The New History of Marathas – Armies and Administration

Read part 3 here.

One of the characteristics of Shivaji’s army that greatly helped him and frustrated his enemies was the Guerilla Tactics of the warfare. The geography around Pune and the Maval area – where Shivaji started first – was of great help to him. The armies were broken into small battalions. The armies were fast moving, light and were able to seek shelter in the forts on treacherous cliffs of the Sahayadri Mountains after a raid. Shivaji and his commanders rarely faced the Bijapur, Ahmednagar or Moguls in open planes. His tactics mainly concentrated on small group of mounted soldiers fighting with nothing more than a sword and shield cornering an enemy in a narrow pass. His army was also known to frustrate a camp of the enemy by cutting supply lines or disrupting normal operations of the camp. The army was so agile that even the British, when establishing their corps, adopted the Maratha Light Infantry. Such was the fierce attack and sharp turnaround of campaigns organized by Shivaji’s armies that not only Aurangzeb but also many historians considered him a coward who would not face the enemy in open fields. But Shivaji’s tactics were hugely successful.

Compare this with the armies of the Moguls or the factions of the Bahamani Sultanate. These armies typically consisted of heavy cavalry, backed by large siege equipment and provisioning facilities. The troops were regularly paid from the government exchequer and by this virtue also showed better loyalty. Apart from the troops, these armies also carried a burden of large number of noncombatants like grooms and servants of the mounted soldiers, animals of burden to move the cavalry equipment, cooks, record keepers and dancing girls. The armies were trained for fighting in open planes or holding a siege. And such armies were not able to move large distances easily.

Unfortunately the lightness of the Maratha army also meant, it had to live off the land. This did not go well with the peasants! Such armies were also not equipped to carryout long campaigns or to move away from the base fort to geographically distant areas.

But it is only on the basis of these strategies of Guerilla Tactics that Shivaji defeated huge armies of Afzal Khan (Commander of Adil Shah) and Shaista Khan (Commander and relative of Aurangzeb). He was consistently able to baffle the enemy and also employed strategies such as raiding a different enemy area, forcing the enemy to chase him in a different terrain.

Later when Peshwa Bajirao I started a northward expansion of the empire, the armies had to move long distances to fight battles. The Moguls had become considerably weak in the Gujarat and Malwa areas by the time of Bajirao I. By then the size of army and the distance, it had to travel for the battlefield made the logistics complicated. The army could no longer live off the land. This however, helped immensely in creation of the banking system. The government regularly borrowed money from merchants and bankers to pay for the war and expenses of the army. By the time the third war of Panipat happened, Maratha army had grown into a characteristically slow moving army that needed strong supply lines and large noncombatant staff.

One of the problems with agile army was that such army was not able to provide protection or governmental support to the areas conquered. Also, since the army lived off of the land, it was seen as a burden. And even with a less agile army, this continued even up to Raghunathrao Peshwe’s campaign into Punjab, a few years before Panipat war. While establishing tribute rights, Raghunathrao did little to establish a governmental control or to ensure that the tribute was fairly collected. However, after the provincial governments of Baroda, Indore, Gwalior and Nagpur started taking bigger role in the administration, the scenario started changing.

According to Gordon, Shivaji’s administration was largely modeled on the basis set by Malik Shah Amber. The administration of Peshwa Balaji Bajirao (Nanasaheb) brought large reforms to this administration. All the peshwas ruled in the name of the Chhatrapati, Shivaji’s heirs. As the empire expanded, the provincial governments started taking a bigger role in the administration. Eventually, the Shindes of Gwalior collected tribute from the Moguls and Rajput areas. In the calm and peaceful time, the countryside started seeing much prosperity. Other industry and trade also improved.

Gordon points out that the nineteenth century British Administration broadly consolidated the powers of a kamvisdar and created a British District Officer. Many records were already available to the British to model a tax system.