists, and he brought
to the achievement of his complex task a singular combination of
firmness and moderation. Every chance was offered to the treacherous
Peshwa and the raja of Berar of reforming their corrupt adminis-
tration and living in amity with the English; consideration was shown
1 Prinsep, op. cit. pp. 418-68.


## p. 383 (#411) ############################################

THE SETTLEMENT
383
to avowed freebooters like Amir Khan and even to the ruffians who
led the Pindari raids across India; Sindhia's duplicity was treated
with undeserved forbearance. And when the doom of Maratha rule
had been sealed, the governor-general's prudence and knowledge
framed the measures which converted hostile princes like Sindhia and
Holkar into staunch allies of the British Government, caused new
villages and townships to germinate amid the ashes of rapine and
desolation, created new and permanent sources of revenue, and
diffused from Cape Comorin to the banks of the Satlej a spirit of
tranquillity and order which India had never known since the spacious
days of Akbar.


## p. 384 (#412) ############################################

CHAPTER XXIII
MARATHA ADMINISTRATION
THE Maratha administrative system, in the eighteenth century and
the opening years of the nineteenth, may be described as a compound
of the principles embodied in ancient works on Hindu polity, such as
the Arthasastra of Kautilya, of the arrangements institutea by Sivaji
and followed to some extent by his immediate successors, Sambhaji,
Raja Rama, and Shahu, and of the modifications introduced by the
Peshwas from the year 1727. In the various branches of the state's
activities, the main differences between the system originally pei.
fected by Sivaji and that which obtained under the Peshwas resulted
naturally from the change in the position of Sivaji's lineal descendant,
the raja of Satara, whose powers and prestige rapidly declined from
the moment when the appointment of Peshwa became hereditary
in the family of Balaji Visvanath (1714-20). Although the raja
continued after that date to be regarded as the head of the Maratha
state, and in theory retained the right to appoint the Peshwa and
other high officials, his powers gradually became little more than
nominal, and he was subsequently deprived even of the right of
appointing and dismissing his own retainers. His personal expenses,
moreover, were closely scrutinised by the Peshwa's secretariat, and he
was obliged to obtain sanction from Poona for all expenditure con-
nected with public works, private charities, and the maintenance of
his household. Originally one of Sivaji's Ashta Pradhan and holding,
like the other seven ministers, a non-hereditary appointment, the
Peshwa gradually assumed a position superior to that of the other
ministers, including even the pratinidhi who had originally been
appointed by Raja Rama as his vice-regent at Jinji and continued to
occupy the senior position on the board until the genius of Balaji
Visvanath made the Peshwa's office both hereditary and supreme.
The gradual transformation of "the mayor of the palace" of the raja
of Satara into the virtual ruler of the Maratha state and the Maratha
confederacy, thus initiated by Balaji Visvanath, was aided by Tara
Bai's imprisonment of Raja Rama in the Satara fort and was com-
pieted by Raja Shahu's grant of plenary powers to the Peshwa Balaji
Baji Rao on his deathbed. ?
Thus from the first quarter of the eighteenth century until the final
débâcle of the Maratha power, the Peshwa, though acting nominally
as the vice-regent of the raja of Satara and showing him on public
occasions the attentions due to the ruler, actually controlled the whole
1 Sen, Administrative System of the Marathas, pp. 186-96.
? Idem, pp. 196-202.


