DID THE THIRD BATTLE OF PANIPAT DESTROY MARATHA POWER?

 Political significance of the Battle of Panipat – Historians have held divergent views about the effects of the battle on the fortunes of the Maratha power in India. Maratha historians hold the view that the Marathas lost nothing of political importance by it except the loss of 75,000 soldiers, that Ahmed Shah Abdali practically gained nothing by it and the battle led to no decisive results.

G. S. Sardesai writes, ‘Notwithstanding the terrible losses in manpower suffered n that field by the Marathas, the disaster decided nothing. In fact, it pshed forward in the distant sequel two prominent members of the dominant race, Nana Phadnavis and Mahadji Sindhia, both miraculously escaping death on that fatal day, who resuscitated the power to its former glory. Not long after the Battle of Panipat, the Maratha power began to prosper again as before and continued to do so for forty years, until the death of Mahadji sindhia or until British supremacy was established early in the 19^th century by the Second Maratha War (1803). The disaster of Panipat was indeed like a natural visitation destroying life but leading to no decisive political consequences. To maintain that the disaster of Panipat put an end to the dreams of supremacy cherished by the Marathas is to misunderstand the situation as recorded in contemporary documents.

Sir J. N. Sarkar, on the other hand maintains, ‘It has become a fashion with the Maratha historians to minimize the political results of the third Battle of Panipat. But a dispassionate survey of Indian history will show how unfounded this chauvinistic claim is. A Maratha army, did no doubt, restore the exiled Mughal Emperor to the capital of his fathers in 1772, but they came there not as Kingmakers, not as the dominators of the Mughal Empire and the real masters of his nominal ministers and generals. That proud position was secured by Mahadaji Sindhia only in 1789 and by the British in 1803’.

J. N. Sarkar’s view seems more objective. The Maratha losses in manpower were great. Out of the total of about one lakh persons only a few thousands escaped alive. So great was the disaster that for nearly three months the Peshwa could not get authentic details about the casualties and the fate of the military leaders. Even the Peshwa succumbed to the news of the disaster. J. N. Sarkar writes ‘This battle by removing nearly all the great Maratha captains and statesmen including the Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao, left the path absolutely open and easy to the guilty ambition of Raghunath(rao) dada, the most infamous character in Maratha History. Other losses time could have made good, but this was the greatest mischief done by the debacle at Panipat’. G. S. Sardesai counters this argument when he writes, ‘Panipat, in itself, brought to the Marathas a unique experience in politics and war, and heightened their national pride and sentiment as nothing else could have done. The disaster instead of damping their spirits, made them shine higher as when a nation is on the path of advancement and progress, such ups and downs are inevitable. Such valiant soldiers as Dattaji, Jankoji, Ibrahim Khan, Sadashivrao, did not die in vain. They left their mark on the fortunes of their nation and prepared it for a greater effort such as the young Peshwa Madhavrao actually put forth. Out of death cometh life is only too true. Although one generation, the older one was cut off, the younger generation soon rose to take its place and perform the nations service as before. The disaster was felt as personal by almost every home in Maharashtra and every soul was stirred by it to rise to the Nation’s call’.

The disaster of Panipat certainly lowered Maratha prestige in the Indian political world. The Marathas who could not protect their dependents or themselves came to be looked upon as a weak reed to bank upon.

Again, the Maratha dream of an empire extending over all parts of India was irretrievably lost. True, the Marathas took the Mughal Emperor under their protection and escorted him to Delhi in 1772 and again in 1789, but they never made any attempt to recover the provinces of Punjab and Multan or to play the role of the wardens of the Northwest frontier.

Sidney Owen writes that by the third Battle of Panipat, ‘the Maratha power was, for the first time, shattered to atoms, and though the hydra-headed monster was not killed, it was not effectually scotched, that it remained practically quiescent, until great British statesmen were in a condition to cope with, and ultimately to master and disintegrate it’. Certainly, the battle cleared the way for the rise of the British power in India. ‘It is significant’, writes R. B. Sardesai, ‘that while the two combatants, the Marathas and the Musalmans, were locked in deadly combat on the field of ancient Kurukshetra, Clive, the first founder of the British Empire in India, was on his way to England to explain the feasibility of his dreams of an Indian Empire to the Great Commoner, Lord Chatham, then the Prime Minister. Panipat indirectly ushered in a new participant in the struggle for Indian supremacy. This is indeed the direct outcome of that historical  event, which on that account marks a turning point in the history of India’.