Shivaji -- Portrait of the King as Barbarian

don`t understand why Shivaji can`t be considered a local hero only for revolting against Aurangzeb....while in Punjab we have Dullabhatti praised and considered a local hero for standing upto Akbar - a much bening ruler than Aurangzeb.

another typo in #301: That of course should be Louis XVI, not XIV. sorry for the typos.

the last line of the first para. below, instead of reading ``while their economy switched to industrialization. `` should read, ``while their broader economy remained in the pre-industrial mode (where even watches were basically unheard of, per european visitors)``.

The one from those times who most impresses me is Tipu Sultan. Not because of his martial achievements, for which he is no doubt rightly remembered. But for his broader vision for economic progress. In this regard he stands apart from virtually every other Indian ruler, none of whom really understood the economic transformation that had occurred in the west. Indeed, even outside India, the mighty Ottomans, nominal heads to the entire muslim world, never understood this - they focussed only on switching their military to the western model, while their economy switched to industrialization.

Tipu, on the other hand, took a broader view - and his envoys to the court of Louis the XIV just before the french revolution returned to India not just with military technology but with plants and plant seeds, watches, and even some french academicians. He then set up factories and agricultural research facilities within his kingdom. Had Tipu been allowed to live in peace, there is every reason that he would have south india (and later by example the rest of India) at par with european states economically in the same manner the japanese were to do under the Meiji Restoration a hundred years later. Cornwallis - who had recently been soundly thrashed at Yorktown by the americans and managed to then sneak in for a second career in india - probably realized this too, and so gave high priority to destroying Tipu Sultan.

The Marhattas who along with the Nizam of Hyderabad, allied with Cornwallis to do this truly evil deed - since Tipu`s success could well have meant that south india and by example the rest of the subcontinent could well have been among the most advanced nations today. So, it was not just ``jafar az bengal, sadiq az deccan, nang-e-adam, nange-deen, nang-e-watan`` as the poet wrote, but the Nizam of Hyderabad and the marhattas as well.

Of course, this is speculation only (of whether Tipu could have done for India what the Meiji Restoration did for Japan) - and I would be interested in the views of others more familiar with the saga of Tipu Sultan and what he accomplished in South India economically.

Jang

Oh.. But i`ve read the ``Peacock Throne``. Thanks, anyway.

Any good book on Shivaji?

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SN

Shishapa #296, {``The story I grew up with is
Afzal Khan being such a huge man compared to Shivaji, was planning to crush
Shivaji during their meet. So Shivaji was prepared with tiger claw and when Afzal Khan
hugged Shivaji when they met, just that happened and Shivaji used tiger claws to rip open
Afzal Khan`s intestine.
Sounds gruesome but I guess that is how wars are. Not for feeble minded.``}

Shishapa Bhai,
Sure sounds like an insidious terrorist to me. :) It`s all in the eye of the beholder.

tahmed32#294:

``and babar gave up alcohol only for political purposes``

According to a story narrated in the ``The Peacock Thone``, Babur would call an assembly of his troops on the night before a major operation and break his glass of wine, forswearing never to imbibe again and to be a good Muslim on a jihad. After the battle was over, it was a case of ``Kee main ne agar pee kay tau kis baat ki tauba``.

jang#297:

If your story about Dara Shikoh in earlier post was from ``The Peacock Throne``, my recollection is slightly different. The hindu raja who turned against Dara was, in fact, the husband of the woman who had breast-fed Aurangzeb as a child.

#294...aurangzeb may not be given to alcohol and drugs, but he sure loved ``young`` girls. there are accounts of his falling for a slave girl in his mamas house and stuff like that. but no comparison to shajehan and jejangir etc. he was a driven man. he was as full of treachey as shivaji, towards his brother murad for e.g. who was on his side during the war of succession.

In those days, people were not considered to belong to a hindu religion or mussalman religion. You were a maratha kurmi, turki, habsi, farsi, rajput etc. aurangzeb was unique in identification of islam as important factor in employment and promotion. e.g. he often asked hindu sardars to convert as a part of employment offer. most other rulers gave better deal to their biradari, and other mercenaries who showed skills.

SN, i like the book The Peacock Throne the most since its highly readable, and quotes from multiple hisorical sources (mughal court documents, dispatches from firangi courtieres) to draw conclusions. Its not about sivaji however.

Tahmadji,

True about Aurangzeb. I think he was austere man.
I have been so many times to Aurangabad (every summer while growing up), but I regret
not having visited nearby Khuldabad which is where Aurangzeb rests in a simple tomb.
I did manage to see on the last visit Devgiri (Daulatabad) fort and it is hauntingly beautiful
(and Verul (Ellora)) too.