## p. 385 (#413) ############################################

THE PESHWA
385
administration and even usurped the raja's powers and prerogatives
as ecclesiastical head of the state. This latter function was not con-
sequent upon the Peshwa's social position as a Brahman, for the
Chitpavan sect, to which the Peshwas belonged, was not accounted
of much importance by other Brahmanic sects and by some, indeed,
was considered ineligible for inclusion in the Brahmanic category.
As was the case with Sivaji, the Peshwa's supremacy in the socio-
religious sphere was the natural corollary of his position as head
executive power or chief magistrate, and in that capacity he gave
decisions in a large variety of matters, including the appointment of
officiating priests for non-Hindu congregations, the remarriage of
widows, the sale of unmarried girls, and arrangements for dowry and
adoption.
The Peshwa's predominant position was also recognised by the
Maratha feudal nobility, composed of estate-holders and chiefs, who
were expected to provide troops and render military service, as
occasion demanded, in return for their saranjams or fiefs, and were
practically independent autocrats within the boundaries of their own
lands and villages. As the Peshwa himself was originally one of these
feudal landholders, subject to the general control of the raja of
Satara, he was not slow to realise that his assumption of supremacy
might evoke combinations of the others against himself. This possi-
bility was largely discounted by dividing the revenues of any one
district between several Maratha chiefs, who generally considered it
beneath their dignity as fighting men to learn the art of reading and
writing their mother-tongue and were at the same time exceedingly
resentful of any supposed infringement of their financial proprietary
rights. This system of sub-division of revenues gave rise to great
complications in the state accounts, of which the Peshwa and his
Brahman secretariat were not slow to take advantage : and it also
engendered among the Maratha chiefs perpetual feuds and jealousies.
which prevented their combining whole-heartedly against a common
enemy and were ultimately responsible in large measure for the
downfall of the Maratha power. The Maratha respect for the maxim
that "it is well to have a finger in every pie”, and their constant
search for opportunities of extortion and pillage, are well illustrated
by the refusal of Sindhia, as recorded in the private journal of the
Marquess of Hastings, to relinquish his share in certain lands included
in the possessions of the chief of Bundi, although he was offered in
exchange more valuable territory, contiguous to his own dominions.
The focus of the Maratha administration was the Peshwa's secre-
tariat in Poona, styled the Huzur Daftar, which was composed of
several departments and bureaux. It dealt, broadly speaking, with
the revenues and expenditure of all districts, with the accounts
1 Sen, op. cit. pp. 202-4, 397-417.
25


## p. 386 (#414) ############################################

386
MARATHA ADMINISTRATION
submitted by the district and village officials, with all alienations of
public revenue in the form of inams, saranjams, etc. , with the pay and
privileges of all grades of the public service, and with the budgets of
the civil, military and religious establishments. The daily registers
.
(roz kird) of the various departments recorded all revenue transac-
tions, all grants and payments, and all contributions and exactions
levied on foreign territory. These records, which included state
transactions of every kind, were maintained with great care and
efficiency until the rule of Baji Rao II (1796-1818), when they
became practically valueless by reason of the maladministration and
political disorder of that period.
The foundation of the Peshwa's administrative system was the
self-contained and self-supporting village community, which had its
roots in an almost prehistoric past. Each village had a headman,
the patel (the pattakila of ancient lithic and copperplate records), who
combined the functions of revenue officer, magistrate and judge, and
acted as intermediary between the villagers and the Peshwa's officials.
His office was hereditary and might form the subject of sale and
purchase, and his emoluments, which varied slightly from village to
village, consisted chiefly in the receipt from every yillager of a fixed
share of his produce. These receipts ranged from a daily supply of
betel-leaves, provided by the dealers in pan-supari, to a tax on the
remarriage of a widow; and in return for these emoluments and for
his recognition as the social leader of the village community, the patel
was expected to shoulder the responsibility for the village's welfare
and good conduct. The kulkarni, or village clerk and record-keeper,
who was always a Brahman, was second in importance to the patel,
and like the latter was remunerated by a variety of perquisites. He
was often expected to share the patel's responsibility for the good
behaviour of the village community, and ran an equal risk of oppres-
sion and imprisonment by casual' invaders or tyrannous officials.
Excluding the chaugula who had custody of the kuikarni's bundles of
correspondence, assisted the patel, and was frequently an illegitimate
scion of the patel's family, the communal duties and wants of the
village were performed and supplied by the bara balute or twelve
hereditary village servants, who received a recognised share of the
crops and other perquisites in return for their services to the com-
munity. The personnel of the bara balute was not invariably the same
in all parts of the Deccan, and in some places they were associated
with an additional body of twelve village servants, styled bara alute.
Up to the period of the rule of the Peshwa Madhu Rao I (1761-72),
certain classes of village mechanics and artisans, like the carpenter
and blacksmith, were liable to forced labour (begar) on behalf of the
state-an exaction which had the express sanction of the most ancient
* Sen, op. cit. pp. 267-71.
2 Idem, pp. 211-37, 503-21.


