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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes In April 1804 Holkar was drawn into a conflict with the Company. Some hasty and uncalculated
moves on the part of the Company’s Generals gave an initial advantage to Jaswant Rao Holkar, but
his defeat was never in doubt. Meantime, Wellesley had been called back from India by the Home
authorities and a change in policy in India was contemplated. It was Sir George Barlow who concluded
with Holkar the Treaty of Rajpurghat (25 December 1805) by which the Maratha chief gave up his
claims to places north of the river Chambal, over Bundelkhand, over the Peshwa and other allies of
the Company.
In the second round of the struggle the Maratha power had been shattered though not completely
annihilated. The English conquest of Delhi, apart from other gains, considerably enhanced their
prestige and put them in the forefront of the Indian political scene.
The Third Anglo-Maratha War, 1817-1818: The third and the final phase of the struggle began with
the coming of Lord Hastings as Governor-General in 1813. He resumed the threads of aggressive
policy abandoned in 1805 and was determine to proclaim British Paramountcy in India. The breathing
time that the Marathas had got after Wellesley’s recall in 1805 was not utilized by them for
strengthening their power, but wasted in mutual conflicts Hastings’ moves against the Pindaris
transgressed the sovereignty of the Maratha chiefs and the two parties were drawn into a war.
By carefully calculated moves the English forced humiliating treaties on the Raja of Nagpur (27 May
1816), the Peshwa (13 June 1817) and the Sindhai (5 November 1817). Exasperated the Peshwa made
the last bid to throw off the British yoke. Daulat Rao Sindhia, Appa Sahib of Nagpur, Malhar Rao
Holkar II also rose in arms. The Peshwa was defeated at Khirki, Bhonsle’s army routed at Sitabaldi
and Holkar’s army crushed at Mahidpur. The entire Maharatha force was routed by superior military
power of the Company. Baji Rao’s possession of Poona and its districts were merged in the Bombay
Presidency, while the other princes were confined to greatly reduced territories in subordination to
the Company.
Causes for the Defeat of the Marathas
While the Marathas proved superior to the various Muslim powers that rose on the ruins of the
Mughal Empire, they were inferior to the English in material resources, military organisation,
diplomacy and leadership. In fact, a static eastern people steeped in medievalism could not successfully
contend with the dynamic English nation rejuvenated by the forces of the Renaissance, fortified with
the latest military weapons and saturated in Machiavellian methods of statecraft.
1. Inept Leadership: The character of the Maratha state being despotic the personality and character
of the head of the state counted for much. In the absence of a settled constitution, the state descended
into a terrible engine of oppression in the hands of worthless and selfish leaders. Peshwa Baji Rao
II and Daulat Rao Sindhia, who controlled the supreme government at Poona, by their misdeeds
brought the doom of the empire built by the efforts of Baji Rao I and his successors. Baji Rao II had
a criminal stain in his character. Besides driving many loyal sirdars into the enemy’s camp, Baji
Rao himself moved into the Company’s camp when he signed the Treaty of Bassein (31 December
1802) accepting the subsidiary system of alliance. Thus, he bartered away Maratha independence
for his selfish ends which even unfortunately, were not fully realised. Daulat Rao Sindhia was an
unworthy successor of Mahadaji Sindhia. He was indolent and a lover of luxury even at the cost
of public business. Broughton wrote about him, “This light-hearted prince is by no means insensible
to the embarrassment of his affairs...But these things affect him for an hour. A tiger, or a pretty
face, an elephant fight or a new supply of paper-kites have each sufficient attraction to direct his
chagrin..” Sardesai writes about these two leaders thus: “Their misdeeds brought the Poona court
and society to such a moral degradation that no one’s life, property or honour was safe. People
even in distant parts of the land had to suffer terrible misery through misrule, oppression, plunder
and devastation. The sirdars and jagirdars, particularly of the southern Maratha country were so
completely alienated that they rushed for escape into the arms of the English”. Perhaps Jaswant
Rao Holkar was the ablest and most enterprising of Maratha leaders, but he too had unbalanced
mind bordering on insanity.

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