Regarding Afzal Khan, depends whose story you listen. The story I grew up with is
Afzal Khan being such a huge man compared to Shivaji, was planning to crush
Shivaji during their meet. So Shivaji was prepared with tiger claw and when Afzal Khan
hugged Shivaji when they met, just that happened and Shivaji used tiger claws to rip open
Afzal Khan`s intestine.
Sounds gruesome but I guess that is how wars are. Not for feeble minded.

jang: you are right in that shiva ji started his kingdom building prior to aurangzeb`s entry to the deccan, and so i was not accurate in saying that shiva ji was a reaction to aurangzeb`s fanaticism. but then: aurangzeb had already alienated the hindus (rajputs mostly i think) in the north by reimposing the jaziya and also idol breaking in the north. surely this must have stiffened shiva ji`s resolve and distrust as well.

aurangzeb`s mistake was obviously to put ideology before politics, and so wasted the last quarter of his life i think chasing shiva ji around the deccan and taking over titles to real estate he never could possibly hold on to. his taking over of Bijapur and Golconda in the south was hardly an achievement, since after his death they became largely independent. yet another example of the mess an ideology-driven government makes.

shishapa: Afzal Khan was of course the general from the Bijapur Sultanate, and of course it was his murder which was indeed a treacherous act on the part of shiva ji. But he was not alone in treachery in any case for those times (and even more in these days of terrorism).

like i said, the mughals did not play by the rules either: aurangzeb (again as I understand it) enticed him many years later to come to delhi and essentially put shiva ji under house arrest from where the latter then escaped. furthermore, shiva ji was no religious nut like aurangzeb it seems - shiva ji had many muslim soldiers in his army, e.g. (while Afzal Khan had many hindu soldiers).

All one can say on aurangzeb`s behalf is that he was not given to physical pleasures like his predecessors (jehangir was an alcoholic, humayun was into drugs, and babar gave up alcohol only for political purposes, and akbar seems from his pictures to have been overly given to eating). and so aurangzeb lived to be 90 unlike the others. and after death, occupies the least pretentious of mughal mausoleums per his own wishes - a simple grave in central india, with a tree to provide shade. that of course does not excuse the fanatical and irresponsible manner in which he ruled over india and the mess he left behind.

Can u all name the best book u`ve read on this subject?

TIA

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SN

``#289 jang: shiva ji took up arms, as i understand, as a reaction to aurangzeb`s provocations and by any reasonable standard he was the proverbial folk hero who stood up to proverbial evil empire.``

No, Shivaji had already taken up arms against southern kingdoms like Adilshah,
Nizamshah, Kutubshah. Afzal Khan had nothing to do with Mughals.
Only when Shivaji grew in power did Aurangzeb took notice, like when he started
conquering Mugal forts. The struggle between AurangZeb and Shivaji started then.
Then Jai Singh and Diler Khan descended on Deccan.
I think Aurangzeb did not trust Jai Singh so he had sent Diler Khan, of equal if not
more in stature than Jai Singh at least was running the show in the battle of Killa (fort)
Purandar against Murarbaji (Shivaji`s captain on that fort).

#290 shivaji did not take arms against aurangzeb to begin with, he just carved out his principality from around where he lived, around puna, and konkan strip, which belonged to bijapur sulatanate mostly. aurangzeb later sent large armies under shaista khan, jaisingh-dilirkhan duo. in other words, shivaji did not attack aurangabad or burahanpur, which were major mughal encampments.

#289 jang: shiva ji took up arms, as i understand, as a reaction to aurangzeb`s provocations and by any reasonable standard he was the proverbial folk hero who stood up to proverbial evil empire. while he did not play clean - the mughals were hardly in a position to complain since they didnt play by geneva conventions either.

the mughals were of course great in many ways, but over-rated in many ways: their dynastic successions with son attacking father or brother would be a joke if it so many lives were not lost in the process and so many other fissures not caused in society. aurangzeb was clearly the most disastrous - alienated the hindus in the south; alienated and militarized the sikhs the way he did shivaji. the preceding regime of arabs, then turks and afghan rulers of the delhi sultanate as well as in other sultanates whose contributions are, conversely, under-rated imho.


this is not a coincidence i think: the arabs (under muhammed bin qasim) and more so the turks came to india at a time during what is generally agreed to be the centuries when muslim carried the torch of human civilization across the ``known`` world. the mughals came later, at a time the major muslim empire of the time (i.e. the ottomans, whom even the mughals acknowledged as their sovereign in theory if not in practice) was already in decline, and the ottoman`s headed to becoming the ``sick man of europe``. While not as obvious as the more prominent historical events, seen in this broader light, it becomes clear exactly why the mughals are over-rated while the preceding sultanates are underrated.

marathas (peasant warriors) did not exist much before shivaji as a political power, and jaisingh or rajputs would have no real enmity with sivaji. also, sivaji never went north in any campaign, except for robbing surat (kinda west). so i dont see any pre-mughal roots.

my read about jaisingh is that he ALWAYS seem to want to avoid battles, there are many cases where he advised patience, and no case where he advised attack. shahjehan was very much in the hands of rajputs, so much so that his personal guard used to be rajput, he was unsure of the turkis. things had changed considerably with azeb, he was alway suspicius of jaisingh (rightfully so, considering the number of political shifts jaisingh had done so far), and kept dilir khan to keep an eye on him in deccan. another major rajput raja jaswantsingh of jodhpur had also flipped on azeb in a dramatic fashion on the eve of attack on shuja outside allahabad, so rajput-mughal relations were not the best in general. shivaji is considered to have run away with help from jaisinghs son ramsingh.

the caste conflict bet rajput and maraths does not seem to show-up in historian accouts. it however does show up in dalitistan.org articles prominantly ;-)