## p. 387 (#415) ############################################

THE MAMLATDAR
387
Hindu law codes and was certainly practised by previous governments
in India. 1
The backbone of the Maratha district administration, which
perhaps drew its origina) inspiration from the principles laid down
in Kautilya's Arthasastra, was supplied by the mamlatdar, who was in
charge of a division styled sarkar, subha, or prant, and by the kamu-
visdar, his subordinate or deputy, who administered a smaller terri-
torial area of the same kind, usually termed a pargana. This territorial
nomenclature had, however, lost its significance by the beginning of
the nineteenth century, and the revenue divisions—the sarkar, the
pargana, and the smaller areas styled mahal and tarf, had been largely
broken up as a result of internal changes and confusion. The mam-
latdar, who corresponded roughly to the subhedar or mukhya desha-
dhikari of Sivaji's day, and the kamavisdar were directly subordinate
to the Peshwa's secretariat in: Poona, except in the case of Khandesh,
Gujarat and the Karnatak, where a superior official, styled sarsubhe-
ddr, was interposed between them and the government. Originally the
mamlatdar and the kamavisdar were appointed for short terms only,
but in practice they managed frequently to secure renewals of their
term of office in a district. As the direct representative of the Peshwa
they were responsible for every branch of the district administration,
including agriculture, industries, civil and criminal justice, the control
of the sihbandis (militia) and the police, and the investigation of
social and religious questions. They also fixed the revenue assessment
of each village in consultation with the patel, heard and decided
complaints against the village officers, and were responsible for the
collection of the state revenue, which in cases of recalcitrance they
were accustomed to recover through the medium of the sihbandis. 2
It will be obvious that under this system there were many oppor-
tunities for peculation and maladministration on the part of the dist-
rict officials, while the only checks upon the action of the mamlatdar
were of a theoretical rather than a practical character. The first of
these restraints was provided by the desmukh and despande, who had
long ceased to hold any official status and had been relegated to a
more or less ornamental position since the days of Sivaji. 3 In theory
the mamlatdar's accounts were not passed by the secretariat at Poona,
unless corroborated by corresponding accounts from these local
anachronisms, and in all disputes regarding land the deshmukh was
expected to produce his ancient records, containing the history of all
watans, inams and grants, and the register of transfer of properties,
which he maintained in return for the annual fee or perquisites
received from the villagers. The safeguards not infrequently proved
illusory, for there was nothing to prevent the mamiatdar obtaining
official approval of his returns by methods of his own, while the
.
2 Idem; -pp. 252-8.
1. Sen, op. cit. pp. 532-4.
3 Idem, pp. 243-51.


## p. 388 (#416) ############################################

388
MARATHA ADMINISTRATION
desmukh's registers were irregularly written up and often very
incomplete. The second check upon the mamlatdar was provided by
a staff of hereditary darakhdars or office-holders, who were appointed
to the various provinces or major divisions of the Maratha dominions,
were directly subordinate to the Peshwa, and reported direct to the
government in Poona. These officials were eight in number, viz. the
dewan or mamlatdar's deputy, mazumdar, phadnavis, daftardar,
potnis, potdar, sabhasad, and chitnis; and they were expected to act
as a check, not only upon one another but also on the mamlatdar, who
was not empowered to dismiss any one of them. A ninth official of
this class, the jamenis, who apparently concerned himself with the
land revenue of the villages, is mentioned in the reign of the Peshwa
Madhu Rao 1. 1
With the object, doubtless, of preventing the wholesale malversa-
tion of public money, the Maratha Government was accustomed to
demand from the mamlatdar and other officials the payment of a
heavy sum (rasad) on their first appointment to a district, and careful
estimates of probable income and expenditure were drawn up for
their guidance by the Huzur Daftar. These precautions were of even
less value than those mentioned above. The mamlatdar was at pains
to recover his advance with interest and frequently made considerable
illicit profits by concealment of receipts, non-payment of pensions,
and the preparation of false bills and muster-rolls. A fruitful source
of gain was the sadąr warid pattiman extra tax intended to cover
miscellaneous district expenditure not provided for by the govern-
ment; and one of the chief items of this additional expenditure was
the darbar kharch or fee to ministers and auditors, which, originally
a secret bribe, developed eventually into a recognised scale of pay.
ments, audited like other items of account. These illicit claims showeci
a constant tendency to increase, and as it was obviously impolitic to
recover more than a certain amount from the peasantry, who pro-
vided in one way or another a very large proportion of the public
revenues, the mamlatdar did not scruple to pay himself and his
superiors out of funds that should have been credited wholly to the
government. ? Under the rule. of the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, the
peasantry were deprived of even this modified protection from extor-
ti:in by the system of farming the district appointments, which had
been in vogue under the preceding Muhammadan governments of the
Deccan.
“The office of mamlatdar"; according to Mountstuart Elphinstone, “was put
up to auction among the Peshwa's attendants, who were encouraged to bid
high and were sometimes disgraced, if they showed a reluctance to enter on
this sort of speculation. ”
The mamlatdar, who had secured a district at these auctions, promptly
a
1 Sen, op. cit. pp. 238-63.
2 Idem, pp. 263-5; Forrest, official Writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone,
pp. 287-9.


