Makar Sankranti: Makar Sankrant Day. January 14, 1761. An auspicious day for Hindus across India. But one of the blackest days in the subcontinent's history.
It was the day 50,000-60,000 Maratha warriors and non-combatants accompanying the army were killed, and 20,000-30,000 women and children captured and taken as slaves.
The annals of Indian history have a page steeped in the blood of Maratha warriors, who braved the biting cold of north India — and starvation caused by severed supply lines — and stood their ground to take on the might of the Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali at Panipat (modern-day Haryana). While the latter won, the loss of lives was said to be heavy on both sides.
“This was not the first time that Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani) was attacking India,” historian Dr Uday Kulkarni said while addressing the public at a book release function. “This was Ahmad Shah Abdali’s fifth invasion into India. He first came in 1747-1748 with Nadir Shah, then the second time in 1748-1749, again in 1751-1752, as well as in 1756-1757,” he added.
“So, when he again came in 1759, Raja Keshav Rao, a nobleman in the north, had written to Peshwa Nanasaheb in Pune to send a huge army… with artillery fire to counter this repeat menace,” said Kulkarni, who has written several books on the Peshwa administration and lineage of administrators.
Author Colonel Ajay Singh (Retd), whose books cover India’s military history among other subjects, writes in a Pune daily, “The roots of the (3rd Battle of Panipat) battle can be traced to the rise of the Maratha empire… which brought it into direct conflict with the Durrani empire of Ahmed Shah Abdali in Afghanistan. By 1755, the Marathas were the dominant political power in the Indian subcontinent, and the Mughal emperor had been reduced to a figurehead.”
Maratha influence encompassed the Deccan, most of northern India, even up to Calcutta (Kolkata). In 1759, “a Maratha expeditionary force reached Kandahar in Afghanistan and established garrisons in the major cities of Punjab”, he wrote.
In his book ‘Solstice At Panipat’, Kulkarni writes about a letter dated August 10, 1758, sent to Peshwa Nanasaheb by his younger brother, the valiant general Raghobadada, who had captured Lahore from Abdali along with Malhar Rao Holkar of Indore. “Iran’s Shah has offered to help crush Abdali and make Attock the border. But why should we give him Kandahar and Kabul which were with us until Alamgir’s time?” he wrote.
‘Jihad And Liberation Of Kashi-Prayag’
According to Col. Ajay Singh (Retd), it was the Muslim rulers of small but strategically located kingdoms of the north — such as Najib-ud-Daula of Rohilkhand and Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh — who invited “Abdali to wage jihad against the Marathas”. They sweetened the call with an offer of a purse of Rs 2 crore. Although Abdali hesitated at first, he eventually complied.
In March 1760, Peshwa Nanasaheb decided to send a large expeditionary force under his most capable general — second-cousin Sadashiv Rao Bhau — and his own son, the 17-year-old Vishwas Rao, to stop and throw out Abdali. The armies of the Holkars of Indore and Scindias of Gwalior joined them enroute.
Author and history buff Aneesh Gokhale writes in an article: “A letter by Nanasaheb Peshwa to Dattaji Scindia, written in December 1759 is quite telling. It talks of how the Marathas planned to invade the Doab and annex Kashi, Prayag and Gaya. Further, quite interestingly, it talks of marching into British-ruled Bengal (Peshwe Daftar).”
“A clarion call for liberating the Hindu holy places was given by the Peshwa. The Marathas demanded their border should be fixed on the Indus. In this, Shah Wali Ullah saw the eclipse of Muslim power in north India and reacted the way he knew best – by declaring a jihad. This formed an important facet of the third battle of Panipat," writes Gokhale.
Aneesh Gokhale, who has penned books such as ‘Lachit the Indomitable: The Story of Assam’s Greatest Hero’ and ‘Battles of the Maratha Empire’, also writes: “If the Marathas had won at Panipat, it would probably have meant the liberation of the holy towns along with the demolition of the Gyanvapi mosque and restoration of the Kashi Vishwanath temple.”
What Happened On Battle Day
Reams have been written about how the Maratha army fought with valour even though they were ill-equipped and poorly clad for the harsh winter of northern India. Abdali cut the supply lines for provisions, and allies of the Marathas deserted them after talks of sharing the revenues broke down.
Until mid-day on that fateful Makar Sankranti Day (Winter Solstice), the Marathas seemed to be winning. But some confusion in the right flank manned by men from the Holkar and Scindia confederates allowed Abdali to breach the Maratha defence edgewise. The teenaged son of the Peshwa fell to a bullet to his head. That was the moment the Maratha army’s morale sank.
Until that fateful loss, the Marathas were the most powerful force in the subcontinent. Days before the Panipat battle, the morale was high. In August 2018, Pune-based independent researcher Ghanshyam Dahane (a student of late historian Ninad Bedekar) discovered four never-seen-before letters written during the Maratha era, reports the Pune Mirror.
One of these letters — all dated between 1744 and 1777 — gives an insight into the runup to the Third Battle of Panipat. It was written by Maratha warrior Jayaji Shinde to Amrutrao Nimbalkar. The letter sent from Marwar (Rajasthan) days before the battle (1761), details the movements of ammunition by the Maratha army. “The letter describes the Maratha army’s location, movements and how the Abdali’s army ran away from Delhi,” said Dahane in the report.
The Aftermath
After the loss at Panipat, Peshwa Nanasaheb, already debilitated by disease, died a broken man. With the Maratha power weakened, and with no other major challengers around, the British East India Company that maintained an army of its own got a firm foothold into India and established a rule that would then last about 200 years.
In most Indian languages now, the word Panipat is synonymous with a complete washout — a defeat like none other.
The writer is a senior independent journalist.
Author : Kirti Pandey