The Iron Ladies of Maratha Empire – Part 2

Read Part 1 here.


Some people are always misrepresented by history. Two such personalities are Gopika-bai and Anandi-bai. Both a rightful place and credit are due for their contribution.

Gopika-bai came into the Peshwa house at a very young age of 8 after being married to Nanasaheb Balaji Bajirao, the eldest son of the glorious Peshwa Bajirao. Nanasaheb was trained in the courts of Shahu in Satara and also by his father, uncle and numerous other ministers. He started looking in to the matters of court at an early age of 15 years. Gopika-bai was an extremely intelligent person and the environment of the Peshwa family gave her encouragement to opine; and at a later stage to perhaps dabble in the administration herself. She was well learned, but could not read or write in Modi script, she resorted to the use of Devnagari scripts for the letters she wrote either to her husband or sons and grandson.

Gopika-bai is perhaps the only individual who saw both the zenith and the nadir of the Maratha Empire so closely. Bajirao was just setting himself up when Gopika-bai got married into the family. She saw inauguration of the grand palace Shaniwarwada, many victories by Bajirao and Chimaji Appa and those of her husband Nanasaheb and her brothers-in-law. Her brother was a respected minister in the court of Nanasaheb as well as Madhav-rao. Being the eldest of her generation, she had a lot of respect and authority. As the consort of the most powerful individual of that time, she had access to almost unbridled power. She was very religious by nature.

Gopika-bai was also struck with many tragedies in her life. Mostly people know of her three sons, but apparently, she had five! And she outlived all of them. Two sons were lost in infancy to disease and one on the Panipat battlefield. About half the Peshwa family was decimated at Panipat and Nanasaheb could not bear the brunt of the defeat and died of the shock. Her fourth son, Madhav-rao ascended the throne. Madhav-rao was forced to fight with his own uncle Raghoba to resolve the matters of regency and sedition. But Madhav-rao contracted tuberculosis in a few years and died. Her fifth son, Narayan-rao was killed in a conspiracy by his uncle Raghoba. At this stage, the other ministers intervened and prevented Raghoba, the main accused in Narayan-rao’s death, from ascending the throne. Narayan-rao’s wife was pregnant and gave birth to a male child, after Narayan-rao’s death – Sawai Madhav-rao. This infant was appointed the Peshwa and two powerful men of the times, Nana Phadnavis and Mahadji Shinde were made the regents. Gopika-bai outlived even Sawai Madhav-rao!

During the good days, Gopika-bai actively took part in the matters of administration. So much so, that at times even Nanasaheb considered her contribution as interference. He was so peeved by Gopika-bai’s bravado that to keep her under the tab, he actually married a girl almost one-third her age!

She was a good advisor to her son Madhav-rao after he ascended the throne. A few years into the reign of Madhav-rao Peshwa, Gopika-bai decided to retire and went on to live in almost seclusion. Some books claim she left Poona and went into seclusion to avenge Madhav-rao punishing her brother for the sack of Poona. However, it has now been proved that the events happened in exact reverse order – she retired earlier and sack of Poona came later.

In seclusion, she spent most of her time in religious activities. From her seclusion, Gopika-bai saw the unfolding of events only as a spectator. She saw her most able son Madhav-rao succumb to tuberculosis, Narayan-rao being murdered for petty politics and her grandson Sawai Madhav-rao not being given proper education, lest he replace his regents one day. Only in the last instance, Gopika-bai is seen to reprimand Nana Phadnavis for his negligence and write directly to Sawai Madhav-rao on how he should pull up his socks and get into the role of being a Peshwa. But for all her abilities, she never took active interest to make matters better. May be, history had a chance of being different if this very able and intelligent lady had remained active in politics!

The biggest villain produced by Maratha History must be Anandi-bai! Anandi-bai was married to Raghoba, the second son of Peshwa Bajirao. Raghoba was a good general and aspired to be a Peshwa himself and Anandi-bai encouraged her husband in his aspirations. However, by the rules of succession this was not possible and this lead to political conspiracy eventually resulting into Narayan-rao’s murder. It is here Anandi-bai’s role becomes prominent. She is accused of changing an important word in a letter going to mercenaries. Because of this change, the mercenaries read it as “Murder Narayan-rao” contrary to the original text that said “Capture Narayan-rao”. She was a co-accused in the case of regicide against Raghoba. However, Anandi-bai’s role in changing the text is controversial (either that or the Justice Ramshastri Prabhune took the easier route of keeping a woman out of controversy, we won’t know!). For this, she’s been the most hated woman in the Maratha History.

But what is the truth? Records and letters show a very different woman! Her aspirations of throne for her husband are well known and she never denied those. She was a very intelligent and a learned woman (for her times that was not very common) and made good use of free time by reading different books (mostly religious). She engaged in religious activities and charity for poor and needy. She was extremely loyal to her husband. Although Raghoba was an able general, he was very weak by character. Raghoba’s misbehavior caused many problems for Anandi-bai who was otherwise a god-fearing woman. Due to Raghoba’s nature and seditious activities, he had to be put under house arrest by Madhav-rao and naturally, Anandi-bai’s movements were also restricted and watched. Despite of this, Anandi-bai had a caring attitude towards Madhav-rao and advised him in the matters of politics. The case of regicide against Raghoba must have been very trying on her. Despite of this, she later took the role of a mentor for Sawai Madhav-rao; although she never returned to Poona after Raghoba’s death. She is also seen to have taken good care of Raghoba’s other wives, who were of the ages closer to be her daughters. She tried very hard to imbibe good value systems in her sons – one adopted, one natural – but as it turns out, both of them did not live up to her expectations. But for the circumstances created by her husband, history once again may have lost a very astute politician.