## p. 389 (#417) ############################################

THE KAMAVISDAR
389
rented it at a profit to under-farmers, who repeated the process until
it reached the village officers. Under such a system the scale on.
which each peasant was assessed was based upon his ability to pay,
not upon the area and quality of the land which he occupied; and
as the demand was usually immoderate and constant resort was had
to fictitious accounts, the villagers were steadily exhausted by the
shameless exactions of the official hierarchy. 1
The kamavisdar, whose official emoluments were often fixed at
4 per cent. of the revenues of the district in his charge together with
certain allowances, e. g. for the upkeep of a palanquin, was provided,
like the mamlatdar, with a staff of clerks and menials, who were
generally paid ten or eleven months' salary in return for a full year's
work. The reason for this short payment, which was also adopted in
the military department, is not clear. Possibly it amounted to a tacit
acknowledgment that an aggregate period of at least one or two
months in every twelve would be spent on leave or otherwise wasted,
or that petty illicit perquisites, which it would be fruitless to trace
or expose, would probably total to the amount of a month's salary.
The small territorial divisions, known as mahal or tarf, were adminis-
tered on the same lines as the mamlatdar's and kamavisdar's charges
by a non-hereditary official styled havaldar, assisted and checked by
a hereditary mazumdar (accountant) and phadnis (auditor). In each
mahal, as a rule, were stationed four additional officials of militia,
viz. the hashamnavis, who maintained a muster-roll of the villagers,
their arms, and their pay; the hasham phadnis and hasham daftardar,
who kept the accounts and wrote up the ledger of the militia, and
the hazirinavis, who maintained a muster-roll of those actually
serving in the militia. 2
The Maratha judicial system has been described as very imper-
fect, there being no rules of procedure, no regular administration of
justice, and no codified law. In both civil and criminal matters
decisions were based upon custom and upon rules or formulae
err. bodied in ancient Sanskrit compilations, like those of Manu and
Yajnavalkya. In civil cases the main object aimed at was amicable
settlement, and arbitration was therefore the first step in the disposal
of a suit. If arbitration failed, the case was transferred for decision
to a panchayat, appointed by the patel in the village and by the shete
mahajan, or leading merchant, in urban areas. An appeal lay from
the decision of a panchayat to the mamlatdar, who usually upheld the
verdict, unless the parties concerned were able to prove that the
panchayat was prejudiced or corrupt. In serious or important suits,
however, it was the duty of the mamlatdar to appoint an arbitrator
or a panchayat, the members of which were chosen by him with the
approval, and often at the suggestion, of the parties to the suit. In
1 Forrest, op. cit. pp. 294-6.
2 Sen, op. cit. p. 266.


## p. 390 (#418) ############################################

390
MARATHA ADMINISTRATION
such cases the panchayat's decision was subject to an appeal to the
Peshwa or his legal minister, the nyayadhish. The system of pancha-
yats left a good deal to be desired from the standpoint of modern legal
administration. These bodies were slow in action and uncertain in
their decisions: the attendance of the members was usually irregular,
depending as it did entirely upon the individual's sense of duty or
fear of public opinion. The powers of the panchayat were strictly
limited; it was exposed to constant obstruction; and it possessed no
authority to enforce its decisions, which were left to the mamlatdar
to carry out or neglect, as he pleased. It had likewise no power to
compel the attendance of parties and their witnesses, and depended
upon the mamlatdar or other local official to supply a petty officer for
this purpose. In cases where the members of a panchayat were nomi-
nated by the parties to a suit, they functioned rather as advocates
than as judges; and, speaking generally, the system offered consider-
able scope for partiality and corruption, which became very marked
under the rule of Baji Rao II. Yet, despite its primitive character
and its liability to be improperly influenced, the panchayat was a
popular institution, and the absence of a decision by a panchayat in
any suit was almost always regarded as complete justification for a
retrial of the issues. The fact must be admitted that among themselves,
within the confines of the self-contained ancestral village, the
peasantry did obtain a fair modicum of rude justice from the village
panchayat. What they failed to obtain either from the panchayats or
from the government was any measure of redress against the merciless
oppression of their superiors. 1
In criminal cases much the same procedure was adopted, though
a punchayat was less frequently appointed than in civil disputes. The
chief authorities were the patel in the village, the mamlatdar in the
district, the sarsubhedar in the province, and the Peshwa and his
nyayadhish at headquarters; and they administered a law which was
merely popular custom tempered by the trying officer's own ideas of
expediency. Ancient Hindu law in its criminal application had
become practically obsolete by the end of the eighteenth century,
and Mountstuart Elphinstone's opinion that "the criminal system of
the Mahrattas was in the last stage of disorder and corruption" was
fully justified by the state of the criminal law and procedure imme-
diately prior to the downfall of the last Peshwa. No regular form of
trial of accused persons was prescribed; flogging was frequently
inflicted with the object of extorting confessions of guilt; and in the
case of crimes against the state torture was usually employed. The
punishment for serious offences against the person was originally fine,
or confiscation of property, or imprisonment, the fine being propor-
tioned to the means of the offender; ? but after 1761 capital punisi-
2
1 Sen, op. cit. pp. 347-79.
2 Idem, pp. 381-3.


## p. 391 (#419) ############################################

JUDICIAL SYSTEM
391
>
.
ment and mutilation were inflicted upon persons convicted of grievous
hurt, dacoity and theft, as well as upon those found guilty of murder
or treason. The usual methods of execution were hanging, decapi-
tation, cutting to pieces with swords, or crushing the skull with a
mallet, exception being made in the case of Brahmans, who were
poisoned or starved to death. Powers of life and death were originally
vested in the ruler only, and in the principal feudal chiefs within the
limits of their respective jagirs. In later times, however, these powers
were delegated to the sarsubhedar of a province; while throughout the
second half of the eighteenth century the mamlatdar, as head of a
district, considered himself justified in hanging a Ramosi, Bhil, or
Mang robber, without reference to higher authority. The punishment
of mutilation consisted usually in cutting off the hands or feet and
in the case of female offenders in depriving them of their nose, ears
or breasts. False evidence must often have figured in criminal er-
quiries, as it still does to some extent; and the false witness and the
fabricator of false documents were praciically immune from prose-
cution under a system which prescribed no penalty for either perjury
or forgery. The only notice taken of a case of deliberate and wholesale
fabrication of false evidence consisted of a mild reproof from the
nyayadhish.
The penalties imposed on convicted prisoners were aggravated by
the knowledge that their families were not secure from oppression;
for it was a common practice of the Maratha Government to in-
carcerate the innocent wives and children of convicts, as a warning
to other potential malefactors. The prison arrangements were primi-
tive, the only jails being rooms in some of the larger hill-forts. Here
the prisoners languish in the gravest discomfort, except on rare
occasions when they were temporarily released to enable them to
perform domestic religious ceremonies such as the sraddha. 3 It is
perhaps needless to remark that a prisoner had to pay heavily for
such temporary and occasional freedom, as well as for other minor
concessions to his comfort. Provided that he could command sufficient
funds to satisfy the avarice of his gaolers, even a long-term convict
could count upon a fairly speedy release. Even in the days of Sivaji
the power of gold to unlock the gates of hill-forts had often proved
greater than that of the sword, spear and ambush.
The district police arrangements under the Peshwas were practi-
cally identical with those that existed in the seventeenth century, and
were apparently based largely on the doctrine of setting a thief to
catch a thief. Each village maintained its own watchmen, who belonged
to the degraded Mahar or Mang tribes, under the direct control of
the patel, and remunerated them for their services with rent-free lands
а
1 Sen, op. cit. pp. 393-6.
2 Tone, Institutions of the Maratha People, pp. 15-16.
8 Sen, op. cit. pp. 417-24.


## p. 392 (#420) ############################################

392
MARATHA ADMINISTRATION
and other perquisites. These watchmen were assisted in the detection
of crime by groups or gangs of hereditary criminal tribesmen, like
the Ramosis and BKils, who were attached to each village, or to a
group of villages, and resided on its ouiskirts. Each group was under
the control of its own naiks or headmen, who were answerable to the
patel for any theft or robbery committed in the village, and for any
disturbance created by their followers. The antiquity of the system
is indicated by the fact that most of these village groups of Ramosis or
Bhils received certain perquisites of long standing in return for their
services to the village, in the same way as the recognised village
servants, and they cherished their rights as ancillary watchmen and
thief-catchers, particularly in respect of some of the hill-forts, as
jealously as any village officer or village artisan.
The practical working of the system was as follows. Whenever a
crime against property occurred in a village, the Mahars or Ramosis,
as the case might be, were bound as a body to make good the value
of the stolen property, unless they succeeded in recovering the actual
goods or in tracing the offenders to another village. In the latter case
the delinquent village was forced to indemnify the owners of the
property. While this system afforded a moderate safeguard to each
village against the anti-social propensities of its own particular group
of criminal tribesmen, it failed to prevent crime and predatory
incursions by the Ramosis of other areas or by Bhils from the forest-
clad hills of the northern Deccan. It offered, moreover, unlimited
chances of subterfuge and blackmail on the part of the tribesmen
concerned. A striking example of the shortcomings of the system is
affcrded by the career of Umaji Naik, the famous Ramòsi outlaw,
who during the administration of Sir John Malcolm (1827-30) per-
petrated a long series of crimes against person and property, while
he was actually in receipt of a salary from the Bombay Government
for performing police duties in the Sasvad division of the Poona
collectorate. 2 His methods proved that there was nothing to prevent
the village police and the Ramosis combining to escape responsibility
by falsely saddling crimes upon the innocent. These watch and ward
arrangements were also of no avail in cases where the petty chiefs
and estate-holders of the Deccan plundered the villages of their rivals.
For the payment of fees and perquisites to the Ramosis or Bhils,
either by the village or by the government, was essentially a form of
blackmail, designed to secure immunity, partial or complete, from
the depredations of a body of professional criminals and freebooters,
and it naturally could not influence the intentions or actions of the
landed gentry, whenever its members chose to indulge in marauding
excursions through the countryside. Consequently, whenever serious
1 Sen, op. cit. pp. 425-7.
2 Mackintosh, An Account of the Origin and Present Condition of the Tribe
of Ramossies, pp. 125-227.


## p. 393 (#421) ############################################

POLICE
393
epidemics of dacoity and other crime occurred, the government
authorities usually strengthened the village police with detachments
of sihbandis, or irregular infantry, from the neighbouring hill-forts.
The sihbandis in every district were under the control of the mamlat.
dar, and were maintained on the proceeds of a general house tax
imposed on the residents of the disturbed area. Their duty was to
support the village police under the patel and to oppose violence by
force of arms, but did not extend to the detection of crime. They were
alsc deputed to assist the village police in maintaining order at
festivals, fairs and other important social gatherings.
Under the misguided rule of Baji Rao II the district police system
was modified by the appointment of additional police officials, styled
tapasnavis, charged with the discovery and seizure of offenders. 1 These
officials were independent of the mamlatdar and other district autho-
rities, and their area of jurisdiction was not necessarily conterminous
with that of the revenue and police officials. As a class they were
shamelessly corrupt; they constantly extorted money by means of
false accusations, and were often hand in glove with avowed robbers
and outlaws. In the latter respect they were little less culpable than
the Maratha jagirdars and zamindars, who frequently offered an
asylum and protection to fugitive criminals wanted for serious crimes
in other districts.
In urban centres magisterial and police powers were vested in a
kotwal, who also performed municipal duties. He regulated prices,
took a census of the inhabitants, investigated and decided disputes
relating to immovable property, supplied labour to the government,
levied fees from professional gamblers, and, generally speaking,
performed most of the functions ascribed to the nagaraka or polica
superintendent in the Arthasastra of Kautilya. ? The best urban police
force at the close of the eighteenth century was unquestionably that
of the capital, Poona. It was composed of foot-police, mounted
patrols, and Ramosis, used principally as spies and trackers, and was
described as efficient. Opportunities for nocturnal delinquency on
the part of the inhabitants were, however, greatly lessened by a
strict curfew order which obliged everyone to remain within doors
after 10 p. m.
The Maratha army, composed of the mercenary forces of the
feudal chiefs and the regiments under the immediate command of the
Peshwa, had undergone a radical change since Sivaji's day. Originaliy
recruited from men who, though not invariably Marathas by race,
were yet united by a common bond of country and language, the
army tended, as the Maratha power spread across India, to assume
a professional rather than a national character. The real Maratha3
3
1 Forrest, op. cit. pp. 305-6.
Sen, op. cit. pp. 427-31; 522-4.
3 Idem, pp. 431-2; Tone, Institutions of the Maratha People, pp. 54-5.


## p. 394 (#422) ############################################

394
MARATHA ADMINISTRATION
were gradually relegated almost entirely to the cavalry, in which their
horse-craft and knowledge of horse-breeding proved of the highest
value; the infantry was mostly drawn from Northern India; and the
artillery, which offered little attraction to the Maratha freebooter,
was manned and commanded by Portuguese and Indian Christians.
As has been mentioned, the military services of the various Maratha
chiefs and landholders were secured by the grant of saranjams (fiefs),
care being taken by the Peshwa and his Brahman secretariat so to
group the holdings of rival chiefs in the same area that the former
might reap full advantage from their inveterate mutual jealousies.
A hegemony founded on internal strife and dissension was not cal-
culated to give stability to the state; and ultimately the lack of
cohesion induced by this policy, coupled with the personal unpopu-
larity of the last Peshwa, contributed largely to the downfall of the
Maratha confederacy.
The Maratha state did little towards the economic improvement
of the country and the intellectual advancement of its inhabitants.
Being essentially a predatory power, it regarded itself as always in
a state of war, and a large proportion of its revenue was supplied by
marauding expeditions into the territory of its neighbours. Unlike
other ancient and contemporary Hindu governments, it constructed
no great works of public utility, and its interest in education was
confined to the annual grant of dakshina to deserving pandits and
vaids. ” In the days of Sivaji and his successors it had been one of the
duties. of the Pandit Rao to enquire into the merits and accomplish-
ments of applicants for this form of state aid and to settle in each case
the amount and character of the award. But the system had de-
generated at the opening of the nineteenth century into a form of
indiscriminate largesse to Brahmans, of whom some at least were
probably unworthy of special recognition. Some writers on Maratha
affairs have sought to discover the germ of modern postal communi-
cations in the system of intelligence maintained by the Maratha
Government. The comparison has no value, in view of the fact that,
although the jasuds (spies) and harkaras (messengers) did carry
messages and letters with astonishing rapidity throughout India, they
were primarily employed for political and military purposes, and not
for the public convenience. 3 They represented, in fact, during the
eighteenth century the official system of intelligence, which was
originally described in the Arthasastra and was perfected by Chan-
dragupta Maurya in the third century B. C.
A survey of Maratha administration must necessarily include some
account of the principal sources of the state revenues. The most
important items were the chauth (one-fourth) and sardesmukhi (the
tenth), which originally were payments in the nature of blackmail
>
2 Idem, pp. 470-2.
1 Sen, op. cit. pp. 439-69.
3 Idem, pp. 469-70.


## p.